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21,3

Construction and validation of an

e-lifestyle instrument

214

Department of Information Technology and Management,

School of Management, Shih Chien University, Taipei, Taiwan

Chian-Son Yu

Received 16 October 2010

Revised 16 February 2011
Accepted 22 February 2011 Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to construct and validate an e-lifestyle scale.
Design/methodology/approach Through a two-step approach of exploratory factor analysis
(EFA), the generated two EFA solutions reveal the adequacy of the generated seven components
underlying the 1,135 responses. By using the other 793 respondents sampling from the same
population, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) examines and supports the fitness of the overall
structure.
Findings The empirical results show that the 39 items of the e-lifestyle scale were grouped into
seven distinct components. These components represented seven principal factors that significantly
influence and shape individual e-lifestyles.
Research limitations/implications This investigation merely represents a starting point in
e-lifestyle research. To enhance the validity and generalization of the scale proposed in this study,
further cross-cultural validation is necessary.
Practical implications Beyond constructing and validating an e-lifestyle instrument, this study
could provide marketers with insights about how to integrate e-lifestyles into marketing strategies.
Originality/value This research contributes to advance current knowledge on what factors
influence e-lifestyle and relative influences of main factors shaping e-lifestyle, and pave a way for
marketers to execute more elaborate marketing research with the proposed e-lifestyle scale.
Keywords Lifestyles, Communication technologeis, Information Technology, Internet, E-lifestyle
Paper type Research paper

1. Introduction
The convergence of the internet and mobile communications has stimulated
phenomenal influence of information and communication technology (ICT) and
proliferation of ICT-enabled services/products. This has significantly impacted and
changed the context and the way people live in recent years. Since understanding
individual lifestyles has long been considered quite useful in tailoring and delivering
suitable services/products to specific target segments, there is a potential need to
construct an e-lifestyle instrument that could offer marketers a useful basis to
marketing/designing ICT-enabled services/products, commented by some
practitioners such as Mary Modahl (Vice President, Forrester Research Inc.) and
Jason Chian (CEO, InsightXplorer Co.) (Chen and He, 2006). Besides, previous research
has argued that the extant lifestyle instruments almost developed in the 1970s and
1980s (Lin, 2003) may not effectively capture consumers time-conscious (i.e. web-based
Internet Research
Vol. 21 No. 3, 2011
pp. 214-235
q Emerald Group Publishing Limited
1066-2243
DOI 10.1108/10662241111139282

The author would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their editorial and constructive
comments. This paper is supported by National Science Council of The Republic of China under
Contact Number: NSC 97-2416-H-158-010.

services) and technology-conscious (i.e. MP3 players) lifestyle (Swinyard and Smith,
2003; Brengman et al., 2005; Allred et al., 2006; Chen and He, 2006).
Motivated by the above and based on the idea that the more you know and
understand about consumers, the more effectively you can communicate and market to
them (Plummer, 1974; Brengman et al., 2005), the primary goal of this study is to
develop and validate an e-lifestyle instrument that could provide marketers some
insights of what triggers peoples e-lifestyles. Accordingly, Section 2 reviews the
dominant lifestyle instruments, and Section 3 constructs an e-lifestyle scale based on
lifestyle theories and related lifestyle rating statements. Given that the extant literature
directly assessing e-lifestyle is absent, this study conducts a panel discussion and a
pre-test group interview to check and revise the initially constructed e-lifestyle scale.
Section 4 performs sampling and data collecting, while Sections 5 and 6 execute
exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). Section 7
discusses research implications, and Section 8 addresses limitations of the present
study and further research suggestions.
2. Literature review in lifestyle instruments
The theory-based lifestyle works emerged in the early 1950s (Havinhurst and
Feigenbaum, 1959; Lazar, 1963; Ansbacher, 1976; Anderson and Golden, 1984), the
lifestyle concept was first introduced to help marketers understand consumer behavior
in the late 1950s (Havinhurst and Feigenbaum, 1959) and inaugurated to marketing
research in the early 1960s (Lazar, 1963). Since then, studies have proposed numerous
works on assessing lifestyle. Among various lifestyle scales, two well-known and
widely used lifestyle instruments are activities, interests, opinions (AIO) rating scale,
originally presented by Wells and Tigert in the beginning of 1970s (Wells and Tigert,
1971) and the value, attitude, and life styles (VALS) rating scale, initially developed by
Mitchell in 1983 (Mitchell, 1983).
In an original AIO study profiling individual lifestyles, Wells and Tigert (1971)
defined activities as actual observable behaviors, interests as the continuous paying of
attention to certain objects, and opinions as responses to specific events. Since then,
AIO-based studies have extensively conducted to help marketers deliver specific
services/products to different targeted segments (Wells and Tigert, 1971; Plummer,
1974; Gutman, 1982; Soutar and Clarke, 1983; Bowles, 1988; Thompson and Kaminski,
1993; Bates et al., 2001; Lin, 2003; Swinyard and Smith, 2003; Brunso et al., 2004;
Brengman et al., 2005; Green et al., 2006; Hsu and Chang, 2008; Kumar and Sarkar,
2008; Hur et al., 2010). Literature review indicates the current widely used AIO
instrument, developed by Plummer (Plummer, 1974), consists of 300 rating statements.
By conducting a study assessing the values and lives of Americans in the early
1980s Mitchell and Spengler at the Stanford Research Institute developed an
800-question VALS instrument (Mitchell, 1983, 1994), which covers background
information (i.e. demographics), personal life (i.e. financial issues, habits and activities),
and perceived value (i.e. attitudes and beliefs). Through observing the relations among
individual values, lives, beliefs, and actions, Mitchell discovered that a mixture of
personal life and perceived value determine individual behavior, while perceived
values is a synthesis of individual attitudes, beliefs, hopes, prejudices, and demands
(Mitchell, 1983, 1994). Accordingly, except for activities, interests, and opinions, many
researches (Mitchell, 1983, 1994; Lin, 2003) argued that value is one of the necessary

