User Acceptance of Information
Technology: Research Progress, Current
Controversies, and Emerging Paradigms
Fred Davis
Walton College of Business
University of Arkansas
December 8, 2007
Workshop on HCI Research in MIS
Outline
• TAM overview and evolution
• TAM metaanalyses
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Paradigms and scientific progress
Current TAM impasse
Gaps and limitations in TAM++ research
Promising directions for TAM research
Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuro – IS
TAM Overview
• Problem Statement
– High failure rate of IS implementations
• 1980’s IS Implementation Research
– Mixed and inconclusive
• Keen 1980 “reference disciplines and cumulative tradition”
• TAM
– Theoretical foundations
– Psychometrically validated measures
• IT Design Characteristics
– Functionality
– User Interface
Technology Acceptance Model
(TAM)
Perceived
Usefulness
External
Variables
e.g., Training
System Chars.
Behavioral
Intention
Perceived
Ease of Use
(Davis 1989--MISQ; Davis et al. 1989--Mgmt Science)
Usage
Behavior
Summary of Key Findings from Early
TAM Research
• Perceived usefulness is key determinant of
acceptance
• Perceived ease of use is a secondary determinant
(direct and indirect effect on BI)
• TAM compares favorably with other models
• TAM is robust across populations, settings,
technologies
TAM Evolution
• 1990’s Proliferation
• Consolidation
• 1999 antecedents of EOU
• 2000 antecedents of Usefulness
• 2003 Unified Theory (UTAUT)
• Metaanalyses (2003-2007)
• Citations
• 1989 MISQ cited 900+ times
• 1989 Mgt Sci cited 750+ times
• TAM in Workshop on HCI in MIS, ICIS
Venkatesh 1999 ISR Determinants of EOU
TAM
Perceived
Usefulness
Behavioral
Intention
to Use
Anchors
Perceived
Ease of Use
Adjustments
Experience
Determinants of EOU
Anchors
Computer
Self-Efficacy
3
Perceptions
of External
Control
Perceived
Usefulness
2
2
Behavioral
Intention
to Use
Computer
Anxiety
Computer
Playfulness
Perceived
Ease of Use
1
1
Perceived
Enjoyment
1
Objective
Usability
Adjustments
Notes:
“1” indicates that experience moderated the relationship between the two constructs, as expected
“2” indicates that experience moderated the relationship, though not expected
“3” indicates that experience had a a direct effect on the construct, as expected
Venkatesh & Davis 2000 Mgt Sci
Determinants of Usefulness
Social
Influence
Processes
Technology Acceptance Model
Experience
Perceived
Usefulness
Intention
to Use
Cognitive
Instrumental
Processes
Perceived
Ease of Use
Usage
Behavior
Social Influence Processes
Experience
Voluntariness
of Use
A
Subjective
Norm
B
C
Perceived
Usefulness
Image
Cognitive
Instrumental
Processes
Perceived
Ease of Use
Experience
Intention
to Use
Usage
Behavior
Cognitive Instrumental Processes
Social
Influence
Processes
Experience
Perceived
Usefulness
Job
Relevance
Output
Quality
Results
Demo.
Perceived
Ease of Use
Experience
Intention
to Use
Usage
Behavior
Venkatesh et al 2003 MISQ
Unified Model
Job
Performance
Expectancy
Complexity
Expectancy
.46***
A
.20**
Social
Influence
Behaviora
l Intention
B .18*
R2 = .41
.05
Attitude Toward
.56***
Technology
Usage
R2 = .40
.08
A
.19*
Using Tech.
Facilitating
Conditions
A: 2-way interaction, with experience as modera
B: 3-way interaction, with experience and
voluntariness as moderators
Different Types of Technology
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Individual productivity tools
Groupware
Enterprise systems
E-Commerce
Workflow
Mobile technology
King & He 2006 I&M
• Meta-analysis of 88 studies
• “The results show TAM to be a valid and
robust model that has been widely used, but
which potentially has wider applicability.”
