Literature reviewe (Technology adoption) Thesis

Literature reviewe (Technology adoption) - Thesis Example The developing countries have now started embracing technology to offer e-government services to the citizens but it has not been adapted globally at the same rate. The factors responsible for low penetration of technology is developing nations could vary across nations and regions. However, to make the services fruitful and to enhance adoption by consumers, various researchers have formulated and developed theoretical frameworks to understand and explain the process of technology adoption. Agarwal (2000) defines technology adoption as the use, or acceptance of a new technology, or new product. In Information Technology and Information system (IT/IS) research, numerous theories have been used to study users adoption of new technologies. Various models were developed including Technology Acceptance Model (TAM)(Davis, 1989), Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA)(Ajzen et al., 1980) , Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) (Ajzen, 1991), and recently, the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Te chnology (UTAUT) (Venkatesh et al., 2003) which have all identified factors that affect an individual’s intention to use or the actual use of information technology. 3.2 Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA) The theory of reasoned action (TRA) (Fishbein and Ajzen, 1975, Ajzen et al., 1980) is well-accepted model that has been used successfully to explain behaviour across wide variety of settings (Chau, 1996, Chen et al., 2002, Davis et al., 1989, Venkatesh, 1999). According to TRA, an individual’s behaviour is best predicted by his/her behavioural intention which, in turn, is determined by the person’s attitudes and subjective norm (social influence) (Fishbein and Ajzen, 1975). This implies that individuals consider the implications of their actions before they decided to engage or actually engage in any given behaviour. This theory focuses on behaviour intentions rather than on attitudes that influence behaviour (Al-Quesi, n.d.). However, an individual may not always consider the implications of his actions. This too may differ across individuals and across situations. According to TRA an individual’s intention to perform behaviour encompasses two factors – attitudes the performance of behaviour and subjective norms. Behavioural intention refers to the strength of one’s intention to perform a specified behaviour (Davis et al., 1989). Attitude is defined as the degree to which an individual makes a positive or negative evaluation about certain behaviour (Alzharani, n.d.). It is a set of beliefs about the object under consideration. An individual’s attitude towards any object can be predicted with a high degree of accuracy if the researcher has knowledge about the individual’s beliefs about the attitude object and the evaluation aspects of these beliefs (Al-Quesi, n.d.). If an individual believes that e-banking is risky or cumbersome or economic, his action would depend upon the evaluation of the attribute, Subj ective norm is defined as beliefs about what others will think about the behaviour (Fishbein and Ajzen, 1975). It is also the social norm to perform or not perform behaviour (Alzharani, n.d.). That is, if an individual believes that most of people who are important to him perceive the outcome of performing the behaviour as positive, he/she will be more likely to perform the behaviour. Hence it can be defined as the individual’s perception of what most people would like, especially people who matter to him. The subjective norms are generally determined by