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1. Introduction
The continuing quest to ensure user acceptance of technology is an ongoing management challenge (Schwarz and Chin, 2007), and one that has occupied IS/IT researchers to such an extent that technology adoption and diffusion research is now considered to be among the more mature areas of exploration (Venkatesh et al., 2003). This substantial level of activity has witnessed the use of a wide range of exploratory techniques examining many different systems and technologies in countless different contexts, to the extent that even the most cursory examination of the extant body of literature will reveal a variety of stakeholder perspectives, technologies and contexts, units of analysis, theories, and research methods (Williams et al., 2009). This situation has in turn led to an element of confusion among researchers, as they are often forced to pick and choose characteristics across a wide variety of often competing models and theories. In response to this confusion, and in order to harmonize the literature associated with acceptance of new technology, Venkatesh et al. (2003) developed a unified model that brings together alternative views on user and innovation acceptance – The unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT).
The UTAUT (Figure 1) suggests that four core constructs (performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence and facilitating conditions) are direct determinants of behavioural intention and ultimately behaviour, and that these constructs are in turn moderated by gender, age, experience, and voluntariness of use (Venkatesh et al., 2003). It is argued that by examining the presence of each of these constructs in a “real world” environment, researchers and practitioners will be able to asses an individual’s intention to use a specific system, thus allowing for the identification of the key influences on acceptance in any given context. The theory was developed through the review and integration of eight dominant theories and models, namely: the Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA), the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), the Motivational Model, the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB), a combined TBP/TAM, the Model of PC Utilization, Innovation Diffusion Theory (IDT), and Social Cognitive Theory (SCT). These contributing theories and models have all been widely and successfully utilized by a large number of previous studies of technology or innovation adoption and diffusion within a...