• Moderators
– User types
– Usage types
Jeyaraj, et al. 2006 JIT
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Metaanalysis of 99 adoption studies
– 48 individual level studies
– 51 organizational level studies
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Best individual adoption predictors
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Best organizational adoption predictions
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Perceived Usefulness
Top Management Support
Computer Experience
User Support
Behavioral Intention
Top Management Support
External Pressure
Professionalism of IS unit
External Information Sources
Top Management Support was main linkage between individual and organizational
IT adoption
Identify 10 areas for further exploration
Schepers & Wetzels 2007 I&M
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Metaanalysis of 63 TAM studies
Focused on role of subjective norm
Confirmed original TAM relationships
Large effect sizes of SN
– On usefulness (internalization)
– On intention (compliance)
Sun & Zhang 2006 IJHCS
• Role of moderating factors in technology acceptance
– Low explanatory power of TAM models (<60%)
– Inconsistent relationships found
• 69 studies reviewed
• Ten moderating factors in three groups
– Organizational factors (voluntariness, nature of task and
profession)
– Technology factors (complexity, purpose, individual vs.
group)
– Individual factors (gender, intellect, experience, age,
culture)
• Moderators increase explanatory power
Sabherwal et al 2006 Mgt Sci
• Individual and organizational determinants
• Metaanalysis of 121 studies
• Integrated, emergent model
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Top mgmt support
Facilitating conditions
User experience, attitude, training, participation
System Quality
Perceived usefulness
User satisfaction
System use
• Consistent with prior research on technology adoption and
use
Scientific Progress
Every scientific truth goes through three states:
first, people say it conflicts with the Bible;
next, they say it has been discovered before
lastly, they say they always believed it.
Louis Agassiz
Nature of Scientific Progress
• Role of Paradigms (e.g., Kuhn 1962)
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Container (how much can it hold)
Vehicle (how far can it go? How fast?)
Advantage – enables research progress
Disadvantage – constrains research progress
• Theory can obstruct research progress
• Selective filter, lens
• Confirmation bias
• Revolution vs. Evolution
• Parsimony, Power, Generality
TAM Research Impasse
• JAIS Special Issue April 2007
– Lucas, Swanson, & Zmud “Implementation…”
– Benbasat & Barki “Quo Vadis, TAM?”
• Proliferation of ad hoc incremental extensions
with no overarching conceptual structure
• Successive studies that provide diminishing
marginal contributions
• IS researchers’ attention being overly
restricted to minor extensions of TAM
“Restlessness and discontent are the first
necessities of progress. “
Thomas Edison
Recommended Directions for TAM
• Benbasat & Barki
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Go back to TRA/TPB
Better conceptualization of system usage
Longitudinal, multi-stage models
Impact of IT design characteristics
Objective usefulness
• Bagozzi
• Goal self-regulation
• Group, cultural, social aspects
• Emotions
Return to TRA/TPB?
• Benbasat &Barki 2007 JAIS advocate this
– Claim that UTAUT does this
– Provides structure for expanding TAM
• Pavlou & Fygenson 2006 MISQ
– B2C top beliefs elicited
• Usefulness, ease of use, trust
– TPB omits direct influence of beliefs on BI
• Bagozzi 2007 JAIS
– TPB has many same limitations as TAM
Usage Reconceptualizations
• Beyond frequency & duration
• Burton-Jones & Straub 2006 ISR
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User-System-Task
Cognitive Absorption
Deep structure usage (task-relevant feature use)
Objective performance
• Barki et al 2007 ISR
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Task-technology-individual
Hierarchical goal-oriented actions
Task-technology adaption
Individual adaption
Three Key Limitations of TAM++
Paradigm
• Static, cross-sectional, snapshot-oriented
– Individual level of analysis
– Limited span across causal chain
• Emphasis on controlled, conscious processing
– Exclusion of automatic processing
– Overlook multitasking
• Limited account of social processes
– Knowledge collaboration
– Collective processes
Longer span across causal chain:
Wixom & Todd 2005 ISR
• Theoretical Integration of User Satisfaction
and Technology Acceptance
• Bridge from design and implementation of
system characteristics (a strength of the user
satisfaction literature) to prediction of usage
(a strength of the TAM literature)
Venkatesh 2006 Dec Sci
• Business process change; process standards
• Business process characteristics
• Interventions (e.g., simulation based training)
• Supply-chain technologies
• Multi-stakeholder technologies
• Interventions to reduce goal incongruence and
information assymetry
• Services
• Service quality, failure, recovery
• Service design characteristics
Major Theoretical Extensions of TAM
• Principal-Agent Theory
– Ba, et al. 2001 Mgt Sci; Bhattacherjee 1998 Dec
Sci; Pavlou et al 2007
• Multi-level studies of adoption
– Lapointe & Rivard 2005 MISQ, 2007 ISR; Frambach
& Schillewaert 2002 J. Bus Res; Gopalakrishnan, et
al. IEEE TEM
• Longitudinal multi-stage modeling
– Kim et al 2006 Mgt Sci
Devaraj & Kohli 2005 Mgt Sci
• Performance Impacts of Information
Technology: Is Actual Usage the Missing Link?
