Intention to use a free voluntary service. The effects of social influence, knowledge and perceptions
| Pages | 202-220 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/13287261311328903 |
| Published date | 26 April 2013 |
| Date | 26 April 2013 |
| Author | Boonlert Watjatrakul |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management |
Intention to use a free
voluntary service
The effects of social influence,
knowledge and perceptions
Boonlert Watjatrakul
Department of Information Technology, Assumption University,
Bangkok, Thailand
Abstract
Purpose – This empirical study aims to understand the interrelationship among the key technology
adoption factors including social influence, individual existing knowledge, and individual perceptions
of technology (i.e. usefulness, ease of use, and enjoyment) and their effects on individual intention to
use a free voluntary service.
Design/methodology/approach – The survey method is employed to collect data from universities
offering the free mobile messaging service. A structural equation modeling analysis technique is used
to analyze data reliability and validity in the measurement model and examine causal relationships
among the constructs in the structural model.
Findings – The results show that social influence affects individual knowledge and perceptions of the
service (perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and perceived enjoyment) and successively
influences the individual intention to use the free voluntary service. This study indicates that the
intrinsic value of perceived enjoyment has a greater impact than the extrinsic value of perceived
usefulness in terms of its effect on individual intention to use a free voluntary service. In addition, the
effect of perceived usefulness of alternative systems should be taken into account when using perceived
usefulness from the technology acceptance model to predict individual’s technology adoption decisions
under the free voluntary setting.
Originality/value – This study fills the gap in the technology adoption literatures regarding the free
voluntary service adoption based on social influence, individual knowledge, and individual perceptions
of technology. It assists academics to understand the drivers of technology acceptance under the free
voluntary setting and provides guidance for organizations to increase users’ acceptability of their free
voluntary services.
Keywords Voluntaryservices, Adoption,Social influence,Intention, Ease of use, Usefulness,Enjoyment,
Knowledge, Usersatisfaction, User studies
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
Previousstudies have appliedtheory of reasoned action(TRA) and technology acceptance
model (TAM) to understand the factors influencing individual adoption of technology.
TRA proposed by Fishbeinand Ajzen (1975) is widely used to examinehow social norms
of compliance,conformity, and identification mayoperate to influence behavior. It posits
that social influences “subjective norms” along with personal attitudes could be used to
predict personal behavior (Fishbein and Ajzen, 1975). Subjective norm represents
perceivedexternal pressures to performor not perform behavior and capturesthe essence
of social influence(Lee et al., 2006). In later years, Davis(1989) purposed TAM to explain
the psychological interaction of a user with technology. TAM examines users’ behavior
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/1328-7265.htm
Journal of Systems and Information
Technology
Vol. 15 No. 2, 2013
pp. 202-220
qEmerald Group Publishing Limited
1328-7265
DOI 10.1108/13287261311328903
JSIT
15,2
202
through perceived ease-of-use and perceived usefulness for particular technologies.
However,several researchers have arguedthat TAM should account for subjectivenorms
denoting social influence in the adoption and use of the new system (Glass and Li, 2010;
Malhotra and Galletta,1999). Subsequently, IT academics haveapplied the two theories’
factors(i.e. perceived usefulness,perceived ease-of-use,subjective norms, and attitudes)to
explain users’ adoption of various information systems (Shen et al., 2006). Even though
previous studieshave examined the effect of social factors denotingsubjective norms on
technology adoption factors, the effect of social influence on technology adoption is
inconclusiveand based on the mandatory settings (Leeet al., 2003; Vankatesh and Davis,
2000; Lee et al., 2006).
In addition to the effect of the two theories’ factors on technology adoption, previous
studies postulate that people make an effort to use information technology under two
reasons: extrinsic and intrinsic motivation (Davis et al., 1992; Lee, 2009). Extrinsic
motivation emphasizes the achievement of specific goals or rewards and perceived
usefulness is an example of extrinsic motivation (Davis et al., 1992). Intrinsic motivation
focuses on the enjoyment and satisfaction gained from doing something. Researchers
have called for additional work on the role that intrinsic motivation plays in IT ad option
(Fagan et al., 2008). Several studies have applied “perceived enjoyment” to determine an
intrinsic reason of technology adoption (Heijden, 2003; Igbaria et al., 1995; Kim and Park,
2008). In addition, research in IT acceptance indicates that individual existing
knowledge affects the cognitive process of adoption decisions (Barutcu, 2007). Users’
existing knowledge about technology determines their abilities to understand the
features and usage of the technology (Bauer et al., 2005). Accordingly, besides social
influence (under TRA), perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use (under TAM), it is
important to account for individual perception of enjoyment and their existing
knowledge about technology when explaining a technology adoption decisions.
Furthermore, individual acceptance of technology essentially relies on the technology
settings being consideration including free/paid-voluntary and free/paid-mandatory
settings (Vankatesh and Davis, 2000). Previous studies in technology adoption have
focused on determinants of technology adoption without explaining how technology
settings affect individual adoption decision, particularly in the free voluntary setting
(e.g. free web mails, free social network sites, free messaging service) widely offered by
service providers and organizations. In addition, relatively few studies have applied the
adoption factors mentioned earlier to understand users’ intentions to use technology
under the free voluntary setting.
Accordingly, this study aims to understand interrelationship among the technology
adoption factors-social influence, individual perceptions (usefulness, ease of use, and
enjoyment), and individual knowledgeabout the technology – and examine their effects
on individual intentions to use a free-voluntary service. This study adopts the mobile
messaging service offered by universities as the free-voluntary service for the study
domain.The university’s mobilemessaging service is free and non-mandatory.If students
do not want to use this mobile messaging service, they can obtain thesame information
from elsewhere (e.g.web site, forum, and e-mail). The study enables academics to better
understandings of applying technologyacceptance factors for the free voluntaryservice
and provides guidancefor service providers to increaseusers’ acceptability of using their
free voluntary services through the social influence and individual knowledge and
perceptions.
Free voluntary
service
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