Exploring Consumer Behaviour towards Mobile Number Portability (MNP) in Ghana: Pursuing Sustainable MNP Adoption

Simon Gyasi Nimako¹, Robert K. Nyame² and Alex Oppong^1,

¹Department of Management Studies Education, University of Education, Winneba, Kumasi, Ghana

²Department of Business, GIMPA Business School, Kumasi, Ghana

Cite this paper

Simon Gyasi Nimako, Robert K. Nyame and Alex Oppong. Exploring Consumer Behaviour towards Mobile Number Portability (MNP) in Ghana: Pursuing Sustainable MNP Adoption. Journal of Business and Management Sciences. 2016; 4(5):105-112. doi: 10.12691/JBMS-4-5-1

Abstract

The mobile number portability (MNP) innovation in Ghana is expected to benefit consumers, industry players and the society as it is capable of inducing strong switching efficacy and increase competition among mobile network operators in Ghana. However, there is relatively little empirical research on consumer behaviour towards MNP adoption in the Ghana mobile telecom context. This paper attempts to fill this gap by examining consumer behaviour towards MNP in Ghana. Through a cross-sectional survey design involving 736 mobile subscribers from six telecoms in Ghana where MNP policy has recently been introduced, the results indicate that most respondents rated their perception of level of knowledge of MNP and usefulness of MNP low. Moreover, most respondents had unfavourable attitude towards MNP and perceived the porting time as unduly long and slow. Gender and age influenced consumer perception of MNP adoption. The implications of these findings to theory and practitioners have been discussed, limitation are noted and directions for future research are proposed. The paper advances our knowledge in consumer behaviour towards technological innovations in the mobile telecommunication industry in developing countries.

Keywords

number portability, demography, switching efficacy, mobile telecom industry

Copyright

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

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