Magister Commercii (Information Management) - MCom(IM) / The micro-enterprise sector, although associated with mostly informal businesses, shows promise of potential and transitioning to more formal businesses. With this in mind, the South African government recognizes that prioritized sectorial development is needed to stimulate growth particularly in the micro-enterprise sector. Considering that evidence reveals growth and development in small business practices being closely related to the use of different forms of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), if and when strategically applied. Therefore recognizing the importance of ICTs the South African government has embarked on various technology related initiatives to facilitate needed growth and development. Despite this, entrepreneurs in the micro-enterprise sector demonstrate a low uptake of ICTs for their business operations, including the use of mobile technologies which are the most common form of ICTs available to micro- entrepreneurs. Many previous studies have investigated the adoption and use of mobile technologies in the micro- enterprise sector, but despite this a low uptake of mobile technologies still exists. For this reason, this study investigates and empirically determines the factors influencing the adoption and use of mobile applications for micro-enterprise operations in South Africa, using the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) model as a lens. The research population comprised a group of micro-entrepreneurs who all are users of a common mobile application (mentorship-movement application). The main aim of the investigation was to determine (i) the factors influencing the adoption and use of mobile applications for micro- enterprise operation, (ii) if the experience gained and their satisfaction associated with using the mentorship-movement application will influence their behavioural intention to use other mobile applications for business. The study was conducted objectively and used hypothesis testing as the means of investigation. Data was collected through the use of a survey questionnaire. The findings of the study indicate that performance expectancy and effort expectancy positively influences the micro-entrepreneurs behavioural intention to adopt and use mobile applications for micro-enterprise operations. The findings also observed that social influence has no impact on the micro-entrepreneurs’ behavioural intention to adopt and use mobile applications for business. Facilitating conditions and behavioural intention were found to positively influence the use behaviour of the micro-entrepreneurs when it comes to adoption and use of mobile applications for business. Moreover, the findings confirmed that experience and satisfaction in using one mobile application does not influence the behavioural intention of the micro-entrepreneurs to use other mobile applications for business. The factors which have been found to bear influence on the adoption and use of mobile applications amongst micro-entrepreneurs in South Africa have implications for both policy and practice. In particular, the findings of this study may be used to inform the design of the various programmatic interventions which seek to improve outcomes of the micro-entrepreneur sector. This includes interventions by the Department of Small Business Development and that of the Small Enterprise Development Agency (SEDA).

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With the advent of the digital age, e-book reading has become one of the popular reading methods, and has been a hot research topic. The attitudes to the use of new technology, use intentions and usage behaviours have attracted much attentions from scholars. In this context, it is worthwhile to study the user’s intention to use e-books and what factors influence it.   Based on the UTAUT model and the previous research and literature, this study designed the research model and hypotheses that were consistent with the actual situations of this study, and conducted an empirical study of the user’s intention to use e-books. In this study, 320 valid samples were collected through an online questionnaire survey. Analysis of the collected data was performed using the SPSS and AMOS software to examine the research model and hypotheses and make corrections to them. It was found that the effort expectancy, facilitating conditions and individual innovation had significant influences on the use intention. The facilitating conditions had a significant influence on the effort expectancy. Moreover, the moderating effects of age, gender and education level were also found. However, the performance expectancy, social influence and perceived cost did not have a significant influence on the use intention.  Finally, this thesis proposed suggestions on how to influence users’ intention to use e-books, i.e. paying attentions to users’ needs, improving the quality of e-books, optimising e-book functions, and broadening the channels for e-book promotion.