An e-lifestyle
instrument

215

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216

constructs to assess individual lifestyle. In January 1989, the Stanford Research

Institute introduced a new VALS instrument named VALS2, which comprised only 400
questions reduced from 800 in VALS. After continuously adapting VALS, currently the
extensively adopted VALS2 questionnaire only contains 35 psychographic questions
and four demographic questions (Riche, 1989; Lin, 2003), which is available on the
official web site of the Stanford Research Institute.
Except for VALS, the Rokeach Value Survey (RVS) proposed by Rokeach (1973) and
the List of Value (LOV) developed by the Survey Research Center at the University of
Michigan (Veroff et al., 1981) are two widely used instruments to assess individual
values. RVS requires respondents to rank 18 terminal values and 18 instrumental
values. The terminal values are considered to be either self-centered or
society-centered, and intrapersonal or interpersonal in focus, while the instrumental
values are moral values and competence. LOV asks respondents for their ratings
regarding nine different values, including identifying which is most important to them.
The comparisons regarding VALS, RVS, and LOV can be found in literature (Beatty
et al., 1985; Kahle et al., 1986; Novak and MacEvoy, 1990; Wang et al., 1994; Johnston,
1995; Lin, 2003). Although to date no conclusive empirical evidence has supported
which instrument is the best in assessing individual values, literature review reveals
that VALS and LOV are much popular than RVS.
3. Construction of an e-lifestyle instrument
On entering the internet era, Malhotra (1999) employed Kellys personal construction
theory to construct a lifestyle scale in IT adoption domain, while Lin (2003) used
human motivation and expectancy value theory to establish a hospitality consumer
lifestyle instrument. The personal construction theory emphasizes human capacity and
emotional experiences, asserting that individuals engage in a particular behavior due
to a series of corollaries, broadly grouped into those concerned with construing,
personal knowledge, and social embedding of individual efforts (Kelly, 1955; Neimeyer
and Neimeyer, 2002). The human motivation theory asserts that motivation largely
accounts for individuals engaging in particular behaviors, possibly motivated from
basic needs such as food or desired objects, hobbies, goals, state of being, or ideals
(Maslow, 1970; Lin, 2003). Expectancy value theory, founded by Fishbein in the 1970s
(Ajzen and Fishbein, 1980), suggested that people orient themselves to the world
according to their expectations (beliefs) and evaluations (Palmgreen, 1984).
Recently, by furnishing the most comprehensive and up-to-date summary of
lifestyle theory, Walters (2006) suggested that lifestyle is a set of behaviors initiated by
motivation, evolved by interacting with the environmental circumstance, and formed
by choice, condition, cognition, and beliefs. Human motivation, the expectancy value
theory, and the personal construction theory all originate from sociology and
psychology. Therefore, from the sociological perspective, lifestyle is motivated by
external stimuli (Walters, 2006). From the psychology viewpoints, Walters (2006)
suggested that lifestyle is initiated by internal beliefs. Walters discussion echoes the
AIO studies that consider lifestyle as a set of behaviors mirroring individual
psychological consideration and sociological consequences (Plummer, 1974; Gutman,
1982).
Building on the above literature review, this study found lifestyle-related theories
commonly agreed that human behaviors can be predicted and explained by a function

of psychological and sociological variables. That is, individual e-lifestyles are predicable
and assessable by psychological and sociological constructs. Therefore, following
prevailing instruments (i.e. AIO, VALS, ROV, and LOV), this study employed four
constructs of e-activities, e-interests, e-opinions, and e-values, shown in Table I, to
evaluate peoples e-lifestyles. As the lifestyle theories suggested, individual lifestyle is a
set of behaviors reflecting individual psychological concerns (internal beliefs) and
sociological consequences (external stimuli). This research operationalizes the e-activities
as observable actions in using ICT-enabled services/products, e-interests as sensible
tendencies to use and know the ICT-enabled services/products, e-opinions as
fundamental response to the matters of ICT-enabled services/products, and e-values
as basic beliefs about ICT-enabled services/products. Notably, the first three constructs
of e-activities, e-interests, e-opinions are based on AIO (Plummer, 1974), while the
construct of e-values is culled from LOV, VALS, and RVS studies (Kahle and Kennedy,
1989; Mitchell, 1994; Johnston, 1995; Lekakos and Giaglis, 2004; Green et al., 2006; Roy
and Goswami, 2007; Harcar and Kaynak, 2008; Zhu et al., 2009).
Through exhaustively reviewing past studies on lifestyle measurement during past
decades, this study found that literature regarding lifestyle assessment was huge
(Wells and Tigert, 1971; Plummer, 1974; Gutman, 1982; Mitchell, 1983; Soutar and
Clarke, 1983; Kahle et al., 1986; Bowles, 1988; Kahle and Kennedy, 1989; Thompson and
Kaminski, 1993; Grunet et al., 1997; Bates et al., 2001; Lin, 2003; Brunso et al., 2004;
Green et al., 2006; Hsu and Chang, 2008; Kumar and Sarkar, 2008, Jensen, 2009), but
none of the studies directly assessed peoples e-lifestyles and only a few lifestyle-based
studies were conducted in ICT-related domains (Damodaran, 2001; Kim et al., 2001;
Swinyard and Smith, 2003; Lekakos and Giaglis, 2004; Yang, 2004; Brengman et al.,
2005; Allred et al., 2006; Zhu et al., 2009; Lee et al., 2009; Ahmad et al., 2010). Among
these few studies, Damodaran (2001) explored human factors and lifestyles in digital
technology world, Kim et al. (2001) proposed a 27-item internet users lifestyle,
Swinyard and Smith (2003) applied 38-item statements to assess internet shoppers
lifestyles, Lekakos and Giaglis (2004) analyzed consumer lifestyles for delivering
personalized advertisements via digital interactive television, Yang (2004) constructed
a 30-item statements to assess internet users lifestyle, Brengman et al. (2005) proposed
a 38-item battery to assess internet shoppers web-usage- related lifestyle, Allred et al.
(2006) extended and replicated the work of Swinyard and Smith (2003), Zhu et al. (2009)
adopted 56-items China-VALS to survey consumer lifestyles in the mobile phone
market, and Lee et al. (2009) adapted AIO statements and national consumer lifestyle
e-Activities

e-Interests

e-Opinions

e-Values

Work
Hobbies
Social events
Vocation
Entertainment
Club membership
Community
Shopping
Sports

