Emerging Technologies in Business

Gerontechnology, a widely regarded solution for aging populations that increasingly need assistance in their day-to-day lives, has yet to be able to effectively benefit older adults due to their resistance as users. The present study investigated the antecedents of older adults’ resistance toward using a smartphone-enabled home automation system. Using the lens of the equity-implementation model and the status quo bias theory, a structural model of user resistance was proposed and empirically tested using survey data collected from 182 seniors aged 55 years old and above in Malaysia. The component-based partial least square (PLS) method was employed to assess the psychometric properties of the study’s constructs and the research hypotheses. The results showed that 43.1% of the variance of user resistance was explained by seniors’ perceived value of gerontechnology and their anxiety about it. Gerontechnology anxiety has the strongest impact on user resistance and when older adults feel a high level of anxiety about using gerontechnology, they perceive fewer benefits and higher costs to switching to it. Switching benefits and costs significantly affect the perceived value of the technology. Higher self-actualization increases switching benefits, while higher self-efficacy for change reduces switching costs. The practical and theoretical implications of the research are discussed to inform researchers and practitioners of the factors contributing to older adults’ resistance to using new technology and information systems.

Despite the widespread adoption of AR for outdoor navigation, its indoor counterpart has yet to gain similar traction. To address this, understanding user acceptance is crucial. This study explores factors influencing users’ acceptance of AR indoor navigation, combining traditional elements from the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) with two additional dimensions: self-face concern and perceived enjoyment. Data from 150 valid responses were collected through an online questionnaire and analyzed using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM). The findings revealed that both self-face concern and perceived enjoyment positively influence users’ intention to use AR indoor navigation. Perceived enjoyment also impacts perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness, while self-face concern influences perceived ease of use, which in turn affects perceived usefulness. Perceived usefulness, in turn, affects users’ intention to use the technology. The research enriches the understanding of AR indoor navigation technology adoption, considering self-face concern and perceived enjoyment. It provides valuable insights for enhancing AR indoor navigation technology to better cater to user needs and commercial value. With 55.3% of the variance in behavioral intention explained, the study offers guidance for future research and AR product development, fostering the growth of AR indoor navigation in diverse industries and contexts.

Lockdown measures and prolonged physical inactivity during the COVID-19 pandemic have made people more health-conscious and led them to strive to stay physically fit. Mobile health (mHealth) has emerged as a convenient and cost-effective tool to deliver healthcare services and help people monitor their health. The present chapter draws on adaptive goal-setting theory to examine the perception of using mHealth by individuals in Malaysia, a developing country. More specifically, it investigates how setting and adjusting personal goals can affect behavioral change techniques to encourage the use of mHealth to become more health-conscious. The researchers also explore the potential barriers to the use of mHealth as an emerging technology. Data obtained from a sample of 183 adults in Malaysia were analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). The empirical results show that positive tenacious goal pursuits (TGP) and positive flexible goal adjustments (FGA) provide mHealth users with correct behavioral change techniques (BCTs) that lead to greater intention (INT) to use mHealth and associated wearable devices and, consequently, achieve greater health consciousness (HC). The findings show that users’ technological anxiety (TA) negatively mediates the effect of BCTs on INT, whereas habit (HAB) has a direct positive effect on INT. This chapter provides practical insights and recommendations for setting and adjusting personal goals for using mHealth and associated wearable devices to promote better personal health consciousness.

Mobility applications (apps) have the potential to support the mobility needs of low-income older adults. Studies have found, however, a lower uptake of technology among this segment of the population. Drawing upon the rational choice theory and the technology acceptance model, this study examined the costs–benefits and perceptions of technology that shape the intention to use mobility apps among Malaysia’s low-income older adults. The researchers used the partial least squarestructural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) technique to analyze survey data provided by 282 low-income older adults regarding their intention to use a mobility phone app. The results show that low-income older adults’ intention to use mobility apps is positively influenced by the perceived costs of non-adoption, the perceived benefits of adoption, and the perceived usefulness of the app. Perceived usefulness mediates the relationship between perceived costs of adoption and intention to use. The findings offer fresh insights for policymakers and practitioners in developing and implementing mobility apps for a low-income aging demographic.

