Impacts of quality antecedents on faculty members’ acceptance of electronic resources
| Date | 18 June 2018 |
| Published date | 18 June 2018 |
| Pages | 289-305 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/LHT-01-2017-0010 |
| Author | Edda Tandi Lwoga,Alfred Said Sife |
| Subject Matter | Library & information science,Librarianship/library management,Library technology,Information behaviour & retrieval,Information user studies,Metadata,Information & knowledge management,Information & communications technology,Internet |
Impacts of quality antecedents on
faculty members’acceptance of
electronic resources
Edda Tandi Lwoga
Directorate of Library Services,
Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences, Dar es salaam, Tanzania, and
Alfred Said Sife
Sokoine National Agricultural Library, Sokoine University of Agriculture,
Morogoro, Tanzania
Abstract
Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to assess whether quality antecedents and individual characteristics
can influence faculty members’continued usage intention of electronic resources (e-resources) in selected
public universities in Tanzania.
Design/methodology/approach –A totalof 204 faculty membersparticipated in thestudy from three public
universitiesin Tanzania.The study used structuralequation modelling,ANOVA and t-teststo perform analyses.
Findings –Better educated and middle-aged faculty members with a wide experience of using e-resources
are more likely to continue using e-resources. Information quality had positive relationship with continued
usage intention of e-resources while service quality had indirect impact to continued usage intention through
information quality and system quality.
Originality/value –Based on the DeLone and McLean information systems success model, this study
integrates quality factors (information, service and system quality) and individual characteristics as
antecedents to the continued usage intention of e-resources. The study comprehensively documents empirical
findings on impacts of quality factors and individual characteristics on e-resources in a developing country.
The study reveals results that are useful for enhancing usage of e-resources by faculty in other institutions
with similar conditions.
Keywords Tanzania, Service quality, Structural equation modelling, Information quality, System quality,
DeLone and McLean model, E-resource acceptance, Information systems success model
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
Electronic resources (e-resources) have increasingly become major sources of information in
supporting academic and research activities. E-resources refer to academic information
materials in electronic formats which are made available to users through digital retrieval
systems. It is now widely accepted that e-resources significantly contribute to improve
research and academic activities. For instance, studies conducted in Tanzania (Manda and
Nawe, 2008) and Nigeria (Ani, 2013) reported increased research productivity of academic
staff following increased access to and use of a wide range of e-resources.
In Tanzania, academic and research institutions jointly subscribe to over 34 online
databases through the Consortium of Tanzania University and Research Libraries.
Furthermore, Tanzanian scholars have access to over 69,000 online scholarly publications
through the Research4Life[1] programme which provides free access to peer-reviewed
e-resources to developing countries (Research4Life, 2017). However, there are concerns that
the use of e-resources is still low in the Tanzanian institutions (Manda, 2005; Manda and
Nawe, 2008; Angello and Wema, 2010; Mtega et al., 2013, 2014; Msagati, 2014). Consistently,
studies in other developing countries have reported similar patterns on access and use of
e-resources (Adeniji, 2014; Nana et al., 2014; Smeda et al., 2014). This calls for research to
determine factors that influence continued usage intention of e-resources by faculty
members in the country.
Library Hi Tech
Vol. 36 No. 2, 2018
pp. 289-305
© Emerald PublishingLimited
0737-8831
DOI 10.1108/LHT-01-2017-0010
Received 17 January 2017
Revised 28 May 2017
18 October 2017
20 November 2017
27 November 2017
Accepted 5 December 2017
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/0737-8831.htm
289
Impacts
of quality
antecedents
The present study employed the information systems (IS) success model to determine
factors affecting continued usage intention of e-resources among faculty members who had
attended e-resources training in the past six months in three public universities in Tanzania.
Specifically, the study assessed the usage pattern of e-resources, as well as the effects of
quality factors and individual characteristics on continued usage intention of e-resources.
Literature review
In Tanzania, many studies have been conducted in recent years on availability, awareness,
accessibility and usage of e-resources (Manda, 2005; Manda and Nawe, 2008; Park et al.,
2009; Mtega et al., 2013, 2014; Angello and Wema, 2010; Msagati, 2014). Manda (2005)
reported that there was low usage of e-resources in ten institutions despite the fact that
users had participated in e-resource training workshops. Similar findings were reported by
other Tanzanian studies of academic staff at the Dar es Salaam University College of
Education (Msagati, 2014), agricultural researchers (Mtega et al., 2014) and livestock
researchers (Angello and Wema, 2010). It is obvious that there are still gaps on the
factors that affect users’continued usage intention of e-resources in the country, although
e-resources play a critical role in academic and research activities.
Factors that affect access to e-resources in Tanzania include institutional factors such as
poor institutional ICT infrastructure, and limited funds for subscribing to e-resources
(Msagati, 2014; Mtega et al., 2014); individual factors such as lack of awareness (Angello and
Wema, 2010; Msagati, 2014), inadequate search skills (Msagati, 2014; Angello and Wema, 2010;
Mtega et al.,2014),domainknowledge,language and interest (Park et al., 2009); and system
characteristics such as accessibility, library assistance and relevance (Park et al.,2009).Studies
in other developing countries have also reported similar factors (Ahmed, 2013; Kinengyere et al.,
2012; Obasuyi and Okwilagwe, 2017). This suggests that factors that affect users’continued
usage intention of e-resources remain unknown. This is where the present study comes into
play –would the Tanzanian faculty members intend to continue using e-resources in the future?
Various studies have assessed the continued usage intentions of IS in various contexts
such as acceptance of e-learning (Cho et al., 2009; Ramayah et al., 2010; Lwoga, 2014; Lwoga
and Komba, 2015). However, few studies have assessed the continued usage intentions of
e-resources in the context of academic libraries (Joo and Choi, 2016). Based on the
expectation confirmation theory, Joo and Choi (2016) found that both usefulness and
confirmation had a direct and indirect positive influence on continued intention to use
e-resources. Furthermore, resource quality had positive significant effects on continued
intention. Therefore, it is imperative to investigate factors which influence faculty members’
continued usage intention of e-resources. The relationship between the quality factors
(service, information and system) and continued usage intention, and the influence of
individual characteristics was also investigated in this study.
Research model and hypothesis development
Several models and theories have been used to explain IS acceptance behaviour. These
include the theory of reasoned action (Fishbein and Ajzen, 1975), theory of planned
behaviour (Ajzen, 1991), technology acceptance model (TAM) (Davis, 1986) and its modified
versions such as TAM2 (Venkatesh and Davis, 2000), unified theory of acceptance and use
of technology (UTAUT) (Venkatesh et al., 2003) and the extended unified theory of
acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT2) (Venkatesh et al., 2012). Compared to other
related models, TAM is widely applied and empirically tested, and it is thought to be more
robust (Diniz et al., 2011; Yucel, 2013).
There are many studies (e.g. Al-Suqri, 2014; Barhoumi, 2016; Park et al., 2009) in developing
countries which have employed TAM to study faculty members’intentions to use e-resources.
However, despite their widespread use, TAMand UTAUT have been criticised for payingno
290
LHT
36,2
To continue reading
Request your trial