Family
Home
Job
Community
Recreation
Fashion
Food
Media
Achievements

Themselves
Social issues
Politics
Business
Economics
Education
Production
Future
Culture

Respected
Accomplishment
Fulfillment
Relationships with others
Expectation
Prejudices
Hopes
Demands

An e-lifestyle
instrument

217

Table I.
Constructs used to
measure e-lifestyle

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218

inventories provided by Simmons Market Research to assess consumer lifestyles

regarding the adoption of electronic products. Notably, Ahmad et al. (2010)
summarized the recent AIO-item-based studies, but did not empirically examine the
online shopping consumer lifestyles.
Because many empirical studies have found that single set lifestyle instruments are
typically only effective to capture consumer life in specific domains (Bowles, 1988; Van
Raaij and Verhallen, 1994), the above lifestyle-based studies assess individual lifestyle
in specific rather than general ICT-enabled services/products, and most of these
studies adopted items from AIO, VALS, or their variants, this study thus selected the
potential items not from these studies but also from AIO, VALS, RVS, and LOV as
shown in Table I. As a result, in the initial version, this study proposed 15 items to
measure e-activities, 15 items to measure e-interests, 15 items to measure e-opinions,
and 15 items to measure e-values. In the absence of empirical research directly
assessing individual e-lifestyles, the selection and rewording of items were based on
four criteria: measurability according to each constructs operationalization definition,
relevance to ICT-enabled services/products, fitness for general respondents, and
overall representativeness for ICT-enabled services/products. Past studies (Wells and
Tigert, 1971; Wells, 1975; Lin, 2003; Swinyard and Smith, 2003) suggested that good
lifestyle items might result from not only pertinent literature, but also in-depth
interviews with professionals comments, particularly when direct empirical research
is absent (Swinyard and Smith, 2003; Ahmad et al., 2010). Consequently, this research
conducted a panel discussion by inviting two academics and two practitioners to go
through and reword the initially constructed e-lifestyle scale.
Following the panel discussion consensus, the study removed items deemed
redundant, combined/integrated items deemed similar, simplified items deemed too
lengthy, and reworded items if the statement was not clearly written and easily
understood. Accordingly, the initial 60 items reduced to 52 items and necessary
adjustments were made based on the comments from the panel discussion. Thereafter,
a pre-testing with 18 respondents was performed to check the wording, completeness,
sequencing, and other possible errors in the questionnaire. Following the respondents
feedback, the questionnaire was slightly re-edited to strength the clarity and
completeness. As a result, the formal questionnaire was organized into two sections,
comprised of 57 questions. The first section contained 52 questions used to evaluate
individual e-lifestyle as shown in Table II, while the second section involved five
questions used to collect demographic variables of respondents. All questions in the
first section were measured using a five-point Likert scale, ranging from strongly
disagree to strongly agree.
4. Sampling and data collection
Past research (Bhattacherjee, 2001a, b; Sax et al., 2003; Dillman et al., 2008) has
discussed the advantages of online surveys over paper-based mail surveys,
particularly as an appropriate approach for ICT-related studies. Common problems
with questionnaire surveys are the response rate and non-response bias. Therefore, this
research offered monetary incentives to increase response rate, examined the IP
addresses of respondents for double submissions, verified the uniformity of the
responses in relation to the date of receipt for non-response bias, and analyzed

Constructs

Items

e-activities

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18

e-interests

e-opinions

19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39

I frequently perform my job via ICT-enabled services/products

I frequently play games or listen to music via ICT-enabled services/products
I frequently shop or make purchase via ICT-enabled services/products
I frequently watch movies or sports via ICT-enabled services/products
I frequently do my banking or finances via ICT-enabled services/products
I frequently share my opinions via ICT-enabled services/products
I frequently chat via ICT-enabled services/products
I frequently arrange trips via ICT-enabled services/products
I frequently participate in social events via ICT-enabled services/products
I frequently use ICT-enabled services/products at home
I frequently use ICT-enabled services/products on vocation
I frequently use ICT-enabled services/products to read news or get data. 13
I frequently spend a lot of time involved with ICT-enabled services/products.
I am very interested in discovering how to use ICT-enabled services/products
I am very excited to know new ICT-enabled services/products
I stay updated as to the latest development in ICT-enabled services/products
Being able to use the newest ICT-enabled services/products makes me happy
Being able to use the newest ICT-enabled services/products gives me a sense of
achievement
I like gaining knowledge regarding ICT-enabled services/products
Using ICT-enabled services/products really give me a lot of fun
I like to share with people about new knowledge of ICT-enabled services/products
I like the challenge brought by ICT-enabled services/products
I like ICT-enabled services/products involving in my entertainment
I like ICT-enabled services/products involving in my learning
I used to play an active role in an ICT-enabled service/product community
I like to participate in communities of ICT-enabled services/products
Continued development of ICT-enabled services/products is positive for our
society
Continued development of ICT-enabled services/products has negative effect for
our society
Continued development of ICT-enabled services/products is positive for our culture
Continued development of ICT-enabled services/products has negative effect for our
culture
Continued development of ICT-enabled services/products is positive for our
education
Continued development of ICT-enabled services/products has negative effect for
our education
Continued development of ICT-enabled services/products is positive for our
economy
Continued development of ICT-enabled services/products has negative effect for our
economy
The more the development on ICT-enabled services/products, the more the
happiness on human lives
The more the development on ICT-enabled services/products, the more the
pressures on human lives
Using ICT-enabled services/products is fashionable
Keeping alerts to the latest trends of ICT-enabled services/products is very
important
Keeping inaugurating new ICT-enabled services/products is very important
(continued)

An e-lifestyle
instrument

219

Table II.
Items used to assess
e-activities, e-interests,
e-opinions, and e-values

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220

Constructs

Items

e-values

40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52

Table II.

