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Shankar, A., Jebarajakirthy, C., & Kumari, P. (2021). Editorial for the Special Section on Research on

                    consumer evaluation of mobile applications: Does interactivity matter? Australasian Journal of

                    Information Systems, 25.


        Information technology advancement, internet revolution and mobile phone penetration have enabled organisations to
        revolutionize their service delivery patterns (Shankar and Jebarajakirthy, 2019; Shankar et al., 2020). Organisation are
        using a variety of innovative electronic channels to enhance the consumer reachability and achieve competitive
        advantages in a cost-effective manner (Islam et al., 2021). Among all electronic service delivery channels, mobile
        applications are one of the most promising channels with a great degree of ubiquity and localization (Koenig-Lewis et
        al., 2010; Shankar, 2021). Mobile applications are beneficial for both service providers and consumers. They enable
        consumers to avail customized services anytime from anywhere and allow organisations to provide cost-effective and
        time-efficient services to consumers (Shankar and Jain, 2021). Due to the absence of face-to face interaction, the
        success of mobile commerce heavily depends on the interactivity of the mobile applications (Jebarajakirthy and
        Shankar, 2021). In the context of mobile commerce applications, interactivity refers to the layout of applications and
        contents that affect consumers’ experience while they interact with a mobile application (Coursaris and Sung, 2012; Lee
        et al., 2015; Islam et al., 2021). Interactivity may be conceptualized as a multidimensional construct consisting of two
        major elements, namely feature orientation and perception orientation (Gao et al., 2009).

        Feature-oriented    elements     refer  to   some     functional
        characteristics of a mobile application including, layout,
        navigation, content, and customer support that impact
        application   interactivity   (Coursaris   and    Sung,    2012).
        Perception-oriented elements include playfulness, perceived
        hedonic benefits, user control, technology frustration, consumer
        passion and responsiveness that are concerned with how
        consumers perceive interactivity (Cyr et al., 2009). Bad design of
        the mobile applications leads to technology frustration which
        negatively impacts the consumer evaluation of the offered
        services  (Shankar  et  al.,  2021).  Hence,  marketers  are  keen  to
        know how they can enhance feature-oriented interactivity and
        perception-oriented    interactivity  to   reduce    technology
        frustration and enhance consumer experience during the
        consumer journey on mobile application platforms.





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