Social media has transformed business practices, especially during and after the COVID-19 pandemic, and organizations have increasingly acknowledged the impact of social media on their businesses. In the sales context, studies on older salespeople’s adoption of social media to increase their sales performance remain scarce in the literature. Using a qualitative approach, this study provides valuable insights into the motivations of older salespeople to learn and use new technologies and attain a higher level of social media engagement. Through interviews with 20 older female salespeople from the financial industry, and the consumer and household products sectors, the researchers found that older salespeople were externally and internally driven to learn new technology. External drivers included salespeople’s fear of missing out further (FOMOF), ineffective and obsolete selling approaches, and losing sales. Internal drivers included the desire to become a role model for younger team members, building a personal brand, and self-improvement. The findings provide substantial theoretical and practical implications to the body of sales literature.

In today's increasingly challenging business environment, digital technologies such as industrial internet of things (IIoT), big data analytics, and artificial intelligence (AI) are being adopted by businesses to optimize their operations. The aforementioned digital technologies, as part of the industry revolution 4.0 (IR 4.0), allowed businesses to gain insightful information from their business processes. More recently, the advent of generative AI technology has the potential to reshape the way we work, learn, and live, as well as how business processes can be further enhanced. The rapid advancements in AI have led to transformative changes across various industries, including education. Due to businesses’ growing reliance on digital and AI technologies, it is therefore important to rethink strategies for education and training in order to ensure future workforce competitiveness. This article aims to explore how education can be reimagined to foster future workforce competitiveness for business success in the era of AI. In particular, we highlight the role of technical and vocational education and training (TVET) in preparing future workers for the digital workplace, i.e., reskilling and upskilling initiatives that can help individuals attain the necessary technical skills and competencies to adapt to the changing business environment. We also discuss some of the potential educational strategies that harness the benefits of AI in education, such as an affordable, accessible, and personalized learning process. Lastly, we conclude our work with some indications for future research endeavors.

In this era of globalization, multinational companies are conducting innovation via global networks. This phenomenon was analyzed using international patent application data filed based on the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT). More specifically, patents filed by Japanese, American (US), and German companies with at least one inventor located in Thailand, Singapore, or India were retrieved. The analysis revealed markedly different global innovation network patterns among Japanese, US, and German companies in the context of Thailand. Japanese companies typically exhibit innovation network patterns characterized by collaboration between parties in the two countries. In contrast, US companies tend to operate solely within Thailand. German companies differ in that they typically establish innovation networks involving Germany, Thailand, and one or more additional countries, or bilateral collaborations between parties in Germany and Thailand. However, when at least one inventor is located in India, companies from Japan, the US, and Germany exhibit similar patterns. The most prevalent innovation network pattern is collaboration between the home country and India. The second most prevalent pattern is a party from India operating alone. The third most prevalent pattern is an international network coordinated by the home country. When at least one inventor is located in Singapore, the situation falls somewhere between the circumstances identified for India and Thailand.

This research aimed to investigate blockchain technology adoption in the agriculture sector and develop a proof of concept of an application using Hyperledger Fabric blockchain that could facilitate the provision of financing to rural farmers. The research involved (i) proposing a conceptual framework for adopting blockchain technology, (ii) developing a prototype blockchain-based application, and (iii) illustrating the prototype using a simple case scenario. The key building blocks of the prototype included two main actors, a hypothetical government agency (AgroBank) providing financing in the form of credit lines to farmers, and farmers as the main users of the blockchain-based application to access the funding. The prototype blockchain-based application would allow farmers to receive and repay financing using digital wallets. In this proof-of-concept application, AgroBank staff could execute farmers’ financial withdrawal and deposit requests. The proof-of-concept suggests that smart contracts, a key part of blockchain technology, can replace the need for approvals performed by human intermediaries in the agriculture financing process with approvals based on policies. This study contributes to the existing literature by looking beyond the traditional paper-based, process-intensive approach to funding rural farmers to explore an approach that leverages emerging technologies to improve the efficiency of applying for and receiving decisions on financing, distributing approved financing, and collecting financing repayments. The use of blockchain technology to improve the efficiency, speed, and cost-effectiveness of the agriculture financing process could attract and incentivize farmers to seek and secure financing to improve or expand the sustainability of their farms and food production, leading to increased income and improved quality of life for them. Government funding agencies could use the real-time data generated by blockchain-based financing applications to examine how borrowers access, use, and repay financing, leading to the development of policies that could improve the targeting and distribution of financing to better support the development of the agriculture sector.

