Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology: A Synthesis and the Road Ahead

By V. Venkatesh, James Y. L. Thong, Xin Xu. Journal of the AIS, 2016

2,394 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) is a little over a decade old and has been used extensively in information systems (IS) and other fields, as the large number of citations to the original paper that introduced the theory evidences. In this paper, we review and synthesize the IS literature on UTAUT from September 2003 until December 2014, perform a theoretical analysis of UTAUT and its extensions, and chart an agenda for research going forward. Based on Weber’s (2012) framework of theory evaluation, we examined UTAUT and its extensions along two sets of quality dimensions; namely, the parts of a theory and the theory as a whole. While our review identifies many merits to UTAUT, we also found that the progress related to this theory has hampered further theoretical development in research into technology acceptance and use. To chart an agenda for research that will enable significant future work, we analyze the theoretical contributions of UTAUT using Whetten’s (2009) notion of cross-context theorizing. Our analysis reveals several limitations that lead us to propose a multi-level framework that can serve as the theoretical foundation for future research. Specifically, this framework integrates the notion of research context and cross-context theorizing with the theory evaluation framework to: (1) synthesize the existing UTAUT extensions across both the dimensions and the levels of the research context and (2) highlight promising research directions. We conclude with recommendations for future UTAUT-related research using the proposed framework.

Subfields: Information Systems and Management, Management Science and Operations Research, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/b742012401207ccc945e187a79b3ac797e9f4b15

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Citations in the corpus

The battle of Brain vs. Heart: A literature review and meta-analysis of "hedonic motivation" use in UTAUT2 (2019, methodology): “This study deemed an integrated approach of “narrative review”, “citation reference search” and “meta-analysis” as appropriate to synthesise research findings from UTAUT2 based studies ( e.g., Dwivedi et al,, 2017; King & He, 2006; Venkatesh et al., 2016; Zhao et al., 2017).”
Evaluating the factors that influence blockchain adoption in the freight logistics industry (2020, background): “Currently, the adoption of blockchains by the freight logistics industry is still at its nascent stage (Wang et al, 2019), although research on the adoption of information technology is one of the most mature streams of IS research (Venkatesh et al, 2016).”
Understanding managers’ attitudes and behavioral intentions towards using artificial intelligence for organizational decision-making (2021, methodology): “Due to their popularity, numerous researchers have undertaken systematic literature reviews and offered comprehensive analysis and evaluation on their applications, effectiveness and limitations (e.g. Venkatesh and Davis, 2000; Venkatesh et al., 2016; Williams et al., 2015).”
Transparency and trust in artificial intelligence systems (2020, methodology): “While the original model focussed on perceived usefulness and ease of use (Davis, 1989; Venkatesh & Davis, 2000), numerous extensions and variations have considered additional drivers, factors, moderators, and outcomes within the broader area of technology acceptance (Venkatesh et al., 2016).”
Determinants of Continuous Intention on Food Delivery Apps: Extending UTAUT2 with Information Quality (2019, background): “A stronger perception of ease of use will lead to a greater intention to use the technology [12,47,48].”
Determinants of E-government Adoption: Testing the Mediating Effects of Perceived Usefulness and Perceived Ease of Use (2019, background): “In order to describe how users come to accept and use technology applications, many theories and models have been developed (Abu-Dalbouh, 2013; Kurfal ı et al., 2017; Venkatesh, Thong, & Xu, 2016; Verkijika & De Wet, 2018).”
User Acceptance of Mobile Apps for Restaurants: An Expanded and Extended UTAUT-2 (2019, background): “Basically, most studies have been limited to testing the direct effects [36], so the users could have changed their beliefs in relation to the ITC.”
The extended Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT2): A systematic literature review and theory evaluation (2021, methodology): “In order to address above shortcomings, this study adopted the contextualisation approach of Johns (2006) that is becoming more popular in the IS field (Hong et al., 2013; Venkatesh et al., 2016) to evaluate UTAUT2 extensions.”
“Chatting with ChatGPT”: Analyzing the factors influencing users' intention to Use the Open AI's ChatGPT using the UTAUT model (2023, methodology): “The UTAUT model itself was developed based on a review of existing technology acceptance models, and its creators acknowledged that it is not an exhaustive model and that other factors may also impact technology acceptance [29].”
A multi-level model on automated vehicle acceptance (MAVA): a review-based study (2019, methodology): “We follow the proposition of Venkatesh, Thong, and Xu (2016) and locate potentially relevant determinants of AVA at two levels: meso and micro.”