The Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology: A New Approach in Technology Acceptance

The Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology: A New Approach in Technology Acceptance

Alaa M. Momani
Copyright: © 2020 |Pages: 20
DOI: 10.4018/IJSKD.2020070105
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Abstract

Recently, the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology has taken place as one of the most developed and intensive models to test technology adoption and acceptance. This research article reviews this model by presenting a description of its development and structure. Additionally, this article compares it with other former theories and models in this field. It studies the evolution stages of these theories and classifies them depending on their development method and the scientific field which they were developed in. Moreover, the model's determinants were classified depending on their influence on technology adoption. This model has been reported as robust and trusted for application on different technologies and viable after doing any modification operation over it. It also has the minimum amount of complexity according to its limited number of constructs and moderating variables that make it more applicable and understandable to study the acceptance behavior to any new technology.
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1. Introduction

The evolution of technology acceptance theories and models have been initiated since the beginning of the 20th century and it is still evolving. This evolution took place in different theoretical perspectives, such as: cognitive, affective, motivational, and behavioral intentions and the reactions of individuals (Hernandez 2017b; Weeger and Gewald, 2013). As a part of the software quality activities in the software engineering field, information systems’ adoption, acceptance, and usage behavior have been started to attract attention since the 1970s as an initial step for technologies’ utilization and realization. Currently, to understand the cause of users’ accepting/rejecting any new technology has become an integral task in any information system’s life cycle (Silva and Dias, 2007; Sivathanu and Pillai, 2019).

Technology acceptance theories and models had been constructed as a framework to study the method of understanding and accepting new technologies by users, how they could use it, and what could be the effect on continuing using it. Some factors such as usefulness, ease of use, complexity, and social influence can affect the users’ decision against any technology and the method of its usage (Fishbein and Ajzen, 1975). These factors have been adopted in different theories and studies in several research works (Ajzen and Fishbein, 1980; Ajzen, 1985; Bandura, 1986; Davis, 1986; Deci and Ryan, 1985; Rogers, 1983; Taylor and Todd, 1995a; Triandis, 1979; Venkatesh and Davis, 2000; Venkatesh, Morris, Davis, and Davis, 2003), in addition to a lot of works that have been done up to date.

The actual use of any information system implicitly relies on the existence of intention towards using it. But, the continuation of using the information system depends on two beliefs: In the first stage, the information system has to be accepted by the users. Then, continuing usage which comes after acceptance depends on users’ satisfaction with the system. In the organizational environment, it means continuing in increasing the investment in information technology (Hong, Thong, and Tam, 2006). Figure 1 shows the relation between the acceptance and the satisfaction, and their influence on the intention for continuous use of the system. Ajzen (1985) explained that the users' successful controlling the factors means successful actual usage behavior. These factors could be previous experiences and skills, willpower, abilities, or any workable plans that may control the factors. Accordingly, the successful behavior is not only depending on a favorable intention, but it is also depending on the behavioral control.

Figure 1.

The influence of acceptance and satisfaction on continued usage intention (Momani, 2018)

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Several research works had been done up-to-date in order to address the most important and effective limitations of technology acceptance theories and models depending on wide reviews for prior researches (Lee, Kozar, and Larsen, 2003; Moghavvemi, Salleh, and Abessi, 2013; Williams, Rana, and Dwivedi, 2015). The research study that was done by Venkatesh et al. (2003) aimed to define a unified form of technology acceptance theories. It identified five major limitations of studies and comparison operations done over the older theories and models. Therefore, the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) becomes one of the most integrated and developed technology acceptance theories by adopting the most advantage constructs from other older theories and models. These limitations are summarized as follows:

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