Forced Virtuality during COVID-19: A Multigroup Perspective on Technology Acceptance of Public Digital Services

Abstract

Social distancing received top priority during the COVID-19 crisis, resulting in new users of public digital services (PDS) with heterogeneous use motivation. While some users decided to use a PDS voluntarily and independently of COVID-19, others were forced to use PDS because of the COVID-19 lockdown. Based on technology acceptance models, we compared forced users (N1= 346) and voluntary users (N2= 315) using latent multigroup analysis. First-time users of a PDS (N=661) participated in the survey after reporting a crime online to the police. Results showed that forced and voluntary users differed regarding key factors (performance expectancy, effort expectancy, behavioral intention) and antecedents (system trust, ICT self-concept) of technology acceptance with less positive values for forced users. Further, forced users had stronger needs for system trust and usefulness (performance expectancy) than voluntary users, revealing user group-specific predictive values. The lessons learned for PDS design and marketing beyond pandemic times are discussed