Study of Consumer’s Intention to Use of E-Wallet: with Extended UTAUT2 Reward and Technological Innovation
Authors:   Department of Commerce & Business Administration,  University of Allahabad, Upadhyay Shivam 
Published: June 2024

Consumers in the 21st century are living in a world transformed by contactless transactions, a product of the digital revolution. This technology is woven into the fabric of daily life, offering solutions for everything from morning coffee purchases to late-night bill payments. From shopping and salons to education, food delivery, money transfers, and public transport, contactless payments are ubiquitous. This constant presence fosters a consumer behavior that embraces new technologies and innovation. The rise of mobile payments, driven by advancements in technology, has fundamentally altered the payment landscape. Consumers now have the power to turn their smartphones into convenient payment tools. The emergence of the Internet and smartphones in the 21st century has made information technology an essential aspect of human existence, which were mostly accessible to organizational users in the late 20th century. Research on technology adoption and diffusion is well-established in the current literature on information systems (IS). IS researchers are constantly seeking to comprehend the different factors that influence individuals' acceptance and utilization of emerging information technology (IT) (Hughes et al., 2016, 2017, Hughes et al., 2020). This extensive research field has seen a variety of research methods being used to study a wide range of technologies in different countries. The existing literature has uncovered numerous theories, contexts, units of analysis, and research methods (Dwivedi & Williams, 2008; Choudrie & Dwivedi, 2005; Williams et al., 2009). The diverse research contexts, which include technology, user type, location, adoption time, and task done, have led to the emergence of numerous conflicting theories and models. The Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), Diffusion of Innovation (DoI), Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB), and Task Technology Fit (TTF) Theory have been commonly used to study various aspects of adoption and diffusion (Dwivedi et al., 2006, 2007; Dwivedi and Weerakkody, 2007; Kapoor et al., 2014). Venkatesh et al. (2003) created the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) by thoroughly examining eight prominent technology adoption models. This theory focuses on the practical value (external motivation) that technology brings to users in an organizational setting. It eliminates any overlapping or repetitive concepts to streamline the theory (Venkatesh et al., 2003). The emergence of consumer technologies required the expansion of the UTAUT model to include the consumer context, with a focus on the hedonic value (intrinsic motivation) of technology users. As a result, three additional concepts, namely hedonic motivation, price value, and habit, were included in the original UTAUT model. This updated version is known as UTAUT2. However, in UTAUT2, the concept of voluntariness of use was eliminated as a moderator because customers do not have any organizational mandate. Additionally, in many cases, consumer behavior is voluntary (Venkatesh et al., 2012). The UTAUT2 hypothesis has a significantly greater predictive power compared to UTAUT. It can explain around 74 percent of the variation in customers' behavioral intention and 52 percent of the variation in consumers' technological usage of the focus technology (Venkatesh et al., 2016).