An Exploration and Identification of Technology Usage Inhibitors

	Special Guest Lectures
	An Exploration and Identification of Technology Usage Inhibitors
	Ronald T. Cenfetelli, University of British Columbia
	Assistant Professor of Management Information Systems, Sauder School of Business
	Johnston Hall 338 February 21, 2008 - 01:00 pm
Abstract: There has been extensive investigation into the perceptions held by an individual that are predictive of that individual adopting technology. Theoretical models such as the technology acceptance and user satisfaction models have helped tremendously to advance our knowledge of why individuals choose to use technology. However, the fundamental approach towards identifying these perceptions has been to focus on those that facilitate technology adoption, such as, perceived usefulness, system reliability, or relative advantage. Far less attention has been paid to those perceptions that inhibit adoption. As a result, there may well be overlooked usage inhibitors that have a uniquely negative influence on the adoption decision and thus foster rejection. A significant challenge in exploring inhibitors is finding factors that are non-trivial, i.e., more than simply the antipole of those factors that facilitate adoption. The goal of this paper is to identify those factors that are uniquely inhibiting of usage. To meet this goal, we review prevailing usage paradigms to provide the appropriate nomological frame of reference. We then describe a series of qualitative and quantitative studies currently in progress that attempt to identify and validate these usage inhibitors. The results provide a potential set of non-trivial, uniquely inhibiting usage factors, such as, intrusiveness, disruptiveness, design volatility, information overload, inertia, and deceptiveness, among others. The results serve to enhance our knowledge of technology usage by identifying factors heretofore unidentified in the literature. The results contribute to technology usage research and practice by identifying the factors that lead people to actively choose not to use technology. Researchers can consider a potentially larger array of perceptions that may influence usage and these inhibitor perceptions may be more powerful than enabling perceptions. Practitioners can be guided in terms of the important perceptions to avoid triggering in terms of system design and development.

Speaker's Bio: Ronald T. Cenfetelli is an assistant professor of Management Information Systems at the University of British Columbia's Sauder School of Business. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of British Columbia, an M.B.A. from Indiana University, and a B.S. in engineering from Purdue University. Ron's research interests are in e-business, the behavioral and emotional aspects of technology usage, human computer interaction, technology stress, and structural equation modeling. His research has been published or is forthcoming in Journal of AIS, Decision Sciences, Information Systems Research, and the Proceedings of ICIS. He was the recent recipient of the Sauder School of Business MBA Teaching Excellence Award as voted by the MBA Class of 2008. Ron has prior careers as a United States naval officer and as a manager in the pharmaceutical industry.

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