International Journal of Mobile Communications (15 papers in press)

Regular Issues

• Switch to a new version or keep status quo? The explanation for users to update software from push-pull-mooring perspective  
  by Xue Sun, Yuhao Li 
  Abstract: Companies invest high-volume costs in software maintenance but often failed to receive equivalent feedback from users (e.g., resistance to update). This research aims to shed light on the update motivation of users. In the context of online meetings (OMs), this study is guided by the status quo bias and the application technology innovation theory to establish an updating motivation model framed by push-pull-mooring (PPM). The model was verified using the PLS method based on an online survey with 380 samples. The results indicated that push factors, pull factors, and mooring factors have significant impacts on the OM users’ update intention. A multi-group comparison further shows that the cognitive resource moderates the effects of pull and mooring factors on the OM update.
  Keywords: status quo bias; SQB; cognition resource; push-pull-mooring; PPM; software update; migration in IS; online meeting.
  DOI: 10.1504/IJMC.2025.10063219
   
  
• Beneath the prosperity of social commerce: a perspective from a trust-centred online review ecology  
  by Yan Li, Hongjie He, Bojiao Mu, Yaru Jin, Kun Shi 
  Abstract: The fast development of social commerce (s-commerce) has matured the online review ecology. However, it lacks an in-depth theoretical analysis of this ecology and its functions in consumers’ purchases in s-commerce. By dissecting this ecology into its three pillars: the review community, content, and system, this study proposes the relationships among those pillars by extending the TAM with trust and identifies four information cues that are helpful for building this trust. The structural equation modeling was employed to test the proposed research model based on 391 valid samples. The results verify the distinctiveness of trust in the review community in s-commerce and show that this trust can facilitate consumers’ use of the s-commerce platform for shopping via increasing the perceived usefulness of the review system and reducing the perceived risk of online shopping. Moreover, four information cues contribute to the development of trust in the review community.
  Keywords: online review ecology; trust in the review community; social commerce; technology acceptance model; TAM; trust development.
  DOI: 10.1504/IJMC.2026.10072447
   
  
• Be congruent vs. be diverse? The effect of basic app types on the intent to upgrade incremental functions  
  by Youjia Zhang, Xiaoqin Wang 
  Abstract: This study examines how basic app types (utilitarian vs. hedonic) influence users intent to upgrade when incremental functions with congruent or incongruent goals are introduced. We employ a multi-method approach, including laboratory experiments, simulated real-world experiments, and online surveys (via Credamo), to ensure robust and reliable findings. Across four studies, we find that users exhibit a higher intent to upgrade when utilitarian incremental functions are added to a utilitarian app. However, for hedonic apps, users upgrade intent does not significantly differ based on whether the added functions are utilitarian or hedonic (studies 1 and 2). Further, cognitive flexibility mediates these effects (study 3), and the frequency of basic app usage moderates the preference for congruent vs. incongruent incremental functions (study 4). These findings contribute to the literature on usage frequency by examining its role in upgrade decisions and provide practical insights into enhancing user satisfaction post-download.
  Keywords: app type; upgrade intent; cognitive flexibility; usage frequency; incremental features.
  DOI: 10.1504/IJMC.2026.10073210
   
  
• Evaluating the impact of colour congruence on marketing effectiveness within Instagram campaigns  
  by Chiao-Chieh Chen, Yu-Ping Chiu 
  Abstract: Social media platforms are pivotal arenas for brands to engage with audiences and disseminate brand-centric content. The impact of visual elements, particularly colour composition in brand posts, on the effectiveness of Instagram marketing campaigns remains underexplored. This research examined the influence of colour congruence between the background and thematic elements of brand posts on Instagram. Utilising a 2x2 between-subjects experimental design, where colour congruence and post type (brand layout vs. brand post) were the variables, this study investigated how these factors affect processing fluency and, consequently, marketing effectiveness. The findings reveal that consistent colour schemes enhance processing fluency, which in turn mediates the relationship between colour congruence and marketing outcomes. This research not only advances our understanding of congruence theory within the context of social media marketing but also offers practical insights for brands on optimising visual content strategy on their Instagram accounts.
  Keywords: Instagram campaigns; photo; color congruence; processing fluency; marketing effectiveness.
  DOI: 10.1504/IJMC.2026.10074425
   
