Title: Improving technology acceptance modelling for developing communities using a systems engineering approach

Authors: Shahram Sarkani; Thomas A. Mazzuchi; Jordan Fletcher

Addresses: The George Washington University, 2121 Eye Street, NW, Washington, DC 20052, USA ' The George Washington University, 2121 Eye Street, NW, Washington, DC 20052, USA ' The George Washington University, 2121 Eye Street, NW, Washington, DC 20052, USA

Abstract: Developing nations are poised to spend billions on ICT innovation in 2020. A study of the historical adoption of ICT in developing nations indicated that their adoption patterns do not follow typical technology innovation adoption models. This study addressed the weaknesses found in existing technology acceptance models and proposed a new technology acceptance modelling approach and conceptual model. The new model integrated the population and technology characteristics factors found in popular technology acceptance models to task and process factors found in other models, consistent with enterprise system engineering principles and the Information Technology Infrastructure Library framework. This study also addressed the weakness in the survey approach by introducing data from publicly-available industry and economic data sources. An experiment was conducted on 42 nations in Sub-Saharan Africa, resulting in validation of the model. This new model and approach should be further validated by future research.

Keywords: information technology; information and communications technology; ICT innovation; ICT4D; technology acceptance model; TAM; unified theory of acceptance and use of technology; UTAUT; diffusion of innovations theory; IDT; task-technology fit; TTF; technology acceptance modelling; task fit; Sub-Saharan Africa; developing countries; enterprise systems engineering; ICT for development.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSTM.2013.054199

International Journal of Services Technology and Management, 2013 Vol.19 No.1/2/3, pp.63 - 80

Received: 04 Jul 2012
Accepted: 13 Mar 2013
Published online: 30 Apr 2014 *

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