Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Technological Forecasting & Social Change journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/techfore Role of demographic factors, attitudes toward technology, and cultural values in the prediction of technology-based consumer behaviors: A study in developing and emerging countries Jorge Cruz-Cárdenas a,b, ⁎ , Ekaterina Zabelina c , Olga Deyneka d , Jorge Guadalupe-Lanas a,b , Margarita Velín-Fárez e a Research Center in Business, Society, and Technology, ESTec, Universidad Tecnológica Indoamérica, Machala y Sabanilla s/n, Quito 170301, Ecuador b School of Administrative and Economic Science, Universidad Tecnológica Indoamérica, Machala y Sabanilla s/n, Quito 170301, Ecuador c Department of Psychology, Chelyabinsk State University, Bratiev Kashirinykh 129, Chelyabinsk 454001, Russian Federation d Department of Political Psychology, St. Petersburg State University, Makarov nab., 6, St. Petersburg 199034, Russian Federation e Doctoral Program in Economics and Business Management, Universidad de Alcalá, Plaza de la Victoria 2, Alcalá de Henares 28802, Spain ARTICLEINFO Keywords: Technology use Demographics Attitude toward technology Cultural value Developing country Emerging economy ABSTRACT This study investigates the predictors of the use of technology-based products and services in Ecuador (a Latin American developing country) and Russia (an emerging economy). A comparative study helps predict the use of four technology-based services, and tests the predicting capacity of demographic factors, attitudes toward technology, and cultural values. The first stage of investigation involves confirmatory factor analyses and in- variance tests on the measurement scales used. The results of the proposed regression models indicate that demographic variables have the highest predictive capacity in the two countries. Attitudes toward technology also demonstrate some predictive ability, while cultural values have a negligible direct impact on technology use. The results of structural equation models indicate that cultural values have a fundamental indirect impact on the use of technology-based services, and such effect is mediated by attitudes toward technology. 1. Introduction Technology is one of the most powerful forces shaping societies, companies, and individuals, and thus having a vast socio-economic impact (Watanabe et al., 2018). Today, more than half of the house- holds in the world have an internet connection (compared to less than 20% in 2005), and the number of mobile-phone subscriptions exceeds that of the global population (International Telecommunication Union, ITU, 2017). Meanwhile, for WhatsApp, which is one of the world's most popular mobile instant messaging services, the userbase increased from 200 million to 1,600 million between 2013 and 2019 (Statista, 2019). Disruptive innovations in business and consumption—products, services, or processes that interrupt and substantially change activities in industries, economies, or social systems—are becoming a frequent phenomenon (Guo et al., 2019; Horváth and Szabó, 2019; Millar et al., 2018). Innovations have a strong positive effect both on the image of the organizations that generate them and their financial performance. Therefore, profitable organizations are quite active in launching in- novativeproductsandservices.Moreover,consumerscanbeasourceof innovation when they share ideas through social media platforms (Bhimani et al., 2019). The adoption and use of innovative products and technologies have substantial positive social effects that may be exploited by governments and non-profit organizations (Boons and Bocken, 2018; Gouvea et al., 2018). For example, the use of social platforms such as Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, or various blogs may help better coordinate actions between individuals in extreme situations such as natural disasters (Gaspar et al., 2019). The adoption and use of mobile phones among small farmers from poor countries may help them access better price information and make better decisions when selling their products (Haile et al., 2019). Inthedynamicscenariocharacterizedbytechnologicalprogressand the continuous globalization of economies (Kraus et al., 2018), the https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techfore.2019.119768 Received 7 June 2019; Received in revised form 4 October 2019; Accepted 6 October 2019 ⁎ Corresponding author at: Research Center in Business, Society, and Technology, ESTec, Universidad Tecnológica Indoamérica, Machala y Sabanilla s/n, Quito 170301, Ecuador. E-mail addresses: jorgecruz@uti.edu.ec (J. Cruz-Cárdenas), katya_k@mail.ru (E. Zabelina), osdeyneka@yandex.ru (O. Deyneka), jorgeguadalupe@uti.edu.ec (J. Guadalupe-Lanas), margarita.velin@edu.uah.es (M. Velín-Fárez). Technological Forecasting & Social Change 149 (2019) 119768 0040-1625/ © 2019 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. T