  
• The Shaping of Public Opinion and Healthcare Influence through Mobile-Mediated Social Media: A Case Study of Azad Kashmir during the COVID-19 Pandemic  
  by Raja Gulfraz Ali, Zakir Shah, Jie Li 
  Abstract: Rumours, infodemics, and vaccine uncertainty related to COVID-19 pose a major global health risk, impacting individuals psychological state and fear of vaccination. This study, conducted in Azad Kashmir with 663 respondents, examines that mobile-mediated social media, particularly with visual content (e.g., vaccine selfies), can help combat rumours and shape public opinion towards COVID-19 vaccines. The study uses a conceptual model grounded in the extended parallel process model (EPPM) and Appraisal Theory, which together explain the cognitive and emotional pathways of persuasion and offer a nuanced understanding of digital health behaviour in the post-pandemic era. The study finds that mobile-mediated social media visuals (MSMV) are significantly associated with risk perception (RP), infodemic rejection (IR), and vaccine hesitancy (VH) during the pandemic, which in turn shape vaccine behaviour (VB). The findings highlight the role of platform-specific dynamics, such as trust and misinformation exposure, on Facebook and WhatsApp. These findings underscore the urgent need for public health authorities and communication strategists to engage public figures and celebrities to promote the sharing of positive content on social media during health crises, thereby encouraging vaccination uptake.
  Keywords: Mobile-mediated Social Media Visuals; Infodemic Rejection; Risk Perception; Vaccine Hesitancy; Vaccine Behavior.
  DOI: 10.1504/IJMC.2026.10074702
   
  
• E-WOM and outcomes on perceived values and consumer purchase intention  
  by Yuan-shuh Lii, May-Ching Ding, Erin Sy 
  Abstract: This research examines the utilitarian, hedonic, social, and epistemic values consumers derive from e-WOM exchanges (both quality and volume) in online communities and the subsequent impact of these values on consumers' purchase intentions. A survey of 201 members of the online community from community forums in Southeast Asia was collected and structural equation modeling was applied to test the hypothesized relationship. The results show that only the quality of the e-WOM exchange affects four different types of value; moreover, only the perceived hedonic and epistemic values significantly affect the intention of consumers to buy. This paper contributes to the literature by studying e-WOM from a framework of consumption value theory. From a management point of view, practical applications of this research include obtaining real-time information from consumers, which can be applied in different stages of product launch, development, and finally sales and marketing stages.
  Keywords: E-WOM; consumption values; perceived utilitarian value; perceived hedonic value; perceived social value; perceived epistemic value; consumer purchase intention.
  DOI: 10.1504/IJMC.2026.10075549
   
  
• Classification of malicious android applications by machine learning methods using permission properties  
  by Abdullah Batuhan Yilmaz, Yavuz Selim Taspinar, Murat Koklu 
  Abstract: This study applies machine learning methods to classify Android applications as malicious or benign using permission features. A dataset consisting of 2854 malware and 2870 non-malware apps with 117 features was used. Classification was performed with Adaboost (AB), Random Forest (RF), and Artificial Neural Networks (ANN), while the Information Gain (IG) algorithm was used to select relevant features. The classification process was carried out in three steps: first using all 117 features, second with 60 selected features, and third with 20 selected features. The highest accuracy, 98.4%, was achieved using 117 features and ANN. The models were evaluated using precision, recall, F1 score, ROC curve, and AUC metrics. Additionally, the training and testing times of all models were analysed. The study also employed correlation and weighted correlation analysis to assess the importance of permission features.
  Keywords: malware detection; feature selection; efficient features. android malware dataset; machine learning.
  DOI: 10.1504/IJMC.2026.10075550
   
  
• Why Chinese listeners stay engaged with podcasts: insights from a modified ECM-UTAUT2 framework  
  by Yanyan Li, Xinru Sun 
  Abstract: Podcasts have emerged as a popular mobile media in China, yet factors driving sustained user engagement remain underexplored. This study extends the ECM-UTAUT2 model by introducing a novel internal factor, perceived concomitance, which captures users' ability to integrate podcast listening into daily routines and psychological accompaniment. In addition, two external factors, content gratification and social gratification, derived from Uses and Gratifications theory, are incorporated. Analysis of survey data from Chinese podcast users highlights the critical roles of perceived concomitance, content gratification, user satisfaction, performance expectancy, and confirmation in sustaining engagement. However, social gratification and social influence do not exhibit significant impacts, reflecting cultural and contextual differences in Chinese podcast consumption compared to Western contexts. Our research offers practical insights for fostering sustained engagement in the Chinese podcast market.
  Keywords: ECM-UTAUT2; podcast engagement; continuance intention; perceived concomitance; content gratification; Chinese market.
  DOI: 10.1504/IJMC.2026.10076182
   
