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Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) plays significant roles intheeconomies of nations worldwide(Dubihlela and Omoruyi, 2013; Ghobakhloo et al., 2011; Kilangi, 2012). In Tanzania, for example, SMEs contributes up to 27% of the country's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and employs more than 20% of the population (FSDT, 2017). It is therefore essential to investigate the extent and roles in which technologies can support the people who work in the SMEs. The researchers have also shown that more than 95% of SMEs in Tanzania comprises of less than five (5) employees (Venkatakrishan, 2014). This implies that the decisions and influences of using technologies are highly forced or controlled by individuals rather than the management of the SMEs. On the other hand, mobile phone technology is mainly used by individual people. In the context of SMEs, the individuals utilise mobile phones to conduct various activities which are essential to their businesses. For instance, the majority of retail shops are mainly conducted by a single or two people and in most cases they use mobile phones to communicate, ordering of items and for marketing purposes.
Mobile phone technology differs from desktop computing as mobile phones can be used all the times regardless of the location (Mushi et al., 2017). Thus, if employees utilise mobile devices, they can eventually be able to accomplish their duties regardless of when and where they are located to the head offices, at remote locations or home. Similarly, employees are likely to be subjected to work using their mobile phones at any possible time and place regardless of whether it falls within the normal working duration, overnights or over the weekends. In technology acceptance perspectives, technology is regarded to be accepted by its users only if it is utilised to its fullest, voluntarily (Mushi et al., 2017). As such, some studies were performed to identify and test factors which influence users to accept technologies in various contexts (Byomire & Maiga, 2015; Mushi, 2018).
Despite the availability of a pool of literature in technology acceptance, the majority of existing studies do not address the specific aspects of the context of this study. For instance, the model that explains factors influencing the acceptance of desktop computers is not necessarily suitable for discussing mobile phone technology due to the specific usage contexts such as its flexibility to use anywhere at any time and its operational demands such as airtime and costs of data bundles. Similarly, those designed to explain large organisations are not necessarily suitable to describe small businesses due to more informal roles, financial capabilities and lack of specialisation among employees (Awa et al., 2012). Also, a study of Mushi et al (2018) which extended TAM with the aspects of personal privacy of employees of SMEs to investigate its impact towards acceptance of mobile phone technology in the SMEs. He provides significant insights on the usage contexts of mobile phones except for other specifics including the self-efficacy. The growing trend of using mobile phones as the main technological option in SMEs has demanded more emphasis on investigating aspects of its usage. This study extends TAM with Self-Efficacy to design a theoretical model before formulating the hypotheses to be tested in the survey. The main research hypothesis to be tested in this research is: “The Perceived Mobile Phone Self-Efficacy (MSE) positively influences the employee Acceptance and use of mobile phone technology”.The main objective is therefore to assess whether Self-Efficacy can be among the factors which influence users to intend or use mobile phone technology at their workplaces while performing the duties of SMEs. The rest of this paper is organised as follows: Section two provides insights into technology acceptance and adoption. Section three defines small and medium-sized enterprises in the Tanzanian context while section four providesa roadmap for developing a theoretical model of the study. Section five discusses the methodological aspects in conducting this research followed by section six which discusses the results of the study. Section seven concludes this article and provides potential areas for future works.