Beyond blockchain’s essential characteristics and utility, it remains unclear how its adoption can improve business competitiveness. Specifically, discussions about how firms that adopt blockchain can gain a competitive advantage have been preliminary. This study, therefore, provides a content analysis-based review of blockchain literature using VOSviewer that identifies the co-occurrence of keywords from 61 relevant journal articles and reveals three emerging themes of research. The themes are (i) firm-level, (ii) technological-level, and (iii) industry-level research. A discussion of the research from these themes shows how blockchain technology adoption can contribute to a firm's competitive advantage. We demonstrate this by exploring the practical implications of use cases among firms from various industries. The study concludes by identifying research gaps and offering suggestions for future studies.

This exploratory study examined how service robots (SR), artificial intelligence (AI), and various forms of reality (mediated reality, augmented reality, virtual reality, mixed reality, and multimediated reality) have been studied in the tourism industry using a text-mining approach based on machine learning (ML) algorithms. Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) modelling was used to investigate topics in academic literature related to these three technological capabilities in the tourism industry. Topic dispersion in low-dimensional space was visualized using t-distributed stochastic neighbor embedding (t-SNE) modeling. Trends for all topics were identified using a five-year regression analysis of published literature and eight critical topics were identified from computations using the LDA modeling and expert opinions. From this, four broad prospective future research areas that academics might concentrate on (intelligent systems and technology in hospitality and tourism, backend ML-AI integration, frontend ML-AI integration, and mixed, mediated, and multimediated reality integration) were identified.

Concerns with the aging global population have been growing and have led to a call for further investment in innovative senior-friendly products to promote healthy and independent living. New and old businesses have strived to adopt different business models to assist them in addressing this challenge, but they may have been using the wrong approach. This chapter provides a holistic overview of the current global advancements in gerontechnology products and services and how Chinese businesses can learn from past and present cases to penetrate a new market of special users who have targeted needs and demands. Gerontechnology products and services fall under five main categories, namely, housing, social, health, mobility, and communication. Each category is elaborated in detail regarding the composite functions and technologies of the products and services associated with it. Case studies focusing on robotics in Japan, smart homes in the USA, and automated vehicles in Europe are presented and examined to determine the learning points that companies can leverage during their expansion and development of gerontechnology products and services. Every new market brings both challenges and opportunities and perspectives on ageism and technology, geographical differences, technological literacy, as well as privacy and security concerns reveal the main issues that businesses in the gerontechnology industry should recognize. The new business model for the elderly care services industry should, therefore, be customer-centric and design-centered.

Singapore is a sovereign city-state, an island country located in Southeast Asia with a population of 5.6 million. Lacking natural resources but strategically located, Singapore has built its competitive strength over the decades on a commitment to human capital development through education. It is now recognized as a superpower human capital hub that offers a highly-respected education brand both within the region and globally. This positioning has been enhanced by the transformation of the higher education landscape in Singapore by swift advances in the integration of emerging technologies in the process of knowledge acquisition and transmission. Such technologies have enormous potential to shape a future education model characterized by enhanced inclusivity, individualization, and interactivity. However, there are risks associated with privacy and security concerns, potential displacement of the human educator role, inequitable access to technology, and the digital literacy proficiency gap among students. This chapter discusses Singapore’s commitment to transforming its educational environment through the adaptation and adoption of emerging technologies, the role of government policies and initiatives to support innovation in education and more broadly, and the contribution of strategic partnerships with foreign higher education institutions. The research objective is to identify the elements of the new digital landscape in higher education, to highlight their implications and to describe the broader economic and policy context in which they sit. The methodology used is a literature review to identify the nature and extent of research evidence on this topic followed by an analysis whose results are presented using a SWOT framework.