ICT-enabled services/products greatly enhance the convenience of my life

ICT-enabled services/products greatly improve my job efficiency
ICT-enabled services/products greatly expand my friends circle
ICT-enabled services/products greatly enhance interaction among people
ICT-enabled services/products markedly decrease face-to-face emotional
interaction among people
I dont like my life to involve with too many ICT-enabled services/products
The living environment has been influenced by ICT, and I have benefited from the
impact
The working environment has been influenced by ICT, and I have benefited from
the impact
The leisure environment has been influenced by ICT, and I have enjoyed from the
impact
The learning environment has been influenced by ICT, and I have benefited from
the impact
Choosing to use an ICT-enabled service/product is heavily because its market share
is the highest
The more new knowledge regarding ICT-enabled services/products I gain, the
more advantages I take
The more time with ICT-enabled services/products I spend, the more advantages I
take

Notes: After a two-step EFA analysis conducted in Section 5, some items of 52 original items will be
removed. Therefore, the items, finally removed, were expressed in italics to let readers easily identify them

unanswered questions in incomplete questionnaires for item non-response bias, as

suggested by the literature (Yu and Tao, 2009).
Accordingly, 1,325 online questionnaires were administered and gathered during a
two-month online field survey. After discarding invalid and incomplete questionnaires,
this study collected 1,135 valid responses. Table III displays that 589 of the 1,135 valid
respondents were female, while the other 546 respondents were male. Of the total
online respondents, 4.4 percent were aged below 20 years old, 44.1 percent were 20-24
years old, 22.5 percent were 25-29 years old, 11.8 percent were 30-34 years old, 8.0
percent were 35-39 years old, 5.2 percent were 40-44 years old, and 4.0 percent were
above 45 years old. Around 93.4 percent of respondents had a bachelor degree or
higher, 39.4 percent were students, and 68.5 percent had average monthly incomes
below NT$ 35,000.
The statistics, reported by Ministry of The Interior in July 2010, indicate the
population proportions of age distribution are 22.97 percent of population below age
20, 15.12 percent between 20-30, 16.45 percent between 30-40, 16.09 percent between
40-50, 13.46 percent between 50-60, and 15.92 percent are over 60 years old. Comparing
Table II and the population statistics released by Ministry of The Interior, this study
discovered the demographic data of the collected Sample 1 did not reflect that of
current population. The reason may be heavily attributed to the fact that the
two-month online survey was conducted via http://survey.youthwant.com.tw/, a
famous online survey web site in Taiwan, where most users are of a young generation.
In this respect, this work next employed the shopping mall intercept method to ensure

Category

Number of respondents

Percentage

Gender
Male
Female

546
589

48.1
51.9

Age
Less than 20 years old
20-24 years old
25-29 years old
30-34 years old
35-39 years old
40-44 years old
above 45 years old

50
501
255
134
90
60
45

4.4
44.1
22.5
11.8
8.0
5.2
4.0

Occupation
Manufacturing
ICT-related service
Banking/financial/insurance
Media/publishing
Retail/distribution
Restate/construction
Medical/hospital/bio-tech
Education/culture
Military/police
Student
Government/non-profit sector
SOHO
House keeping
Others

89
46
47
44
46
22
49
48
22
447
38
72
106
59

7.8
4.0
4.1
3.8
4.0
1.9
4.3
4.2
1.9
39.4
3.3
6.3
9.3
5.2

Education
Senior High Diploma or Below
Associate Bachelor Degree
Bachelor Degree
Master Degree
Ph.D. Degree

87
169
632
231
16

7.6
14.9
55.7
20.4
1.4

Monthly income
Less than NT$ 15,000
NT$ 15,000-24,999
NT$ 25,000-34,999
NT$ 35,000-44,999
NT$ 45,000-54,999
NT$ 55,000-64,999
Over NT$ 65,000

511
122
144
114
102
83
59

45.0
10.7
12.7
10.0
9.0
7.3
5.2

the respondents reflect the age distribution of the current population. Following the
past studies suggestion (De Bruwer and Haydam, 1996; Yang, 2004), this research
trained four research assistants and dispatched them to recruit respondents in several
Taipei downtown areas in the mornings, afternoons, and evenings during ten
weekdays and two weekends, to remove potential sampling biases. After a two-week
survey, 793 valid respondents were collected to resemble the age distribution of
Taiwanese population, as shown in Table IV.

An e-lifestyle
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221

Table III.
The profile of sample 1

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222

Table IV.
The profile of sample 2

Category

Number of respondents

Percentage

Gender
Male
Female

386
407

48.7
51.3

Age
Less than 20 years old
20-30 years old
30-40 years old
40-50 years old
50-60 years old
above 60 years old

178
125
131
128
107
124

22.5
15.8
16.5
16.1
13.5
15.6

Occupation
Manufacturing
ICT-related service
Banking/financial/insurance
Media/publishing
Retail/distribution
Restate/construction
Medical/hospital/bio-tech
Education/culture
Military/police
Student
Government/non-profit sector
SOHO
House keeping
Others

44
22
18
16
21
5
25
27
7
426
17
70
7
24

5.5
13.5
15.4
9.2
4.9
4.4
1.9
4.3
3.0
30.5
1.1
2.3
1.3
2.6

Education
Senior High Diploma or Below
Associate Bachelor Degree
Bachelor Degree
Master Degree
PhD Degree

166
103
363
152
9

21.0
13.0
45.8
19.2
1.1

Monthly income
Less than NT$ 15,000
NT$ 15,000-24,999
NT$ 25,000-34,999
NT$ 35,000-44,999
NT$ 45,000-54,999
NT$ 55,000-64,999
Over NT$ 65,000