• “actual usage” may be a key variable in
explaining the impact of technology on
performance…omittion of this variable may be
a missing ling in IT payoff analyses
Automaticity and Multitasking
• TAM++ models presume conscious processing
– Conscious intentions and beliefs
– Theory of Reasoned Action/Planned Behavior
• Cognitive skill acquisition
• Habit versus intention
– Intention-behavior relationship weakens with
habit
– Habits toward previous behavior can undermine
intentions to adopt new behavior
Dual Processing and Economics
• Daniel Kahneman 2002
– Two modes of cognitive processing
• System 1 (intuition) – fast, automatic, effortless, associative,
difficult to modify
• System 2 (reasoning) – slower, serial, effortful, deliberately
controlled, rule-governed, flexible
• Vernon Smith 2002
– “human activity is diffused and dominated by
unconscious, autonomic, neuropsychological systems
that enable people to function effectively without
calling upon the brain’s scarcest resource – attentional
and reasoning circuitry”
Automaticity in IS Research
• Habit in IS Continuance
• Mindfulness-Mindlessness Paradox
– Butler & Gray 2006 MISQ
• Routine-based reliability
• Mindfulness-based reliability
• Individual and collective mindfulness
Dual-Task Interference
• Primary task demands most attention
• Secondary task can be performed with limited
attention
• Bottlenecks, working memory load
• Task and tool as dual tasks
• Electronic brainstorming
– Heninger et al 2006 ISR
Neuro-IS
• Dimoka, Pavlou, & Davis 2007 ICIS
– “The potential of cognitive neuroscience for IS
Research”
– Neural underpinnings of cognitive processes
– Brain scanning (fMRI, etc.)
– Many recent discoveries
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Decision making, risk, uncertainty
Trust, cooperation, competition
Goal self-regulation
Automaticity and multitasking
Major Areas of the Brain
Motor Cortex
DLPFC
iPC
ACC
MPFC
VM
PFC
PCC
CN
Visual
Cortex
IC
NA
OBF
A
Prefrontal Cortex
H
Cerebellum
Limbic System
Other key areas
Brain
Stem
DLPFC: Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex, VMPFC: Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex, OBF: Orbitofrontal
Cortex
MPFC: Medial Prefrontal Cortex, ACC/PCC: Anterior/ Posterior Cingulate Cortex, NA: Nucleus
Accumbens;
A: Amygdala, H: Hippocampus, CN: Caudate Nucleus, IC: Insular Cortex, iPC: Inferior Parietal Cortex
Brain Areas Activated for Focal
Processes
Brain Area
Process
Decision
Making
Dorsolateral
Prefrontal
Cortex
Ventromedial
Prefrontal
Cortex
X
Orbitofrontal
Cortex
Medial
Prefrontal
Cortex
X
Limbic
System
Amygdala
Anterior
Cingulate
Cortex
X
X
X
Risk
Caudate
Nucleus
X
Inferior
Parietal
Cortices
X
X
X
X
Loss
X
X
Rewards
Consumer
Behavior
Insular
Cortex
X
Uncertainty
Ambiguity
Nucleus
Accumbens
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
Theory of Mind
X
X
Trust
X
Distrust
Cooperation
Competition
X
X
X
X
X
Neuro-IS and TAM++ Research
• Neural correlates of perceived usefulness and
ease of use
• Social influence processes and “theory of
mind”
• Automaticity and habit
• Goal Self-regulation
• Emotional processes
Genetic Epistemology and Piaget’s
Philosophy of Science
• Piaget (vs. Kuhn) on Scientific Progress
– J.Y. Tsou 2006 Theory and Research
• Continuity vs. discontinuity
• Series of successive approximations to truth
• Equilibration
– Assimilation and accommodation of existing
knowledge structures (reorganization)
• Progress as integrative, cumulative process
Summary
• Reaching the limits of TAM++ paradigm
– Need to identify and remove limitations of TAM++
paradigm
• Emphasize impact of IT design characteristics
• Integrate across levels of analysis
– From static to dynamic analyses of complex
adoption processes
• Neuro-IS
• Build upon and go beyond accumulated
knowledge
“However much our knowledge of
human behavior falls short of our
need for such knowledge, still it is
enormous”
Herbert Simon 1978