Internet Adoption at the User Level: Empirical Evidence from The Gambia

The unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) are used to investigate technology adoption. However, its application in Sub-Saharan Africa is rare and barely extended to the validation phase. In this paper, we introduce six new moderating factors for UTAUT core determinants and two other direct determinants of Internet adoption. The objective of this approach is to identify relevant elements of Internet adoption at the user level in The Gambia. Moderating factors are interacting terms used when the relationship between independent and dependent variable is weak, inconsistent or non-existent. A case study research design was employed and the data were gathered in Autumn of 2012. A total of 200 questionnaires were administered to randomly selected students from the University of the Gambia. The students represented all administrative regions of the country. Our results suggest that Internet adoption at the user level in The Gambia can be viewed as a three-layered pyramid. It consists of seven moderating factors (age, gender, experience, voluntary use, friends' influence, Internet service providers and regulators), four indirect determinants (performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence and facilitating conditions) and three direct determinants (education, behavioral intention and income). This paper proposes an Internet adoption framework. We recommend it to be tested and validated in other African countries in order to determine its applicability.

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