282
77
103
142
91
80
18

35.6
9.7
13.0
17.9
11.5
10.1
2.3

5. Results of exploratory factor analysis

By grouping 52 items according to the four conceptual dimensions from which these
items were derived, as shown in Table I, this study first performed the reliability
analysis to examine the corrected item-to-total correlations and check which items can
be deleted if they are irrelevant factors (i.e. loading values were lower than 0.6.) or
indistinct factors (i.e. associated with more than one components). Following factor
analysis, all of these items were found evidently related to their constructs and the
Cronbachs alpha levels for four dimensions of e-values, e-interests, e-opinions, and

e-activities range from 0.781 to 0.899 (mean 0:846, SD 0:053). Next, to extract
factors from the data set and determine the number of factors which best explain the
relationships among dataset items, a two-step approach using EFA was adopted.
This research adopted a two-step approach because of the criticism that EFA is an
internally driven analysis method with few criteria for evaluating its results (Green
et al., 2006). Accordingly, this study randomly divided the collected respondents via
online sampling into two independent samples (one is called development sample and
the other is called replication samples) using SPSS Random Selection. Thereafter, this
work conducted EFA using the principal components method with varimax rotation on
both development and replication samples based on the assumption that the exact
number of dimensions underlying a set of data is unknown. This study independently
executed an identical series of EFA steps for each sample.
Following past research suggestions (DeVellis, 2003; Thompson, 2004; Green et al.,
2006), this study adopted four criteria to evaluate the EFA principal component
solutions. First, this work assesses the percentage variances explained by each
individual component and the overall set of components. That is, the variance
accounted for by each component is employed to determine whether the component
contributes significantly to the solution. The second evaluative criterion was the
occurrence of simple structure. Simple structure means that each item loads strongly
on only one component. Items that have strong relationships with more than one
component are termed cross-loading items. Cross-loading item may cause problems
when interpreting the EFA solution. In this study, items are considered as component
markers if their loading value was greater than 0.6. In contrast, lower
item-to-component correlations were determined if items were not closely associated
with other components. Third, this study evaluates the solution by the absence of
specific components. Specific components are dimensions consisting of just one or two
items, which frequently indicate over factoring of the data set. Finally, the study judges
the solution based on its interpretability. This criterion is arguably the most important,
because for the solution to be useful it must be substantively important based on
researcher knowledge of the content area (DeVellis, 2003; Green et al., 2006).
According to the above four criteria, the study extracted seven factors from 39 items
out of 52 items, displayed in Table V. Notably, Table V shows replication sample
loadings, eigenvalues, percentage of variance accounted by each factor, and Cronbach
alpha values in parenthesis. Table V shows the generated EFA results indicate good
inter-item consistency reliability and convergent validity, since all factor loading
exceeding 0.611 and the computed Cronbach alpha values ranging from 0.728 to 0.869
in the development sample data while ranging from 0.745 to 0.853 in the replication
sample data. Besides, the computed total variances explained by the generated
seven-component solution across the 568 observations in the development sample and
across the 567 observations in the replication sample are 62.842 percent and 63.591
percent, respectively. Therefore, the predictive validity is supported. Overall, the two
EFA solutions revealing 39 items under the seven components are validated and
reliable across the four criteria evaluating the EFA principal component solutions.
The computed EFA solutions indicate that Factor 1 (F1) contains nine items:
ICT-enabled services/products greatly enhance the convenience of my life, ICT-enabled
services/products greatly improve my job efficiency, I frequently use ICT-enabled
services/products to read news or get data, I frequently shop or make purchase via

An e-lifestyle
instrument

223

INTR
21,3
Factor loadings

224

Table V.
EFA results of the
development and
replication samples

Factor
Q40
Q41
Q12
Q03
Q05
Q01
Q52
Q46
Q47
Factor
Q13
Q14
Q16
Q15
Q19
Q38
Factor
Q02
Q04
Q23
Q20
Q48
Factor
Q06
Q07
Q43
Q42
Q09
Factor
Q51
Q18
Q33
Q27
Q31
Factor
Q45
Q44
Q28
Q36
Q32
Factor
Q21
Q17
Q22
Q39

Eigenvalue

Percentage of
variance
accounted by
each factor

Cronbach alpha
values

7.726
(6.915)

19.316
(17.288)

0.763
(0.831)

4.043
(4.357)

10.11%
(10.940)

0.772
(0.820)

3.988
(4.273)

9.973
(10.728)

0.782
(0.853)

3.130
(3.181)

7.828
(7.998)

0.869
(0.839)

2.762
(3.357)

6.909
(7.313)

0.741
(0.763)

1.967
(2.047)

4.915
(5.117)

0.728
(0.745)

1.515
(1.683)

4.136
(4.209)

0.801
(0.803)

1
0.823
0.815
0.812
0.798
0.756
0.723
0.712
0.665
0.615

(0.856)
(0.822)
(0.765)
(0.698)
(0.649)
(0.715)
(0.722)
(0.617)
(0.649)

0.865
0.864
0.829
0.817
0.811
0.686

(0.892)
(0.877)
(0.801)
(0.815)
(0.836)
(0.712)

0.798
0.739
0.720
0.682
0.672

(0.812)
(0.754)
(0.803)
(0.793)
(0.712)

0.873
0.860
0.778
0.758
0.741

(0.886)
(0.824)
(0.847)
(0.734)
(0.816)

0.828
0.812
0.799
0.767
0.621

(0.877)
(0.869)
(0.813)
(0.762)
(0.788)

0.813
0.755
0.733
0.729
0.717

(0.787)
(0.748)
(0.706)
(0.765)
(0.764)

0.857
0.745
0.737
0.687

(0.844)
(0.810)
(0.865)
(0.753)

Notes: Replication sample loadings, eigenvalues, percentage of variance accounted by each factor,
and Cronbach alpha values are provided in parenthesis

