Understanding consumer adoption of broadband: an extension of the technology acceptance model

Broadband offers several benefits to consumers over its preceding technology 'narrowband'. Despite it offering such benefits, many countries are still experiencing low levels of adoption of broadband technology by consumers. This study presents an extended technology acceptance model (TAM) that integrates perceived resources, self-efficacy and social influence into the TAM in order to investigate factors determining consumer adoption of broadband. The model was empirically tested employing data collected from a survey of broadband consumers in the United Kingdom. A regression analysis was conducted to evaluate the influence of predictive constructs on behavioural intention to adopt broadband and actual adoption behaviour. Findings of the study indicated that all variables significantly affected consumers' behavioural intention to adopt broadband. The outcomes of the paper will be useful for the stakeholders such as internet service providers and governments interested in encouraging the adoption of broadband. The implications of this work to both researchers and practitioners is discussed. Journal of the Operational Research Society (2009) 60, 1322-1334. doi:10.1057/jors.2008.100 Published online 8 October 2008