Personal innovativeness, social influences and adoption of wireless Internet services via mobile technology

Technology acceptance research has tended to focus on instrumental beliefs such as perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use as drivers of usage intentions, with technology characteristics as major external stimuli. Behavioral sciences and individual psychology, however, suggest that social influences and personal traits such as individual innovativeness are potentially important determinants of adoption as well, and may be a more important element in potential adopters' decisions. This paper models and tests these relationships in non-work settings among several latent constructs such as intention to adopt wireless mobile technology, social influences, and personal innovativeness. Structural equation analysis reveals strong causal relationships between the social influences, personal innovativeness and the perceptual beliefs-usefulness and ease of use, which in turn impact adoption intentions. The paper concludes with some important implications for both theory research and implementation strategies. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.