Attitudes and normative pressure: a social factors interdependency model.

• Author: ElShinnawy, Maha
• Position: Report

1. INTRODUCTION

   The importance of communication in organizational settings has long been recognized (Mintzberg, 1973). Communication is the cornerstone of any organizational change (Jick, 1993; Kotter, 1982). Information and communication technology can have significant effects on communication in organizations (Lind and Zmud, 1995; Huber, 1990) and thus the nature and success of organizational change (Ford and Ford, 1995). It seems highly likely that organizational change and the emergence of new organizational forms will be bound up in the use of new communication technologies. To the extent that people in organizations do not use these media or do not use them as anticipated, different organizational effects will be realized (Davis et al., 1989).

   Explaining how and why individuals use communication media has been a central concern for both practitioners and researchers alike. Understanding why people use and adopt computer systems in general and communication technologies in particular has proven to be one of the most challenging issues in IS research (Swanson, 1988; Davis et al. 1989; El-Shinnawy and Markus, 1997). In an attempt to build a theoretical foundation to explain media use, researchers have borrowed concepts and theories from other disciplines such as: Media richness theory--Daft and Lengel (1986), Technology Acceptance Model (Davis et al. 1989), Hermeneutic Interpretation (Lee 1994), Critical Social Theory (Ojelanki and Lee 1997), Social Information Processing theory (Salancik and Pfeffer, 1978). This has created a theoretical pluralism that, on the positive side, allows us to explain media choice in different contexts. This diversity, however, has lead to compartmentalization of research into either a traditionally rational and technologically deterministic perspective (Markus and Robey, 1988) or a social and more contextually based perspective (Markus, 1994).

   The Technology Acceptance Model is an important theoretical model (Davis, 1989) developed to explain technology use in organizations. This model is based on the Theory of Reasoned Action (Ajzen and Fishbein, 1975) and suggests that technology use is a function of perceptions of the usefulness and ease of use of the technology. Empirical evaluations of the model have, in general provided support especially for the usefulness construct in explaining technology use (Gefen and Straub, 1997; Hendrickson et al., 1993). When studying interpersonal technologies such as communication media however, results have been mixed (Adams et al. 1992; Davis, 1989). This has lead researchers to investigate other explanations that take into account the interactive nature of the new media.

   Some researchers have suggested extending existing theories to take social factors into account (Carlson and Zmud, 1994) such as symbolic cues (Trevino, Daft and Lengel, 1990), social influences (Fulk and Boyd, 1991; Fulk et al., 1990) and critical mass issues (Markus, 1987). These researchers contend that how and why individuals choose to use these newer media may be rooted in more social and structural considerations rather than simply a rational examination of the characteristics and features of a communication medium. These social perspectives may be seen as legitimate explanations complementing and not necessarily substituting for rational approaches to explaining media use.

   In this paper, we propose a model that extends the Technology Acceptance Model by incorporating a social component. Social influence (Fulk et al., 1987) which is based on the social information processing theory (Salancik and Pfeffer, 1978) suggests that social information is an important determinant of attitudes toward a system and thus system usage. The Social influence model suggests that the attitude and beliefs of individuals and thus their media use behavior is influenced by social information from coworkers, superiors and others that are highly regarded.

   The objective of this paper is to provide a theoretically based model that explains communication media use and affords a foundation to organizations for making decisions about the management and use of communication media (Zmud, 1995). We employ an integrative approach to try and capture the multiple influences on individual communication media choice and usage. The model proposes that multiple interrelated factors will be determinants of new media usage behavior in organizations. The objective is to build a theoretical base that preserves the differences between the theories, highlights the circumstances where the theories are interrelated and provides better explanatory power of media use in organizations. The paper tests the proposed model on one communication medium--voice mail--and then proceeds to replicate it and test its robustness for another communication medium--electronic mail. This provides for a partial test of the replicability and generalizability of the model to two new media. The specific questions addressed in this study are:

1. How well does the model explain new media usage?

2. What are the relationships among the theoretical constructs in the model?

3. How robust is the model? Is it replicable? How well does it apply to two new media?

   This study is important for a number of reasons. First, it heeds the call for theoretically-based empirical work that synthesizes and integrates work in this area rather than pitting theories against one another (Rice et al., 1994; Webster and Trevino, 1995). Second, the model proposes multiple influences on individual media choice and usage as well as relationships among these variables. Third, the paper employs structural equation modeling, to assess the proposed relationships among constructs, their measurement adequacy and to test the replicability of the model.

2. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

   There is intuitive appeal to the belief that individuals are rational beings that make decisions based on objective, quantifiable factors. In the case of research in the Information Systems field, investigations related to how and why individuals use technology have similarly been based on explanations that appeal to the notion that the characteristics of the system are primary determinants of use. Indeed, if a system is very difficult to use or proves not to have certain necessary functionality, we usually anticipate that adoption will be slow with limited diffusion. Within the rational perspective, The Technology Acceptance Model developed by Davis (1986, 1989; Davis et al. 1989), provides a solid foundation for investigating why individuals use computer technology.

   2.1. Technology Acceptance Model

   The Technology Acceptance Model employs the Theory of Reasoned Action (Fishbein and Ajzen, 1975) as a theoretical basis to understand the determinants of computer usage behavior. Two key elements: usefulness and ease of use are identified as predicting and explaining computer usage behavior. Usefulness is defined as the degree to which individuals believe that using the system would be beneficial to their job performance. That is, the extent to which individuals believe that using the system is important and useful in their job. Ease of use refers to the degree to which people believe that using the system is not cumbersome or effortful. These two determinants have been shown to be distinct constructs that affect usage. Mixed results have been found, however, when investigating the relationship of these two variables with system use (Adams et al., 1992; Szajna, 1996; Davis, 1989).

   Davis (1989) tested the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) on different technologies including electronic mail and found that both perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use were significantly correlated with usage. In an attempt to replicate the Davis (1989) study, Adams et al. (1992) conducted an empirical evaluation of TAM by testing the model on different technologies including electronic mail and voice mail. The latter study employed structural equation modeling to examine ease of use and usefulness as latent constructs that affect media use. The Adams et al. (1992) confirmed the convergent and discriminant validity of the usefulness and ease of use constructs and established that usefulness is relatively more important in explaining usage than ease of use. Interestingly, however, neither the electronic mail nor voice mail models provide an adequate fit to the data. Both models yield a poor fit to the data with high chi-square values and low p-values.

   In the same study, the model was tested on three other technologies, yielding an even poorer fit than for electronic mail and voice mail (Adams et al. 1992). Adams et al. conclude that there may be other factors that influence use and that, "specific system attributes, such as overall perceived usefulness, are related to usage but they cannot in isolation, be used to explain usage." The authors suggest that other factors may be explaining use.

   2.2. The Social Component

   While viewing individuals as rational beings is reasonable, it is also fair to assume that why we use technology as well as our perception of the characteristics of a technology may be socially determined. The notion that social factors affect our perceptions of the characteristics of an objective technology becomes more important when we consider technologies that are social in nature, i.e. those that allow social interaction such as communication media. The social nature of these technologies is what we believe is missing from the Technology Acceptance Model. The social element may explain some of the mixed results found when investigating determinants of communication media use.

   Interestingly, TAM is adapted from The Theory of Reasoned Action (Ajzen and Fishbein, 1980) which suggests a normative component referred to as subjective norm. Subjective norm is defined as a person's belief that most of her important others think that she should (or should not) perform the behavior in question...