Mobile Applications

Special Issue of Journal of Business Research

Software applications on mobile devices—or “mobile apps”—are a significant and growing force in each element of the marketing mix. Consider that in the United States:

• 77% of all adults own a smartphone (Pew, 2018)

• Time-spent in mobile apps grew 69% from 2016 to 2017

• Adults now spend more than five hours per day on their mobile devices (Flurry, 2017)

• 87% of mobile time spent is in applications. (App Annie, 2016)

Worldwide, mobile applications are projected to have 284 billion downloads and $100 billion in revenues in 2020 (App Annie, 2016). Despite the ubiquity of mobile devices and applications, and despite the tremendous impact of mobile apps on the economy, very little is understood about this unique consumption context.

Empirical data and academic research both support the notion that consumer choice and behavior is different in mobile applications versus other consumption contexts. Evidence shows that a number of factors affect consumer behavior “in-app,” including device type, application category, screen size, personality traits (Dinsmore, Dugan & Swani, 2017; Dinsmore, Swani, & Wamwara, 2018), design elements, pricing scheme (Arora, Hofstede, & Mahajan, 2017; Dinsmore, Dugan, & Wright, 2016) and more.

Due to the need for greater understanding of this important context, we invite submissions featuring both quantitative and qualitative studies relating to mobile applications, including (but not limited to):

• App promotion and adoption

• App Store Optimization (ASO)

• Cross-platform (in-app vs browser) and cross-device (phone vs tablet vs wearable vs IoT, etc.) behavior in applications

• Customer service via mobile application

• Design, device, and interface elements and their effect on user behavior

• Freemium models

• In-app advertising

• In-app purchases

• Promotions via mobile application

• Use of geolocation in marketing

Timeline: Submissions will be accepted beginning November 1, 2019 with final submissions accepted December 15th. Publication of the issue is anticipated in 2020.

Guest Editors

John Dinsmore, Wright State University (Managing Editor)

Kunal Swani, Wright State University

Kendall Goodrich, Wright State University

Umut Konas, University of Amsterdam