Towards a Conceptual Model of Broadband Diffusion

Abstract

Although Information Systems (IS) research has paid attention to the understanding of users’ adoption of technology, researchers have had a minimal focus upon the application of various adoption models that study a consumer’s adoption of technology. An attempt to fill this gap is undertaken in this research. Therefore, the aim of this study is to provide a comprehensive review of the extant information systems literature related to users and/or consumers’ adoption of technology with an emphasis on broadband and to develop a conceptual model based upon the review. To achieve the overall aim, three objectives are proposed and they are: (1) to review and assess the appropriateness of previous technology adoption models and constructs; (2) to identify the appropriate constructs from various models that are used to understand the household diffusion of broadband; and (3) to formulate research hypotheses and to develop a model of broadband adoption. The contributions of this paper are: it integrates the appropriate information systems (IS) literature in order to enhance our knowledge of technology adoption from the consumer perspectives; and provides clear directions for future research. That is, first, this paper evaluates the flexibility of various models for studying technology adoption issues. Second, it assimilates previous research findings to develop a coherent and comprehensive picture of the technology adoption research conducted in the IS field. Third, this paper introduces a conceptual model that integrates factors from different technology adoption models to study home technology diffusion from a consumer perspective. Finally, the future research directions to this research are provided in the concluding section.