Browsing by Author "Boonlert Watjatrakul"
  • Item
    Attitudes toward Student-Customer Concept: Educational Level, Institution Status and Interdisciplinary Studies
    ( 2010-04) Boonlert Watjatrakul
    The study explores student attitudes toward treating students as customers in fundamental and higher educations based on three units of analysis−educational levels (undergrad vs. graduate), institution status (public vs. private), and interdisciplinary (technology, engineering, and business). It also examines students’ opinions toward using the student-customer concept in higher education. Quantitative and qualitative data were analyzed to answer the research questions. The quantitative analysis results indicate that, in overall, students disagree to use the student-customer concept in fundamental and higher educations. In particular, undergraduate students disagree to use the student-customer concept more than graduate students do. Students in public and private universities have no significant difference regarding their attitudes toward using the student- customer concept. Engineering students have negative attitudes toward using the student-customer concept in both fundamental and higher educations more than business and technology students have. The qualitative analysis results indicate that some students prefer the student-customer concept to be used in higher education as universities/colleges will improve their service quality for students. In contrast, most students perceive that using the student-customer concept in higher education will degenerate instructor’s attention and instructor-student relationship, alter the main objective of educational institutions, and negatively affect the society. The study reports the analysis results and discusses the findings, implications and limitations.
  • Item
    Attitudes toward Using Communication Technologies in Education: A Comparative Study of Email and SMS
    ( 2009-12) Boonlert Watjatrakul
    Educational institutions deploy email and short message service (SMS) to maintain efficient communication with their students. This research examines factors influencing students' attitudes toward using SMS and email, and compares the differences in the proposed factors between email and SMS. The results show that information richness and mobility affect students' perceived utility of email and SMS while information privacy and perceived utility affect the students' attitudes toward using email and SMS. Social pressure has found no impact on the research model. Students also perceive that email provides rich information and utility higher that SMS but SMS possesses mobility more than email. In addition, students have attitudes toward using email more that SMS to maintain communication with their institutions. The paper concludes with a discussion of findings, implications and limitations.
  • Item
    Intention to Use a Free Voluntary Service: The Effects of Social Influence, Knowledge and Perceptions
    ( 2013) Boonlert Watjatrakul
    Purpose – This empirical study aims to understand the interrelationship among the key technology adoption factors including social influence, individual existing knowledge, and individual perceptions of technology (i.e. usefulness, ease of use, and enjoyment) and their effects on individual intention to use a free voluntary service. Design/methodology/approach – The survey method is employed to collect data from universities offering the free mobile messaging service. A structural equation modeling analysis technique is used to analyze data reliability and validity in the measurement model and examine causal relationships among the constructs in the structural model. Findings – The results show that social influence affects individual knowledge and perceptions of the service (perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and perceived enjoyment) and successively influences the individual intention to use the free voluntary service. This study indicates that the intrinsic value of perceived enjoyment has a greater impact than the extrinsic value of perceived usefulness in terms of its effect on individual intention to use a free voluntary service. In addition, the effect of perceived usefulness of alternative systems should be taken into account when using perceived usefulness from the technology acceptance model to predict individual’s technology adoption decisions under the free voluntary setting. Originality/value – This study fills the gap in the technology adoption literatures regarding the free voluntary service adoption based on social influence, individual knowledge, and individual perceptions of technology. It assists academics to understand the drivers of technology acceptance under the free voluntary setting and provides guidance for organizations to increase users’ acceptability of their free voluntary services.
  • Item
  • Item
    Using the students-as-customers concept in technology disciplines: students' perspectives
    ( 2010) Boonlert Watjatrakul
    Educational institutions increasingly adopt the students-as-customers concept to satisfy their students. Understanding students’ perspectives on the use of this business concept in educational institutions is necessary for the institutions to effectively align these perspectives with their management practice. The study investigates whether students in technology and business disciplines have significantly different attitudes toward using the students-as-customers concept in educational institutions and explores the impact of treating students as customers in technology disciplines under students’ perspectives. The results from quantitative and qualitative data analyses show that technology students, in contrast to business students, fairly disagree with educational institutions to treat students as customers. Treating students as customers in technology disciplines will have a negative influence on teaching performance, instructor-student relationships and educational institutions’ aim, but a positive influence on service quality in educational institutions. The paper discusses the findings and concludes with implications and limitations of the study.
  • Item
    Vendor Selection Strategy for IT Outsourcing: The Weighted-Criteria Evaluation Technique
    ( 2014) Boonlert Watjatrakul
    Purpose – Most firms select their information technology outsourcing (ITO) vendors based on the two methods of the weighted-criteria evaluation technique – the “qualification score plus the lowest bid price for the highest price score (QS-LBHPS)” and the “qualification score plus the average bid price for the middle price score (QS-ABMPS).” This paper aims to understand whether these two methods provide the same or different results of vendor selection and how the proportional weights of a vendor’s qualification and bid price affect the vendor selection results under the two methods. Design/methodology/approach –In total, 1,000 experimental tests were carried out using the developed spreadsheet template to examine vendor selection results of the two methods (QS-LBHPS and QS-ABMPS) and compare the vendor selection results under three conditions of vendors’ qualification and price weights. A correspondence analysis was also used to determine the proximal relationships among the selection results of the weighted criteria technique under the comparable methods. Findings – The results indicate that, when using the two methods of the weighted criteria technique for a vendor selection, the selection results are significantly correspondent. In addition, the proportions of qualification and price weights affect the selection results under the two methods. The different proportions of qualification and price weights under the two methods yield the same selection results rather than different results. Originality/value – This study fills the gap in ITO literatures concerning the vendor selection strategy. No empirical studies have been undertaken to compare the results of vendor selection under the two methods of the weighted-criteria evaluation technique. The findings enable a firm’s selection team to apply the weighted-criteria evaluation technique effectively and realize that vendor selection results are altered based on the predefined proportions of qualification and price weights.