Factors Influencing The Adoption Of Mobile Commerce In Pakistan: An Extension Of TAM

The rapid growth of mobile telecommunication technology combined with high penetration rate of internet is promoting m-commerce as a significant application for both consumers and enterprises. M-commerce is thought to be the next big phase in technology involvement following the e-commerce era. To get the benefit of ubiquity many organization and individuals are moving from traditional commerce/e-commerce to m-commerce. However, its adoption rate and level of use is low in Pakistan compared to other developing and developed countries. This study was carried out to investigate the main cause of slow adoption rate of m-commerce in Pakistan. The study of technology adoption behavior is an important research agenda in the field of marketing and information management system(MIS). This research seeks to identify some variables that have impact on intention to adopt m-commerce technology in Pakistan.This dissertation provides insight as to how internal and external beliefs affect consumer adoption behavior in m-commerce. This research extends technology acceptance model(TAM) by integrating with the diffusion of innovation(DOI) theory and some additional variables such as word of mouth, ubiquity and self-efficacy. The effect of trust on consumers’ intention to adopt m-commerce also measured with personality traits based factors, social influence and perceived risk. Furthermore, in this study the effect of perceived risk on consumers’ intention to adopt m-commerce also examined with trialability and cost.This research is conducted with a survey of 420 university students from Pakistan who have smart phones and some m-commerce relevant experience. The collected data is used to test the hypothesis of this research model. In the present research, extended TAM gave a useful and helping stand for explaining to consumer’s m-commerce adoption behavior. The results of data analysis confirm that between the two constructs of perceived ease use(PEOU), self-efficacy(SE) has a significant influence on PEOU toward intention to adopt m-commerce. An individual with an expertise in use of mobile devices for Internet surfing is more appropriate to adopt m-commerce. In order to increase the adoption rate of m-commerce in Pakistan telecommunication companies and m-commerce service providers should require to motivating their consumers. The result of this study showed that complexity(CXTY) has no effect on PEOU toward intention to adopt m-commerce. A possible explanation of this unexpected result is that the concept of 3G, 4G and m-commerce is new in Pakistan and the young generation is very curious about it. Therefore, the complex system could not be changed their perceptions about easiness.With regard to perceived usefulness(PU), the results of this study showed that trialability(TR) is not a significant determinant of PU towards intention to adopt m-commerce in Pakistan. Our findings are similar to Chong et al.(2012) that trialability has no relationship in explaining the intention to adopt 3G in China. A possible explanation of this unexpected result is that people already familiar with the importance of m-commerce. The results of this study also showed that ubiquity(U) has a significant influence on PU towards intention to adopt m-commerce. Due to energy crises there is a shortage of electricity in Pakistan, which is a problem for Internet users and other individuals. Therefore, the uses of mobile devices overcome that problem and consumer can access m-commerce anytime anywhere, which increase the consumers’ perception about its usefulness. The results of this study showed that word of mouth(WOM) and compatibility(CMTY) are not significant predictors of PU towards intention to adopt m-commerce. The findings of this study provide a viability test examining that perceived risk(PR), cost(C) are very strong predictors to determine the m-commerce adoption in Pakistan. Furthermore, trialability(TR) has significant influence on perceived risk towards intention to adopt m-commerce. The results also showed that trust(T) did not provide a strong impact on intention to adopt m-commerce in Pakistan.The main contributions of this study is that it provides many valuable suggestions to accelerate the adoption rate of m-commerce in Pakistan, such as free trial of m-commerce technology is the best way to minimize the risk perception and ultimately increase the adoption rate of m-commerce. Furthermore, covering more and more mobile network area and provide fast Internet on mobile devices which enhance the consumers’ perception of usefulness.