ICT-enabled services/products, I frequently do my banking or finances via ICT-enabled

services/products, I frequently perform my job via ICT-enabled services/ products,
The more time with ICT-enabled services/products I spend, the more advantages I take,
The living environment has been influenced by ICT, and I have benefited from the
impact, and The working environment has been influenced by ICT, and I have benefited
from the impact. Accordingly, F1s content reflects that individual e-lifestyles are
significantly impacted and shaped by how ICT-enabled services/products fulfill
individual needs in his/her job and life, and the closeness regarding that individual job
and life needs ICT-enabled services/products. Given that F1 content mirrors the way these
people live using ICT-enabled services/products mainly because ICT-enabled
services/products can bring their jobs and daily life more convenient, efficient, and
benefits. To interpret F1s content analysis best, F1 is labeled as need-driven e-lifestyle.
Similarly, F2 contains six items: I frequently spend a lot of time involved with
ICT-enabled services/products, I am very interested in discovering how to use
ICT-enabled services/products, I stay updated as to the latest development in
ICT-enabled services/products, I am very excited to know new ICT-enabled services/
products, I like gaining knowledge regarding ICT-enabled services/products, and
Keeping alerts to the latest trends of ICT-enabled services/products is very
important. Therefore, the content of F2 is labeled as interest-driven e-lifestyle.
F3 contains five items: I frequently play games or listen to music via ICT-enabled
services/products, I frequently watch movies or sports via ICT-enabled services/
products, I like ICT-enabled services/products involving in my entertainment,
Using ICT-enabled services/products really give me a lot of fun, and The leisure
environment has been influenced by ICT, and I have enjoyed from the impact. As a
result, F3 is labeled as entertainment-driven e-lifestyle.
F4 contains five items: I frequently share my opinions via ICT-enabled
services/products, I frequently chat via ICT-enabled services/products,
ICT-enabled services/products greatly enhance interaction among people,
ICT-enabled services/products greatly expand my friends circle, and I frequently
participate in social events via ICT-enabled services/products. Consequently, F4 is
labeled as sociability-driven e-lifestyle.
F5 contains five items: The more new knowledge regarding ICT-enabled
services/products I gain, the more advantages I take, Being able to use the newest
ICT-enabled services/products gives me a sense of achievement, Continued
development of ICT-enabled services/products is positive for our economy,
Continued development of ICT-enabled services/products is positive for our
society, and Continued development of ICT-enabled services/products is positive
for our education. F5 is thus labeled as perceived importance-driven e-lifestyle.
F6 contains five items: I dont like my life to involve with too many ICT-enabled
services/products, ICT-enabled services/products markedly decrease face-to-face
emotional interaction among people, Continued development of ICT-enabled
services/products has negative effect for our society, The more the development
on ICT-enabled services/products, the more the pressures on human lives, and
Continued development of ICT-enabled services/products has negative effect for our
education. Accordingly, F6 is labeled as uninterested or concern-driven e-lifestyle.
F7 contains four items: I like to share with people about new knowledge of
ICT-enabled services/products, Being able to use the newest ICT-enabled services/

An e-lifestyle
instrument

225

INTR
21,3

226

products makes me happy, I like the challenge brought by ICT-enabled services/

products, and Keeping inaugurating new ICT-enabled services/products is very
important. Hence, F7 is labeled as novelty-driven e-lifestyle.
6. Results of confirmatory factor analysis
After executing EFA to extract factors with no presumption theory, this study next
applied CFA to empirically examine the goodness of fit for the structure and properties
of the constructed seven-factor e-lifestyle scale with 39 items through the respondents
collected by the shopping mall intercept method. As suggested by Lee et al. (2009),
factor loadings, composite reliability, and the average variance extracted (AVE) were
used to assess the convergent validities, while the discriminant validity was assessed
by examining whether or not the AVE exceeds the shared variance between all
possible pairs of latent variables.
After running CFA using SPSS AMOS 18.0, this work found all factor loadings were
significant at the level of p , 0:001, the composite reliabilities (CR) exceeded the
acceptable criteria of 0.6 (Fornell and Larcker, 1981), and the AVEs for all latent
variables were greater than the threshold value of 0.5 (Forrnell and Larcker, 1981).
Therefore, the convergent validities and discriminant validity were evidently
supported for all latent variables, shown in Tables VI and VII. Notably, diagonal
entries are the square roots of average variances extracted by the construct, while
off-diagonal entries are correlation coefficients representing the associations between
constructs. As stated in literature (Lastovicka and Bonfield, 1980; Lewis et al., 2005),
nomological validity refers to the ability of a construct to predict measures of other
constructs within a system of related constructs. Hence, nomological validity in this
work could be assessed by the correlation analysis of Table VII. Because Table VII
displays all the interrelationships among and between these constructs to be
significant, the nomological validity of the developed scale is empirically supported.
As suggested by literature (Kline, 1998; Klein et al., 2005; Zhu et al., 2009), this study
employed the ratio of X 2 to its degree of freedom (df), root mean square error of
approximation (RMSEA), Goodness of Fit Index (GFI), and Adjusted Goodness of Fit
Index (AGFI), comparative fit index (CFI), Normed Fit Index (NFI), and Non-Normed
Fit Index (NNFI) to evaluate the adequate fit of the constructed e-lifestyle instrument.
The CFA results show the seven-component solution comprises 61.02 percent of the
variance in the sample, the value of goodness of Fit statistics x 2 =df 2:97 (, 3),
RMSEA 0:0076 (, 0.08), GFI 0:91 (. 0.9), AGFI 0:86 (. 0.8), CFI 0:93
(. 0.90), NFI 0:91 (. 0.9), and NNFI 0:92 (. 0.90). Overall, the constructed
e-lifestyle scale of consisting nine-factors with 39 items appeared to fit the data well.
That is, the scale indicated a good model-data fit, and the cross-validity of the 39-item
seven- component e-lifestyle scale was supported.
7. Discussion
Abundant research has observed ICT already permeates every aspect of peoples lives
today and the key to success for ICT products/services is to know human pattern.
However, through thoroughly reviewing literature, this study discovered no research
has directly assessed e-lifestyle even though a lot of lifestyle research exists. As the
past research (DeVellis, 2003; Klein et al., 2005) pointed out that without theory-based
scales, hypothesized relationships among consumer attitudes, perceptions, opinions,

