Institutional effects on the intention to adopt e-learning for business studies

The present study investigates the factors that influence the adoption of e-learning among adult postgraduate university students in Hong Kong. In particular, the study addresses the question of whether institutional factors affect students' decision to adopt e-learning in their studies. A composite model of four constructs (perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, perceived convenience and institutional effects) is proposed and tested in this quantitative survey of 125 part-time MBA students. The study finds that institutional effects and perceived convenience were the most important factors in a decision to adopt e-learning. The factors perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use did not have a significant relationship with the intention to adopt e-learning. The paper illustrates the theoretical and practical issues of social effects in the adoption of e-learning.

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