  
• Combining DEMATEL and ANP to establish a decision-making evaluation model for farmers’ association to introduce mobile technology  
  by Chien-Heng Chou, Kuang-Husn Shih, Chien-Ta Hsieh 
  Abstract: In the face of increasing environmental threats, the farmers’ association, which has the closest relationship with Taiwan’s agricultural development, has also been forced to transform and change its previous business model. The farmers’ associations serve as the bridge between the government and the people. In order to understand how the farmers’ association can effectively introduce mobile technology, this study combined the Decision Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL) and the Analytic Network Process (ANP) to establish a decision evaluation framework for the digital transformation of farmers’ associations, which can be used as an important reference for managers to plan business strategies and allocate resources. The results show that, the management of the farmers’ associations is deeply influenced by the government's laws, regulations, and policies, but the resources and professional capabilities possessed by the farmers’ associations are the most important factors for introducing mobile technology. Managers can also establish the priority order of decision-making according to the correlation between criteria and elements, in order to enhance the success rate of introducing innovative science and technology into the farmers’ associations.
  Keywords: mobile technology; MT; farmers’ association; decision making trial and evaluation laboratory; DEMATEL; analytic network process; ANP; digital transformation.
  DOI: 10.1504/IJMC.2026.10076425
   
  
• How does asymmetric cost behaviour change in digital transformation?  
  by Peiyan Zhou, Shuya Zhou, Hannah Ji, Jonah Ji, Xiaolan Xiao 
  Abstract: Rapid development of highly sophisticated digital technology such as mobile technology has brought an unprecedented impact on corporate governance. Drawing on organisational information processing theory, we hypothesise that digital transformation affects cost behaviour. Through empirical analysis, we confirm that: a) digital transformation significantly reduces both cost stickiness and cost anti-stickiness; b) reducing resource adjustment costs and managerial opportunism serve as the intermediary factors linking digital transformation to cost stickiness and anti-stickiness. Additionally, digital transformation can help mitigate cost anti-stickiness by diminishing managerial pessimism; c) the influence of digital transformation in reducing asymmetric cost behaviour is particularly noticeable among companies operating in highly competitive industries and exhibiting a strong entrepreneurial orientation; d) cost asymmetry hampers corporate innovation, and digital transformation can bolster corporate innovation performance by mitigating cost asymmetry. Our findings underscore the significance of transitioning to digitalisation on business management decision making and offer valuable guidance for implementing digital transformation strategies.
  Keywords: cost asymmetry; digital transformation; adjustment costs; managerial expectations; managerial opportunism; innovation performance; mobile technology.
  DOI: 10.1504/IJMC.2026.10077444
   
  
• HGRO: harmonic gold rush optimisation for DDoS attack detection and mitigation in SDN-IoT  
  by S. Muthukumar, A.K. Ashfauk Ahamed , D. Menaga, S. Samundeswari 
  Abstract: One of the most rampant and challenging attacks on the internet of things (IoT) is the distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack. This paper proposes DDoS attack detection and mitigation in software-defined IoT (SDN-IoT). Initially, SD-IoT is initialised and the DDoS attack detection is done based on log data. The log data is forwarded to feature selection. The attack detection is performed utilising a deep stacked autoencoder (DSA), which is trained by utilising the designed harmonic gold rush optimisation (HGRO). The HGRO is formulated by combining gold rush optimisation (GRO) and harmonic analysis. If an attack is detected, then attack mitigation is done using deep residual networks (DRN), which is tuned by hybrid HGRO. Moreover, the HGRO+DSA is assessed by utilising true positive rate (TPR), accuracy, and true negative rate (TNR). The HGRO+DSA had a maximal value of accuracy of 0.896, TPR of 0.910, and TNR of 0.896.
  Keywords: DDoS attack detection and mitigation; deep stacked autoencoder; harmonic analysis; deep residual networks; DRNs; gold rush optimisation.
  DOI: 10.1504/IJMC.2026.10077267
   
