Percepção dos atributos da inovação por parte dos consumidores de smartphones: pesquisa com universitários

Abstract

The study of the consumption of products helps organizations to target their efforts to meet the needs of consumers. The smartphone is ainong the most innovative products with the largest index of growth in recent years. Given this perspective, this study aims to evaluate how the attributes of innovation afect smartphone consumers perception, according to the innovation diffusion theory of Rogers. The research was performed with the application of a survey questionnaire, which addressed 349 undergraduates from UFRN. The questionnaire was composed of variables and indicators covered in the research objectives, and consisted of closed questions on a scale of 7 metric points applied by randomly accessibility. To evaluate the behavior of these consumers the innovation diffusion theory of Rogers (2003) was used. This paper aimed to describe how the students use a smartphone and verify the innovation attributes perception and determinate the relation between the profile and the innovative perception ant these one with the use of the smartphone. This was a quantitative and descriptive paper that used factorial analysis and variance analysis to reach the research results. This study revealed that the smartphone use is increasing and the undergraduates follow the world tendency, they use the phone for 84 minutes a day, exploring several functionality like social network, access to the internet, messages and calls. There is a very high agreement related to the five innovative attributes what indicates how positive the students perceive the advantages of using a smartphone besides they feel comfortable using it and realize the benefits of using one. The factorial analysis performed pointed out five constructs that are the same as the Diffusion Innovation Theory. And, overall, there were no variations into the perceptions of the innovation according to the demographic profile. The main contribution of this research is confirming the smartphone use by the students, and these users have presented themselves as frequent users, who have a positive perception of the smartphone as an innovation, accepting and incorporating this gadget into his life.