Intention to Adopt a Text Message-based Mobile Coaching Service to Help Stop Smoking: Which Explanatory Variables?

Conceptual Framework

The effectiveness of a mobile coaching service has already been tested in various countries, including New Zealand where a program to stop smoking was developed and tried out (Whittaker et al., 2008). But such mobile coaching services are relatively little used in France, and this is why they are considered as an innovation for the purposes of this study. Several definitions of an innovation have been proposed. The one used here is by Rogers (1962), who defines an innovation as an idea, practice or object perceived as new by the individual. Diffusion of an innovation is the process by which it is communicated through certain channels over time among the members of a social system (Rogers, 1962). Rogers identifies three factors that explain how an innovation spreads and is adopted: 1) the characteristics of the product or service, 2) the characteristics of consumers and 3) the profiles of different adopter categories through the innovation diffusion process.