Latent
variables Observed variables (scale items)
F1

F2

F3

F4

I frequently perform my job via ICT-enabled

services/products
ICT-enabled services/products greatly enhance the
convenience of my life
ICT-enabled services/products greatly improve my
job efficiency
I frequently use ICT-enabled services/products to
read news or get data
I frequently shop or make purchase via
ICT-enabled services/products
I frequently do my banking or finances via
ICT-enabled services/products
The living environment has been influenced by
ICT, and I have benefited from the impact
The working environment has been influenced by
ICT, and I have benefited from the impact
The more time with ICT-enabled services/products
I spend, the more advantages I take
I frequently spend a lot of time involved with
ICT-enabled services/products
I stay updated as to the latest development in
ICT-enabled services/products
I am very interested in discovering how to use
ICT-enabled services/ products
I am very excited to know new ICT-enabled
services/products
I like gaining knowledge regarding ICT-enabled
services/products
Keeping alerts to the latest trends of ICT-enabled
services/products is very important
I like ICT-enabled services/products involving in
my entertainment
I frequently play games or listen to music via
ICT-enabled services/products
Using ICT-enabled services/products really give
me a lot of fun
I frequently watch movies or sports via
ICT-enabled services/products
The leisure environment has been influenced by
ICT, and I have enjoyed from the impact
I frequently chat via ICT-enabled services/products
ICT-enabled services/products greatly enhance
interaction among people
ICT-enabled services/products greatly expand my
friends circle
I frequently share my opinions via ICT-enabled
services/products
I frequently participate in social events via
ICT-enabled services/products

Loadings
(l values)

An e-lifestyle
instrument
CR

AVE

0.836

227

0.835
0.821
0.791

0.953

0.693

0.920

0.659

0.942

0.767

0.914

0.682

0.784
0.758
0.749
0.664
0.619
0.871
0.853
0.815
0.781
0.754
0.696
0.796
0.792
0.738
0.699
0.664
0.877
0.857
0.758
0.746
0.738
(continued)

Table VI.
CFA results of the
constructed seven-factor
e-lifestyle scale

INTR
21,3

Latent
variables Observed variables (scale items)
F5

228

F6

F7

Table VI.

Continued development of ICT-enabled services/

products is positive for our economy
Continued development of ICT-enabled services/
products is positive for our society
Continued development of ICT-enabled services/
products is positive for our education
The more new knowledge regarding ICT-enabled
services/products I gain, the more advantages I
take
Being able to use the newest ICT-enabled services/
products gives me a sense of achievement
The more the development on ICT-enabled
services/products, the more the pressures on
human lives
Continued development of ICT-enabled services/
products has negative effect for our education
I dont like my life to involve with too many ICTenabled services/products
Continued development of ICT-enabled services/
products has negative effect for our society
ICT-enabled services/products markedly decrease
face-to-face emotional interaction among people
I like to share with people about new knowledge of
ICT-enabled services/products
Being able to use the newest ICT-enabled services/
products makes me happy
I like the challenge brought by ICT-enabled
services/products
Keeping inaugurating new ICT-enabled services/
products is very important

Loadings
(l values)

CR

AVE

0.925

0.711

0.917

0.689

0.914

0.598

0.835
0.834
0.809
0.787
0.759

0.827
0.813
0.802
0.764
0.772
0.843
0.825
0.786
0.766

behaviors and marketing strategies cannot be asserted, which may explain why during
the past several decades hundreds of scales have been developed across domains.
Consequently, the e-lifestyle instrument constructed and validated in this work could
offer marketers a useful basis to execute more elaborate marketing research.
The empirical results show that the 39 items of the e-lifestyle scale were grouped
into seven distinct components. These components represented seven principal factors
that significantly influence and shape individual e-lifestyles. Table V shows that the
explained variance of peoples e-lifestyle accounted by top three factors was
17.288-19.316 percent, 10.112-10.940 percent, and 9.973-10.728 percent, while the
explained variance accounted by the lowest three factors was 4.136-4.209 percent,
4.915-5.117 percent, and 6.909-7.313 percent. These figures illustrated that the influence
of each of these seven factors on stimulating individual e-lifestyles is unequal. This
outcome is consistent with the results of past studies, which concluded that the weight
of each factor in influencing individual lifestyles is different rather than similar (Wang
et al., 2006).

needs-driven e-lifestyle
interest-driven e-lifestyle
entertainment-driven e-lifestyle
sociability-driven e-lifestyle
perceived importance-driven e-lifestyle
uninterested or concern-driven e-lifestyle
novelty-driven e-lifestyle

Notes: * p , 0:05, * * p , 0:01; n 793

F1:
F2:
F3:
F4:
F5:
F6:
F7:

