EXTENDING THE TECHNOLOGY ACCEPTANCE MODEL BY INCLUSION OF PERCEIVED RISK

This work in progress proposes to extend the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) as conceived by Venkatesh and Davis (2000) to include a measure of negative utility, perceived risk of service usage (Bauer, 1960). Valence Theory (Lewin, 1944) tells us that by measuring both costs and benefits of product usage we can improve our understanding of product evaluation. An investigation of the individual adoption of Internet-based e-payment systems was performed using e-billpay software as the research context. The research was performed to better understand consumer evaluations and adoption intentions of an Internet-based information system during conditions of uncertainty and perceived risk. A scale to operationalize the construct perceived risk was created and included in factor and regression analysis of the TAM2 variables, yielding a variable that significantly inhibited e-payment system evaluation and adoption intention. Preliminary results support inclusion of a measure of perceived risk when researching user acceptance of Internet-based e-payment systems. This finding may extend to other e-commerce software-based consumer services, and organizational adoption contexts. Extending TAM by inclusion of perceived risk may improve the models' predictive validity when investigating adoption of application service provider (ASP) systems, and other web-services.