The purpose of this study is to investigate whether consumers’ negative emotions (loss and deterrence emotions) toward new e-banking technology influence their behavioral intention to adopt new emerging e-banking technology. This thesis tries to integrate the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) with emotion as a non-cognitive factor and perceived risk as a well-known influential factor in the banking context. The Partial Least Square Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) was used for analyzing its conceptual model and hypotheses. To test the hypotheses and model of this paper, a sample of 109 students as young consumers of new emerging e-banking technology was collected in Sweden. The findings support the negative relationship between loss emotions and effort expectancy as one of the cognitive factors of the UTAUT. Loss emotions could impact consumers’ behavioral intentions through consumers’ effort expectancy and performance expectancy. Moreover, the results show that perceived risk and performance expectancy are the strongest predictors of consumers' behavioral intention to adopt new emerging e-banking technology respectively while social influence and hedonic motivation do not show a statistically significant impact on consumers’ behavioral intention. The present study contributes to previous research by examining the influence of a broad range of negative emotions on consumers' behavioral intention to adopt new e-banking technology. To the best of the author’s knowledge, there exists no other study referring to this issue neither in the banking industry nor with the Swedishenvironment.

Increased breach occurrences in healthcare cause concern for health information as reported by the Federal Government. Significant effort, regulations, and safeguards are in place to protect the systems used in the healthcare industry. Employee handling of security remains an area of vulnerability related to security protocols. The unified theory of acceptance and usage of technology (UTAUT) served as the model for this qualitative exploratory study with the purpose of understanding registered nurse (RN) perceptions and lived experiences related to IT security. Face-to-face interviews were conducted with 20 participants from the Three Rivers Chapter American Association Critical Care Nurses. Transcribed data were analyzed with a priori codes aligned to the constructs of UTAUT and emergent themes. The emergent themes from the RNs' lived experiences revealed perceptions of IT security mishandling, including walking away from the computer without log-off, and sharing of accounts through single sign on authenticated badges. Strategic planning for the organizational IT security may be strengthened due to the insight about the RNs' workflow related to IT security. Understanding employee perceptions, expressed intentions, and self-reported behaviors to IT security allows for the ability as managers to apply that knowledge to IT security systems, access methods, and implement procedures that will provide for increased organizational IT security and increased patient confidence. The social change from this work may provide contributions to the development of IT infrastructure systems for healthcare helping to create and maintain continued access to and availability of electronic medical records and data for increasing numbers of people who need health maintenance and care.

The Digital Agenda for Europe (2015) states that there will be 825,000 unfilled vacancies for Information and Communications Technology by 2020. This lack of IT professionals stems from the small number of students graduating in computer science. To retain more students in the field, teachers can use remote robotic experiments to explain difficult concepts. This correlational study used the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) to examine if performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence, and facilitating conditions can predict the intention of high school computer science teachers in Cyprus, to use remote robotic experiments in their classes. Surveys, based on the UTAUT survey instrument, were collected from 90 high school computer science teachers in Cyprus, and a multiple regression analysis was used to measure the correlations between the constructs and finally the model fit of the analysis. The model was able to predict approximately 35% of the variation of the teachers' intent to use remote robotic experiments. The biggest predictor was facilitating conditions followed by effort expectancy. Performance expectancy had little impact, whereas social influence had no impact on the intention of high school teachers to use remote robotic experiments in their classes. These results can help curriculum decision makers in the Ministry of Education in Cyprus to examine what factors affect the acceptance of remote robotic experiments and develop them in ways that would increase their implementation in high schools. By incorporating remote robotic experiments in high schools, students may learn difficult concepts, leading to an increase in computer science graduates and ultimately an increase in IT professionals.

The changes in educational technology present challenges for K-12 principals leading students and faculty who are more engaged with classroom technology. The role of self-directed learning and how K-12 principals adopt the technology while leading the deployment and implementation of classroom technologies is not known due to a limited amount of empirical research. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between technology adoption and self-directed learning by K-12 principals. Using the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology as the theoretical framework, a quantitative cross-sectional study was designed. The survey instruments, Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology and Personal Responsibility Orientation Self-Directed Learning Scale were used to collect data from K-12 principals in the state of Arkansas. A regression and correlational analysis of the responses from 40 principals revealed a small positive but not statistically significant relationship between self-directed learning and technology adoption. The results also showed strong and moderate statistically significant correlations between the constructs of technology adoption and self-directed learning. The results from this research may provide a framework for pre-service and ongoing professional development of educational technology leadership. This study addresses positive social change by providing insight to administrators and bringing greater awareness to technology adoption. A greater awareness may increase their understanding of classroom technologies and may provide a foundation for better stewardship over public funds and purposeful engagement with students, parents, and the community.