  
• Development and validation of an e-commerce service quality measurement instrument for the food and beverage industry  
  by Ya-Yuan Chang, Chun-Hsien Lo, Ching-Chan Cheng 
  Abstract: It is a challenge for the food and beverage (F&B) industry to continue to maintain quality service after entering the ‘cold’ e-commerce market. How to accurately evaluate e-commerce service quality in the F&B industry is the primary task of creating a ‘service temperature’. This study aimed to develop an e-commerce service quality measurement instrument for the F&B industry (F&B-ECS-QUAL scale) to comprehensively assess the e-commerce service quality in the F&B industry. This study constructed the F&B-ECS-QUAL scale through rigorous procedures and collected a three-stage customer questionnaire to validate its reliability and validity. The F&B-ECS-QUAL scale included system function, product preservation, experience and communication, service efficiency, customer problem solving, and marketing services dimension, a total of 35 items. The F&B-ECS-QUAL scale could not only fill the research gap in measuring the e-commerce service quality in the F&B industry but also make practical contributions to the optimisation of service quality.
  Keywords: food and beverage; F&B; E-commerce; service quality; service quality scale.
  DOI: 10.1504/IJMC.2026.10077522
   
  
• Multiagent deep reinforcement learning based resource management technique for vehicular networks in heterogeneous traffic  
  by N. Iswarya , R. Venkateswari  
  Abstract: Swift growth in vehicle to everything (V2X) communications has created new opportunities for advanced vehicular networking. Vehicle-to-vehicle communication plays a crucial role in supporting latency-critical and safety-related services under ultra-reliable low-latency communication (URLLC) requirements. However, the increasing number of vehicles and diverse quality-of-service demands make efficient resource management a challenging task. To address this, this work proposes a multi-agent deep reinforcement learning (DRL)-based resource allocation framework for joint channel and power optimisation in heterogeneous vehicular networks. Individual utility functions are designed for each vehicular user to capture heterogeneous traffic requirements. Unlike conventional single-agent DRL approaches, the proposed multi-agent deep deterministic policy gradient (MADDPG) method adopts centralised training with distributed execution, enabling better coordination among agents. Input and reward normalisation are applied to accelerate training convergence. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed scheme outperforms duelling DQN, fixed power allocation, and other RL baselines, achieving up to 23% higher throughput and 15% fewer latency violations, validating its scalability and effectiveness for latency-sensitive V2X communications.
  Keywords: resource management; heterogeneous network; multiagent deep reinforcement learning; multiagent deep deterministic policy gradient.
  DOI: 10.1504/IJMC.2026.10077523
   
  
• Social media influence and greenwashing concerns: determinants of green food purchasing decisions among university students in China  
  by Dimitrios Tatsis, Jian Zhang 
  Abstract: Social media functions as a key channel in publicising green goods, significantly shaping how these goods are presented to and perceived by consumers. The paper pursues to scrutinise the influences of social media engagement (SME) and perceived greenwashing risk (PGR) on shaping green-food purchasing intent and behaviour among the youths. A cross-sectional questionnaire appraisal was taken to gather data from 365 students of five top university in China. Data scrutiny was conducted with Smart-PLS version 4.1.1.2. The study’s outcomes insinuate that SME and PGR substantially predict the behaviours and intentions of young buyers pertaining to eco-friendly spending. Besides, societal norm (SN) mediates the linkage between SME and green-food buying behaviours. Via the inclusion of PGR and SME as new influential determinants within the framework, this research is an initial endeavour that magnify the theory of planned behaviour.
  Keywords: perceived greenwashing risk; PGR; social media engagement; SME; university students; young consumer; green food; China.
  DOI: 10.1504/IJMC.2026.10077555
   
  
• The influence of personal information, product comparison and customisation information on enhancing trust and purchase intention among first-time and repeat viewers  
  by Minjiang Jia 
  Abstract: This study examines the impact of three types of information provided by live streamers on the trust and purchase intentions of new and experienced viewers. The findings suggest that live streamers’ personal information does not significantly affect first time viewers’ trust or purchase intentions. Conversely, it positively influences cognitive rather than affective trust, and subsequent purchase intentions among repeat viewers. Product comparisons strongly affect viewers’ purchase intentions by fostering cognitive trust. Furthermore, product comparison information exerts the most significant direct impact on purchase intentions among repeat viewers. In contrast, product customisation information demonstrates the strongest effect on purchase intentions among first time viewers. Notably, the relationship between information and purchase intentions for both first time and repeat viewers is not fully mediated by trust in the live streamer.
  Keywords: personal information; comparison information; customisation information; viewer; purchase intention; affective trust; cognitive trust.
  DOI: 10.1504/IJMC.2026.10077592