| During the last few years, high-speed 3G mobile technologies have been proliferating rapidly, signaling prospects for the mobile Internet. However, such great expectation is only an anticipation of the marketers in mobile telecommunication industry, and while the projected numbers are not fully guaranteed to be attained, there still exist controversies regarding the future of mobile Internet and m-commerce. After an extensive review of the m-commerce literature, we found that little has been studied on the factors that drive the users' acceptance of this new technology. This dissertation specifically examines the main factors that drive technology acceptance by testing the effects of TTF and Social Influence on the TAM model's variables in the context of m-commerce.; An experimental setting was conceived to artificially create a 3 x 2 (positive/neutral/negative social influence by good/poor task-technology fit) between-subjects factorial design, in which subjects were randomly assigned to one of six conditions. A total of 210 college students participated in the study. Data analysis results indicated that there are significant main effects of Social Influence and TTF, as well as interaction effects, on users' perceptions and intention to use.; Based on these findings the followings could be inferred: First, positive social influence was crucial in forming positive perception on a new technology and high intention to use it, and when combined with appropriate goodness of fit between task and technology, the effect on use intent would maximize. Second, although task-technology fit impacts the users' success of trials in finding music titles, it does not directly affect their perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness, but rather has an indirect effect through perceived TTF. Third, perceived ease of use has almost no effect on perceived usefulness and use intent, but instead, perceived usefulness was found to significantly associate with users' willingness to use a new technology. These findings suggest that as much as TTF plays an important role in shaping and changing users' perception on new mobile technologies, social influence is equally, if not more, influential when it comes to the decisions of these new users toward an intention to actually use them. |