The importance of aligning information technology and business strategies to exploit capabilities and change business practices has increased as firms strive for competitive advantage in a diverse and changing marketplace. Nevertheless, over 50% of firms implementing enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems ranked expected process and value enhancements as inadequate, whereas only 13% indicated that implementations met their needs. The unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) model formed the conceptual framework of this single case study. The study comprised a purposeful sampling of 8 business managers in Southeast Alabama working in related job roles and based on established eligibility criteria. Data collection involved semistructured interviews, casual observations, and document analysis. Through method triangulation and predetermined themes directly related to the UTAUT conceptual framework, 5 themes emerged: management endorsement, change management, training and education, dedicated resources, and governance. Results of this research may influence the elimination of key barriers central in the deployment and adoption of ERP systems by the public sector. The study's implications for positive social change include the potential to enhance social and intellectual capital formation through recognizing strategies that mitigate employees' gender and age variances during an ERP implementation.

Technically-driven medical devices such as wireless implantable medical devices (WIMD) have become ubiquitous within healthcare. The use of these devices has changed the way nurses administer patient care. Consequently, the nursing workforce is large and diverse, and with it comes an expected disparity in personalities. Research involving human factors and technology acceptance in healthcare is not new. Yet due to the changing variables in the manner of which patient care is being administered, both in person and in the mechanism of treatment, recent research suggests that individual human factors such as personality traits may hold unknown implications involving more successful adoption of emerging technologies for patient care. The purpose of this research was to empirically investigate the influence of personality traits on a nurse’s intention to use WIMDs for patient care. One hundred and two nurses from a tertiary teaching hospital in Michigan were surveyed to determine if their identifiable personality traits statistically related to their intention to use a WIMD. A predictive model was developed by combining constructs from the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) model and the Five Factor personality trait model (FFM). The model used moderated multiple regression (MMR) to statistically identify if the personality traits of openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism, moderated one or more statistically significant relationships between 1) performance expectancy (PE) and intention to use (IU), 2) effort expectancy (EE) and IU, 3) and social influence (SI) and IU. It was predicted that PE, EE, and SI would show statistical significance on a nurse’s IU of a WIMD when moderated by one or more of the five personality traits. Results showed statistical significance between PE and IU, and EE and IU, but not between SI and IU, when moderated by extraversion. Results showed no statistical significance between PE and IU, EE and IU, or SI and IU when moderated by openness, conscientiousness, agreeableness, or neuroticism. This research has contributed by conducting an investigation on individual human factors that may impact nurses’ intention to use emerging technologies; and by providing statistical evidence that may help to better predict the role personality traits have on a nurse’s adoption of WIMDs for patient care.

In educational institutions, the use of technology has been used to compliment face to face learning or used alone to deliver the educational needs and learning process for distance education. Where used alone, it is said to be online learning and where it has complimented traditional learning it can be said to be hybrid or blended learning. Before the pandemic, the question of choice or the voluntary use of these technology was there, and the student determined what was best suited for their educational and learning needs. This study looks at the how the students related with technology during the pandemic. It looks at constructs like performance expectancy, fit for use, effort expectancy, fit for task and ends with investigating the student’s perception on intention for future use. Using a mixed approach, the perception of students was sampled. First by using a quantitative method, hinged on the novelty of the disruption to reveal areas that could be of potential interest and then a qualitative method followed. The purpose of using a mixed method approach was for completeness and complimentary reasons. The results of the qualitative data and quantitative data were bridged to form meta-inferences, and these were used to answer the research questions and discuss the findings. The study revealed that technology was easy to use without little or no technical issues, it was fit for the task at hand, it aided the students to achieve their academic goals and needs, but intention to retain the use of technology for future academic activities was not welcomed. This was due to social factors like lack of motivation, feeling of isolation, lack of social interaction been missing but available in traditional classes. these are critical factors that affect the retention of technology for future use. In the presence of choice, they would rather go back to the traditional mode. They integration of technology with traditional mode of learning, i.e., blended mode of learning was highly welcomed.