Investigating Tanzania Government Employees' Acceptance and Use of Social Media : An Empirical Validation and Extension of UTAUT

Abstract

The aim of this paper was to present factors which influence work-related adoption of social media among government employees. The study adapted the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) and integrated it with three constructs namely Hedonic Motivation (HM), Perceived Personal Image (PI) and Attitude (AT). The sample of study consisted of 600 usable responses collected using survey questionnaire from employees based in Tanzania Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) employing convenience sampling technique. The data was analyzed using Structural Equation Modelling. The results showed that, PI and HM influence attitude (AT), while PI, Social Influence (SI) and AT influence Behavior Intention (BI). Moreover, SI, PI, AT and BI showed significant effect on actual Use Behavior. Furthermore, the results showed that PI is affected positively by HM and SI. The added constructs proved to be important modifications to the UTAUT model as suggested by the increase in explained variance by UTAUT from 70% to 73% on BI and from 53% to 73% on actual use behavior. KEYWORDS Web 2.0 and Social Media, Hedonic Motivation, Perceived Personal Image, Attitude, UTAUT, Government Employee, Tanzania.