Readiness as a Novel Construct of Readiness Acceptance Model (RAM) for the Wireless Handheld Technology

Introduction

Scientists in the area of information systems and information technology (IT) have preoccupied in the recent decades on explaining and understanding the phenomena of adoption behaviour. One of the common objectives among all the theories and models is to understand behavior of use or intention-to-use information technology (IT). None of these theories has the ability to explain technology adoption phenomena in its own right. However, they could provide a sound background for developing a framework to explain adoption phenomena for wireless handheld technology in the globalized economy. In keeping this in mind we have reviewed nine prominent adoption models or theories (namely TRA, TPB, IDT, TAM, MM, C-TAM, SCT, and MPCU, and UTUAT).

The nine predominant theories are: Theory of reasoned action (TRA); Theory of planned behavior (TPB); Social cognitive theory (SCT); Innovation Diffusion theory (IDT); Technology acceptance model (TAM); Motivational model (MM); PC utilisation model (MPCU); Combined TAM (C-TAM) and TPB; and Unified theory of technology acceptance (UTUAT). These theories have dealt with a platform where users go to the computers. However, the emerging paradigm is the data going to users, especially facilitated by mobile devices and this domain appears to be radically different to the ‘wired’ domain for the following reasons:

• 1.

  The data stream in the mobile device environment is based on small devices such as the PDAs that have limited processing capabilities;

• 2.

  The data are in small sets rather than huge databases;

• 3.

  The main purpose is to facilitate data access from anywhere and thus the concept of connectivity assumes utmost significance;

• 4.

  Users know how to access the data and hence training issues assume lees significance in generic applications; and

• 5.

  Affordable access cost.

For these reasons it is imperative that we revisit the theories with a view to assess their applicability to wireless handheld devices. Review of the 9 major theories may help us identify shortcomings of the theories in explaining the adoption phenomena in information system domain. These in turn may allow us to formulate new conceptual models for the adoption of wireless handheld technology in information system domain.