title: Customers’ Affective Responses Towards the Key Factors Influencing E-Commerce Adoption: Extended Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) Approach
Creators: name: Fatokun, BO
Publisher: name: Liverpool John Moores University
Year: 2023

description: The rate of e-commerce (EC) adoption in developing countries is generally lower than in developed countries. Moreover, little is known about the emotional dimensions of adopting EC in the retail sector of a developing country, with evidence from Nigeria. Therefore, this study uniquely focused on the importance of customers’ affective responses to the critical, context-specific EC adoption factors in a developing country. The aim was to investigate how customers’ emotional responses influence their online purchase intention and EC adoption. Subsequent to reviewing relevant literature, a preliminary conceptual research framework was developed. Grounded in a duality of the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) by Davis (1989) and the Stimulus Organism Response (SOR) theory by Mehrabian and Russel (1974), the developed conceptual framework provided a robust foundation for further empirical research. Data was collected in two phases: (1) quantitative data was collected in the first phase to test the integrated TAM and SOR framework using a survey questionnaire (312 adult internet users); and (2) qualitative data was collected in the second phase through semi-structured interviews (eight online shoppers). The quantitative data was analysed using robust analytic tools such as SPSS and AMOS. Whilst Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) was employed to examine the model fits and hypothesis testing, the NVivo Software was used to analyse the qualitative data. The findings indicated that six factors, perceived usefulness, legal factor, EC adoption awareness, reputation, customers’ positive emotional responses and IT infrastructure were found to be the significant predictors of online purchase intention within the Nigerian context. Whilst perceived usefulness was the most influential predictor of purchase intention to adopt EC; however, IT infrastructure was found to be the least influential factor. Moreover, positive and negative emotions played an amplifying role in mediating the effects of compatibility and EC awareness on purchase intention of the Nigerian customers. Whilst customers’ emotions partially mediated the relationship between EC awareness and purchase intention, the same fully mediated the relationship between compatibility and purchase intention. Overall, the study illustrates that the proposed model has a good explanatory power, hence robust in predicting and explaining EC adoption in Nigeria. The study provides an update to existing literature on technology acceptance and EC adoption factors. The theoretical implications include contributing to the debate on the impact of human emotions (affective responses) on, and their interconnections with, EC adoption. The proposed framework could facilitate domestic and multinational organisations to streamline online retailing strategies to gain business opportunities in developing economies. The findings may also benefit online retailers, policy makers and the society at large. This research also provides managers and online business retailers with the practical knowledge of the EC key factors’ ranking of importance and the influence of emotional responses variables from customers’ standpoint. Retailers could leverage on these valuable insights to formulate their business operations. Furthermore, the study provides useful recommendations to boost EC adoption in developing countries. These include awareness creation for customers, and collaborations between governments, the private sector, website designers and retailers on using digital channels for EC success through informative training. Finally, the work identifies key avenues for future research.