Institutional Isomorphism and the Adoption of Mobile Application in Malaysian Tourism Small and Medium Enterprise

The benefits of smart phones apps has created opportunity for the tourism businesses to connect with their customers. However, most research focused on individual adoption of mobile apps while there is very little academic research has been done in reference to the phenomenon and its implications for tourism small and medium–sized enterprises (tourism SMEs) in Malaysia. This paper explore the key issues on mobile apps adoption and used a theoretical framework based on the institutional environment factors to predict the rate of mobile apps adoption intention. The main question is what are the institutional environment factors influence tourism SMEs toward mobile apps adoption intention? With the proposed framework, we are able to investigate their relative contribution to mobile apps adoption intention decisions. The finding show that there are three major institutional environment factors that significantly affect the adoption of mobile applications by tourism SMEs: i.Coercive pressures, ii. Normative pressures and iii. Mimetic pressures. Using a survey method, data were collected from 423 tourism SMEs in Malaysia. Results showed that these factors were found to play important role in the adoption of mobile apps. The result contributes to a deeper understanding of the institutional environment factors that promote the use of mobile apps in the tourism SMEs.