Dependencia de Drogas en adolescentes

In developing the TAM, the two key changes Davis made to the TRA was that he did not consider subjective norm in predicting the actual behaviour of a person, as he suggested that the authors of the TRA stated that this aspect had uncertain theoretical status, hence, the TAM only considers the attitude toward the behaviour (Chuttur, 2009). Additionally, rather than considering several individual salient beliefs in predicting an individual’s attitude toward a behaviour, the TAM considers two distinct beliefs: perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use (Chuttur, 2009). Davis (1989) suggested that the two variables are sufficient in predicting the attitude of a user toward the actual use of a technology.

The TAM assumes that the perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use determine the individual’s attitude toward using the technology (Huang et al., 2016) (see Figure 3.7).

Davis (1989, p.320) defined perceived usefulness as “the degree to which a person believes that using a particular system would enhance his or her job performance”, and perceived ease of use as “the degree to which a person believes that using a particular system would be free of effort” (Davis, 1989, p.320). The final version of the TAM was

88 | P a g e developed by Venkatesh and Davis (1996) following a main finding that both perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use have a direct influence on behavioural intention to use, which eliminates the need for the attitude construct.

Figure 3.7. Technology Acceptance Model (TAM)

(Source: Davis, 1989)

Since the initial TAM was developed an extensive amount of research dealing with the TAM has emerged and it continues to be used in recent studies as opposed to the models later modifications (i.e. TAM2 and TAM3), which indicated the theory’s popularity in the field of technology acceptance (Marangunic and Granic, 2014; Miltgen et al., 2013).

Research in the field of consumer behaviour and information technology usage has confirmed that both perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use are related to technology acceptance, as well as the user’s motivations and behavioural intentions (Huang et al., 2016). Likewise, the TAM has been used extensively in the tourism literature and studies have confirmed its explanatory power (e.g. Disztinger et al., 2017;

Rese et al., 2016). The TAM is considered a time and cost-effective way to gather information, however, Chuttur (2009) stated that this may have led to scholars to conduct quick and easy research, which limits the thoroughness needed to fully understand why people accept or reject technology.

The TAM has been applied to emergent technology research. For instance, Rese et al., (2016) applied the TAM to measure consumer/user acceptance of AR applications in

89 | P a g e marketing and retailing, and the findings confirmed that the TAM is a robust model for AR applications in this specific context. Another study investigating destination travel intentions in a web context stated that the feature of perceived usefulness in web-based tourism was a significant predictor of intention to travel to the destination (Kaplanidou and Vogt, 2006). Huang et al., (2013) studied the applicability of the TAM in the context of tourism marketing in 3D virtual worlds and found that perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use are antecedents of consumers’ travel intentions to develop consideration and awareness in destination choice making. Importantly, in the context of e-tourism, Ukpabi and Karjaluoto (2017) reviewed studies on consumers’ acceptance or adoption with an aim to synthesise the theories, models and frameworks employed. Their results showed that of the 71 reviewed articles using 28 different theories, models and frameworks mainly from technology adoption and social and psychological adoption paradigms, of which the TAM model was the most used, appearing in 33% of the studies (24 of 71 studies) (Ukpabi and Karjaluoto, 2017).

The TAM has also been employed to explore VR in tourism (e.g. VR for trip planning, Disztinger et al., 2017) and retailing (e.g. intention to shop in virtual worlds, Domina et al., 2012). For instance, Disztinger (2017) and his colleagues adopted the TAM to understand the acceptance of VR technology as a travel planning tool. Their research confirmed that the perceived usefulness of VR influences visitors’ behavioural intentions, while the perceived ease of use does not. Drawing on previous literature, the authors added several dimensions to the TAM such as perceived enjoyment, personal anxiety, perceived immersion and technology anxiety, of which perceived immersion was found to be a valid predictor of behavioural intentions, and the intensity of the immersion increased the intention to use and consequent acceptance of VR (Disztinger et al., 2017). Disztinger et al., (2017) argued that the acceptance of VR technology has significantly improved, however, further investigation is required into its usefulness and enjoyment factors, as well as advanced technical upgrades for it to achieve mass-market acceptance.

3.5 Summary

The aim of this chapter was to provide a more in-depth discussion on immersive technologies, specifically VR, and demonstrate its impact on the urban place marketing

90 | P a g e sector. This was achieved by drawing on retail marketing and tourism marketing research in order to inform the urban shopping destination context. The chapter highlighted several key components of immersive VR experience, namely presence and immersion, and demonstrated how these components are more powerful in VR than prior marketing technologies. Additionally, VR provides more realistic multisensory experience than prior 2D technologies and retail platforms, which means that it could be an ideal tool for experiential marketing. Consequently, VR has received increasing attention over recent years from both researchers and marketing practitioners, which is evident by the examples of use cases provided in this discussion. Therefore, various researchers (Hudson et al., 2019; Guttentag, 2010) have called for further research on VR, specifically, the consumer experience and how they behave in VR largely as a result of the increased sense of presence and multisensory cues, and how the experience affects marketing outcomes. Indeed, researchers (Kim et al., 2018; Dad et al., 2018) have already begun to apply S-O-R theory to VR retail and tourism research given its proven validity in research focusing on prior retailing channels (e.g. e-commerce and m-commerce).

However, S-O-R and VR research is still in its infancy by comparison to e-commerce and m-commerce, and further studies are required to deepen our understanding on the various VR retail atmospheric variables that influence human behaviour in VR.

Technology adoption research could provide valuable insights into why humans adopt or reject new technologies and therefore it is useful to draw on this stream of research when exploring emergent technology adoption such as VR. Importantly, VR research is largely still in its infancy and this technology is not widely accepted in society yet, which means that people’s willingness to use it could be associated with key components of technology adoption theories associated with usability (e.g. perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness). Although the TAM is widely used in various disciplines, its application to VR research is limited and given that this model is well-validated, it could potentially provide a useful theoretical addition to S-O-R theory when investigating visitors behavioural response to VR retail environment cues. Specifically, the following section provides a synthesis of the literature so far and provides a more in-depth justification of the employed theories.

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