Contextualizing usage research for interactive technology

Abstract

E-Commerce technologies are interactive in nature, yet most research on E-Commerce adoption and use fails to consider this feature and the technology's social context of use in its theorizing. In this paper, we seek to theorize the technological feature of interactivity in a social context of information asymmetry by studying the use of E-Commerce technology among car sales associates in the US. Drawing on Social Exchange Theory (Kelley, 1979), we develop a model of interactive technology use that incorporates the user's beliefs about his/her exchange partner, the user's attitude toward technology use and the technology's perceived usefulness for the work process it is impacting. After refining our model with insights gained from observations of and interviews with a few car sales associates, we then test our contextualized model of E-Commerce use with data collected from a national survey of car sales associates (n=137).Our results show that attitude and users' beliefs about their exchange partners improve our ability to predict IT use. Furthermore, the contexualization of TAM highlights the theory's assumptions about the unemotional and individually-focused nature of users' decision making with respect to IT use.

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