0.832
0.389 * *
0.175 * *
0.480 * *
0.382 * *
20.103 * *
0.345 * *

F1
0.812
0.225 * *
0.415 * *
0.424 * *
20.155 * *
0.659 * *

F2

0.876
0.211 *
0.121 * *
2 0.076 *
0.204 * *

F3

0.826
0.351 * *
20.0083 *
0.363 * *

F4

0.845
20.125 * *
0.376 * *

F5

F7

0.773

F6

0.830
2 0.078 *

An e-lifestyle
instrument

229

Table VII.
Discriminant validity and
correlations among the
constructs

INTR
21,3

230

From the marketing perspectives, the weight of F1, need-driven e-lifestyle, in

regards to motivating e-lifestyle, was twice that of F4, sociability-driven e-lifestyle,
and four times that of F7, novelty-driven e-lifestyle. This result suggests that, in the
ICT-context market, the more a service or product relates to fulfilling consumers needs
in both daily life and work, the higher the possibility of this service or product
becoming a fast-seller. This finding may explain why some ICT-enabled products/
services (i.e. iPhone and iPad) have quickly become popular once they were launched
on the market, while other ICT-enabled products/services (i.e. digital interactive
television and digital photo frame) have grown relatively slowly. This implies that,
when designing an ICT-enabled service/product, how well the product/service meets
the needs of consumers work and life heavily influences its success in the market, and
that the most effective strategy for promoting ICT-enabled services/products is to
illustrate their usefulness with regard to consumers needs in daily work and life.
With regard to triggering individual e-lifestyle, F2, interest-driven e-lifestyle, and
F7, novelty-driven e-lifestyle, ranked 2nd and 7th in terms of influences. Because
both interest and novelty are psychological terms that represent a tendency to become
familiar with, learn about, and use ICT-enabled services/products, marketers could
combine these factors for discussion. The theory of innovation diffusion proposed by
Rogers (2003) suggests that both novelty and interest are personal characteristics and
innate tendency. Accordingly, marketers can categorize consumers by analyzing their
tendencies, such as observing those who continually alert others to the latest trends of
ICT-enabled services/products, those who frequently spend a great deal of time
involved with ICT-enabled services/products, and those who like to acquire knowledge
about ICT-enabled services/products. This implies marketers could select such
consumers as the first priority target customers in the initial market stage, and ask
them for their advice on influencing other consumers to use the new launched service
or product.
F3, entertainment-driven e-lifestyle, and F4, sociability-driven e-lifestyle,
demonstrate that the popularity of an ICT-enabled service/product and the growth
rate of its popularity depend heavily on how people feel about using the
service/product as a channel for playing games, listening to music, watching sports
and movies, sharing opinions, talking, making friends, and having fun. The
implication derived from this result is that, in the ICT-context market, the more a
service/product relates to satisfy consumers needs for both entertainment and
personal relationship, the more quickly this service/product becomes popular and
successful on the market. This finding may explain why some services (i.e. Facebook
and blogs) quickly became popular once launched on the market, while other services
(i.e. mobile banking and online banking) have grown relatively slowly.
F5, perceived importance-driven e-lifestyle, indicates positive expectance and
opinion regarding ICT-enabled services/products and their impact on lives, while F6,
uninterested or concern-driven e-lifestyle, indicates negative opinion and projection
regarding ICT-enabled services/products and their influence on lives. These two
factors are contrasting rather than reciprocal terms, and imply that marketers should
not neglect the negative effect (i.e. technology addiction, internet addition disorder)
when promoting the benefits brought about by ICT. Therefore, when promoting
ICT-enabled services/products, marketers must be aware that a certain portion of
consumers dislikes an ICT-enabled service/product heavily because of their concerns

on potential negative effects brought by the service/product. Consequently, the first

implication leads to how to dissolve negative concerns is another important factor for
effectively marketing an ICT-enabled service/product. Besides, since customers e-life
philosophies are different, it is not easy to alter their lives in a short time. As noted by
Zeithaml et al. (2001), marketing efforts should concentrate on the 20 percent of regular
consumers who generate 80 percent of the business of a firm. The second implication
leads to that it is better to giving most efforts and resources to highly potential and
valuable customers rather than equal efforts and resources to all customers.
8. Conclusions
At the beginning of the twenty-first century, some researcher institutes such as
Institute for the Future (Damodaran, 2001) have observed the ICT already impacts and
permeates every aspect of human life. Hence, the need of an e-lifestyle instrument to
help marketers examine the relationships among consumers e-lifestyle, e-needs, and
purchase behaviors in the ICT domain is increasing and aware by some practitioners
and researchers. Therefore, to discover main factors motivating consumers
e-lifestyles, relative weights of those factors, and e-lifestyle patterns of the most
valuable customers is a crucial task for marketers in the ICT sector. In line with this
thinking, beyond contributing to theoretical e-lifestyle scale, this paper also contributes
to advance current knowledge on what factors influence e-lifestyle and relative
influences of main factors shaping e-lifestyle, and pave a way for marketers to execute
more elaborate marketing research and differentiated strategies to highly potential and
valuable customers.
Limitations exist in every study and this research leaves room for future
improvements. First, although a two-step EFA approach underlying 1,135 responses
has generated two EFA solutions to assist in judging the adequacy of the generated
factors, and CFA to 793 respondents was used to examine and supports the fitness of
the overall e-lifestyle scale, respondents from the second sampling were selected only
according to age distribution of current population. Future research could select
respondents by using stratified random sampling to reflect all demographics
distribution of the Taiwanese population to examine and improve the reliability and
validity of the e-lifestyle scale.
Second, because a great deal of research underlying general lifestyle instruments
has been conducted in various domains during the past few decades, the relationships
among general lifestyle, consuming needs, and purchase behavior have been
comprehensively asserted. In contrast, the relationships among individual e-lifestyle,
consuming needs, and purchase behavior in the ICT context have been not
comprehensively examined. Future studies could apply the e-lifestyle scale to different
domains (i.e. tablet personal computer, e-reader, MP4 player, iPad4, online banking,
and mobile shopping).
Third, cluster analysis has been widely used to segment the market and find
opportunities for new product development (Punj and Stewart, 1983; Kaye-Blake et al.,
2007), and lifestyle segmentation instruments have been shown to be especially useful
when combined with marketing variables such as media (Kamakura and Wedel, 2000;
Brengman et al., 2005). Accordingly, further study could apply the e-lifestyle scale to
the execution of more elaborate marketing research, and cluster respondents to analyze
subgroups differences regarding ICT-enabled services/products. Fourth, this

An e-lifestyle
instrument

231

INTR
21,3

investigation merely represents a starting point in e-lifestyle research. To enhance the

validity and generalization of the scale proposed in this study, further cross-cultural
validation is necessary. Finally, the questionnaire statements in this paper were
originally written in Chinese and translated into English. Therefore, using the
questionnaires merits caution regarding the cultural and language differences.

232
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Corresponding author
Chian-Son Yu can be contacted at: csyu@mail.usc.edu.tw

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