Technology Acceptance Model - History

History

TAM is one of the most influential extensions of Ajzen and Fishbein’s theory of reasoned action (TRA) in the literature. It was developed by Fred Davis and Richard Bagozzi (Davis 1989, Bagozzi, Davis & Warshaw 1992). TAM replaces many of TRA’s attitude measures with the two technology acceptance measures— ease of use, and usefulness. TRA and TAM, both of which have strong behavioural elements, assume that when someone forms an intention to act, that they will be free to act without limitation. In the real world there will be many constraints, such as limited freedom to act (Bagozzi, Davis & Warshaw 1992).

Bagozzi, Davis and Warshaw say:

Because new technologies such as personal computers are complex and an element of uncertainty exists in the minds of decision makers with respect to the successful adoption of them, people form attitudes and intentions toward trying to learn to use the new technology prior to initiating efforts directed at using. Attitudes towards usage and intentions to use may be ill-formed or lacking in conviction or else may occur only after preliminary strivings to learn to use the technology evolve. Thus, actual usage may not be a direct or immediate consequence of such attitudes and intentions. (Bagozzi, Davis & Warshaw 1992)

Earlier research on the diffusion of innovations also suggested a prominent role for perceived ease of use. Tornatzky and Klein (Tornatzky & Klein 1982) analysed the adoption, finding that compatibility, relative advantage, and complexity had the most significant relationships with adoption across a broad range of innovation types. Eason studied perceived usefulness in terms of a fit between systems, tasks and job profiles, using the terms "task fit" to describe the metric (quoted in Stewart 1986)