Cultural Differences and Information Technology Acceptance

Abstract

One of the main streams of research in the IS field is the explanation and prediction of Information technology (IT) adoption and usage. Even though several theories have been developed to address this phenomenon a consensus about the determinants of IT usage has emerged among researchers in the IS field. Specifically, the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) (Davis, 1989) is considered to be the most parsimonious model in explaining IT use at the individual level. However, since individuals are conditioned by their culture, we propose to extend TAM such as we can understand the mechanism by which cultural differences could explain and predict behavior toward IT. Therefore, we integrate in our research model six cultural value-dimensions well established in the literature pertaining to comparative and cross-cultural management and showing a high variability between countries, which are “individualism/collectivism”, “power distance”, “masculinity/femininity”, “uncertainty avoidance” (Hofstede, 1997), “monochronic/polychromic time” (Trompenaars, Hampden-Turner, 1998, Hall, 1989) and “high context/low context”(Hall, 1989). A cross-sectional survey will be conducted in two subsidiaries of a multinational organization in two countries expected to be different enough in national cultural values.