Magister Public Health - MPH (Public Health) / Background and rationale: Telehealth is a collection of methods for enhancing health care, public health, and health education delivery and support using telecommunications technologies. Despite the many reported benefits of telehealth, there are challenges to its continued and widespread use in South Africa. It remains unclear what facilitates or hinders the integration of telehealth into routine clinical practice. Study aim and objectives: Drawing on the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT), this study investigated factors affecting healthcare workers' acceptance and use of telehealth in hospitals in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN). Specifically, it described the frequency and nature of telehealth use and the factors associated with technology acceptance; and evaluated the influence of socio-demographic factors (age, experience, profession, qualification) and acceptance factors on use and behavioural intention to use telehealth. Methods: A quantitative survey in seven hospitals (2 tertiary, 3 regional, 2 district) with telehealth facilities falling under the KZN Department of Health, was conducted. 177 medical, nursing, pharmacy and allied staff consented to complete an on-line, closed ended and structured self-administered questionnaire based on the UTAUT model. The responses to the individual likert scale items were assigned a score (1-4), and from this, total scores calculated for each construct. Respondent characteristics were converted into binary variables and associations with total scores on each of the UTAUT acceptance domains were tested using t-test. The associations between behavioural intention and actual use (as binary dependent variables); and the respondent profiles, scores for performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence, and facilitating conditions (independent variables) were assessed in two multivariate logistic regression models.

Social software technology has gained considerable popularity over the last decade and has had a great impact on hundreds of millions of people across the globe. Businesses have also expressed their interest in leveraging its use in business contexts. As a result, software vendors and business consumers have invested billions of dollars to use social software to improve business and employee productivity. The purpose of this study was to provide insights to business leaders and decision makers as they shaped their enterprise social software (ESS) delivery plans. A vast body of information exists on the benefits of ESS and its technical implementation, but little empirical research is available on employees' perceptions of ESS expectancy factors (i.e. usefulness and ease of use). This study focused on IT managers' perceptions of ESS expectancy factors to understand their behavioral intent to adopt ESS technology. Additional research was performed to uncover relationships and differences between IT Managers' adoption intentions and employee age, gender, and generational groups. Survey results were analyzed using a correlation research design and demonstrated significant relationships were found between IT managers' expectancy factors and their behavioral intent to adopt ESS technology. Differences were also demonstrated between IT managers' age, gender, and generational cohort groups. The results of this research should help business leaders gain insights into technology adoption factors among IT managers. Lastly, the practical applicability and opportunities for future research are discussed.

Because of the popularity of the 3G mobile technology and the development of digital broadcasting technologies, the mobile television (TV) has become a potential killer application within the telecom industry. This research examines mobile user¡¦s intention to use and the use behavior of mobile TV. The theory underlying the study is the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) that takes performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence, and facilitating condition as independent factors and the intention and behavior of usage as dependent variables. Two online surveys were conducted to evaluate the theory. The result from the first survey shows that the performance expectancy, the effort expectancy and the social influence factors have significant influences on the mobile TV user¡¦s intention toward using mobile TV services. The facilitating condition has a positive significant relationship with the usage behavior. The result different from the previous studies is no significant relationship between the intention and use behavior. However, the follow-up survey conducted a year later shows that the facilitating condition and intension to use have positive significant impacts on the use behavior. This study can help firms to better understand the factors that affect the intention and behavior of using mobile TV.

Instant Messaging ¡]IM¡^ has becomes an important tool of communication. Currently, eighty percent of the Internet users use IM to communicate each other. This study uses the dimensions of performance expectancy and effort expectancy of the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology and the interpersonal communication need to investigate factors that influence IM acceptance. There are 211 completed questionnaires were returned and analyzed. It¡¦s found that performance expectancy, effort expectancy, and interpersonal communication show significantly positive and significant impacts on IM users¡¦ intention. The intention significantly and positively affects their IM usage. According to the results, it¡¦s suggestted that IM software should make the IM more user-friendly and the software interface is not too complicated, so that users might feel that IM software is easy to use.

With increasing merging of the Internet in our daily lives, online shopping becomes a new consumption model. The study subject was female customers who did shopping online. By means of performance expectancy, effort expectancy and social influence in terms of Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) as well as involvement degree, the study explored if those variations had influenced female customers¡¦ intentions and behaviors on online shopping. We issued 240 questionnaires by purposive sampling and analyzed by quantitative statistics. The result shows that performance expectancy, effort expectancy and social influence originating from UTAUT significantly influenced female customers¡¦ intentions. Moreover, their intentions also significantly influenced their behavior online.

Learning Management Systems (LMSs) have been an essential part of the e-Learning ecosystem since the 1990s. LMSs have been developed and widely adopted by higher education institutions around the world. Despite the instructional and financial benefits of using LMSs, the adoption and diffusion of LMSs by faculty members continues to be challenging in higher education institutions, and particularly in developing countries. The purpose of this study is to determine the factors influencing the adoption of learning management systems (LMSs) by faculty members in Saudi Arabian higher education. The study employed a mixed method approach and applied the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) to explore these factors. Specifically, the study aims to determine the extent at which Performance Expectancy (PE), Effort Expectancy (EE), Facilitating Conditions (FC), and Social Norms (SN) influence faculty members' Behavioral Intention (BI) to adopt the Blackboard LMS. It also examines the moderating roles of age, gender, experience, perceived voluntariness, and computer self-efficacy on Performance Expectancy (PE), Effort Expectancy (EE), Social Norms (SN), and Facilitating Conditions (FC). The results of the study revealed a strong and positive correlation between performance expectancy and behavioral intention for Blackboard usage. The study also found Effort Expectancy, Facilitating Conditions, and Social Norms to be significant predictors of Behavioral Intention for Blackboard usage. Additionally, the findings show no moderation effects of age, gender, perceived voluntariness, and computer self-efficacy on Performance Expectancy, Effort Expectancy, Social Norms, and Facilitating Conditions. Experience was found to have a moderation effect on the relationship between Social Norms and Behavioral Intention. / Doctor of Philosophy / Learning Management Systems (LMSs) have been an essential part of the Electronic-Learning ecosystem since the 1990s. LMSs have been developed and widely adopted by higher education institutions around the world. Despite the instructional and financial benefits of using LMSs, the usage rate of LMSs by faculty members continues to be challenging in higher education institutions, and particularly in developing countries. The purpose of this study is to determine the factors influencing the usage of learning management systems (LMSs) by faculty members in Saudi Arabian higher education. The study employed a mixed method approach and applied the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) to explore these factors. Specifically, the study aims to determine the extent at which Performance Expectancy (PE), Effort Expectancy (EE), Facilitating Conditions (FC), and Social Norms (SN) influence faculty members' Behavioral Intention (BI) to adopt the Blackboard LMS. It also examines the moderating roles of age, gender, experience, perceived voluntariness, and computer self-efficacy on Performance Expectancy (PE), Effort Expectancy (EE), Social Norms (SN), and Facilitating Conditions (FC). The results of the study revealed a strong and positive correlation between performance expectancy and behavioral intention for Blackboard usage. The study also found Effort Expectancy, Facilitating Conditions, and Social Norms to be strong predictors of Behavioral Intention for Blackboard usage.

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