The influence of external variables on the executives' use of the internet

Abstract

If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation. AbstractPurpose -The primary purpose of this paper is to test and augment the original technology acceptance model (TAM) with three external variables: computer attitude, computer self-efficacy and personality to study the use of the internet of the business executives not addressed previously. Design/methodology/approach -The study is based upon survey approach to collect the primary data from 105 business executives selected randomly. The study tests and augments the proposed model by using structural equation modeling techniques and explained 42 percent of the variance as shared by the three variables. The final model has shown the influence of computer attitude and self-efficacy on the TAM component. Finally, perceived usefulness (PU) directly affects the executives' use of the internet. Findings -The results show that computer attitude has a significant effect on perceived ease of use (PEOU). Whereas, computer self-efficacy has significant but negative effect on PU and has a positive and significant effect on PEOU.Research limitations/implications -The study has its own limitations and suggests that with the inclusion of some more variables R 2 could be enhanced and would be further improved by controlling the response biasness due to the self-reported items. The study also lacks direction in assessing the problems faced by the executives at the inter-organizational level. Practical implications -The study has practical significance as at the inter-organizational level these external variables are under the direct control of the top management and by capitalizing on them through structured training program improved self-efficacy and by adding variety to the task of executives, the management could further expedite the use of the internet. Originality/value -This preliminary work adds value to the existing knowledge and supports the previous work that PU belief segments have relationship to predict the behavior intentions to use the technology. The study concludes that business executives consider ease of use as a fundamental belief that helps them to achieve the usefulness component of the technology.

Why Some Internet Users Don’t Buy Air Tickets Online

“…The combination of uncertainty (likelihood of loss) and danger (cost of the loss), which are components of perceived risk, reduce perceived usefulness and adoption. This relation has also been found by Cheng et al (2006) and Seyal and Rahman (2007), so that the greater the perceived risk, the lower the perceived value of use of the system to acquire the product. Previous studies have found that ease of use reduces the uncertainty and risk of system use (Feathernan and Pavlou, 2003).…”

Empirical investigation on factors influencing the behavioral intention to use Facebook

“…Based on his definition, Adams et al [1] and Davis [8] find perceived usefulness to be a major determinant of use behavior and intention. Perceived usefulness was found to have positively influenced the behavioral intention to use a computer system [14,16,17,19,20,33,39,41,45]. Subramanian [42] reaffirms two salient belief measurements (perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use), using a new data set for two different technologies, and finds that PU, instead of PEU, has a direct effect on use behavior employing structural equation modeling (SEM).…”

Gender, Age, and Education: Do They Really Moderate Online Music Acceptance?

“…In fact, effectively accessing music and relevant information has become one of the key benefits sought by online music consumers. Perceived Usefulness was found to have positively influenced the Behavioural Intention to use a computer system (Fagan, Wooldridge, & Neill, 2008;Guriting & Ndubisi, 2006;Ha & Stoel, 2009;Hsu, Wang, & Chiu, 2009;Huang, 2008;Norazah, Ramayah, & Norbayah, 2008;Norazah, Ramayah, & Michelle, 2010;Ruiz-Mafe´, SanzBlas, Aldas-Manzano, 2009;Seyal & Rahman, 2007;Tong, 2009). Hence, this study believes that Perceived Value will increase with Perceived Usefulness of online music.…”