The emancipatory potential of a new information system and its effect on technology acceptance

Abstract

The Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) currently enjoys the status of being the leading predictive tool for testing user acceptance of new technologies. Despite IS researchers and practitioners holding the model in high esteem, this study exposes some of its limitations when applied to a study of shop-floor users in South Africa. In search of an alternative theory explaining why these users so openly embraced the new information system, it emerges that the Critical Social Theory (CST) of Jurgen Habermas provides the most relevant insight. The use of the CST perspective reveals how these users view the new system as a potential means with which to achieve emancipation from their otherwise dreary existence as product inspectors. This thesis argues that this emancipatory potential offered by the new system played a major role in its successful acceptance.

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