Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

Waiting for service on the internet Defining the phenomenon and identifying the situations

Waiting for service on the internet Defining the phenomenon and identifying the situations Purpose – E‐consumers consistently complain that the internet is frustratingly slow. Most existing research on this phenomenon is based on the concept of “download delay”, that is, the time required for a web page to fully download to the e‐consumer's computer screen. This paper reports on an exploratory study of the phenomenon of waiting for service on the internet with the intention of extending the narrow conceptualisation of the phenomenon of “download delay” to a more user‐based perspective of waiting on the internet. Design/methodology/approach – The study is based on a qualitative research methodology. The research methods are seven asynchronous virtual focus groups involving 126 intensive internet users over 17 days and 92 participants who maintained personal diaries of waiting on the internet over a nine‐week period. Findings – A new definition of waiting on the internet is proposed based on extensive virtual focus group research. Subsequently, 14 distinct types of internet waiting situations are identified based on the analysis of a total of 1,041 waiting situations as reported by the participants in the study. Practical implications – A number of practical implications for various functional areas of the business are outlined. Conceptual and methodological contributions are also made. Originality/value – The study is the first to present a broader conceptualisation of waiting on the internet from an e‐consumer perspective and based on empirical research. All previous research has been based on just one type of online waiting, i.e. waiting for web pages to download to the user's screen. This paper presents 13 “new” types of waiting situations on the internet. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Internet Research Emerald Publishing

Waiting for service on the internet Defining the phenomenon and identifying the situations

Internet Research , Volume 15 (2): 21 – Apr 1, 2005

Loading next page...
 
/lp/emerald-publishing/waiting-for-service-on-the-internet-defining-the-phenomenon-and-1dt6EtG09x

References (42)

Publisher
Emerald Publishing
Copyright
Copyright © 2005 Emerald Group Publishing Limited. All rights reserved.
ISSN
1066-2243
DOI
10.1108/10662240510590379
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Purpose – E‐consumers consistently complain that the internet is frustratingly slow. Most existing research on this phenomenon is based on the concept of “download delay”, that is, the time required for a web page to fully download to the e‐consumer's computer screen. This paper reports on an exploratory study of the phenomenon of waiting for service on the internet with the intention of extending the narrow conceptualisation of the phenomenon of “download delay” to a more user‐based perspective of waiting on the internet. Design/methodology/approach – The study is based on a qualitative research methodology. The research methods are seven asynchronous virtual focus groups involving 126 intensive internet users over 17 days and 92 participants who maintained personal diaries of waiting on the internet over a nine‐week period. Findings – A new definition of waiting on the internet is proposed based on extensive virtual focus group research. Subsequently, 14 distinct types of internet waiting situations are identified based on the analysis of a total of 1,041 waiting situations as reported by the participants in the study. Practical implications – A number of practical implications for various functional areas of the business are outlined. Conceptual and methodological contributions are also made. Originality/value – The study is the first to present a broader conceptualisation of waiting on the internet from an e‐consumer perspective and based on empirical research. All previous research has been based on just one type of online waiting, i.e. waiting for web pages to download to the user's screen. This paper presents 13 “new” types of waiting situations on the internet.

Journal

Internet ResearchEmerald Publishing

Published: Apr 1, 2005

Keywords: Consumer behaviour; Internet; Qualitative research

There are no references for this article.