Factors Influencing Acceptance and Use of ICT Innovations by Agribusinesses: An Empirical Study

Journal of Global Information Management , 2018

This article describes how because of the rapid expansion of digital and online 'bizscapes,' and 'bizapps'resultinginsmallandmedium-scaleagribusinessesadoptingandusingonlineentrepreneurial technologyinnovations,informationandcommunicationtechnologyhasgreatpotentialtoenhancethe performanceandefficiencyofagribusinesses.Theurgetounderstandfactorsthataffectinformation technology innovations adoption and use by small and medium agribusinesses prompted this study, which involves the designing of a modified research model based on UTAUT perspective to determine the influence of cognitive, management characteristics and organizational structure factorsontechnologyadoption.Factoranalysisyieldedafitstructuralmodel,whichwasusedto testthehypotheses.Thearticlefoundperformanceexpectancy,SMEsmanagementcreativityand innovativeness and SMEs organizational size significantly influence technology innovations use. Thispaperconcludesthatperformanceexpectancy,managementcharacteristicsandorganizational sizeaffecttechnologyadoptionamongagribusinessescritically.

Information and communication technology (ICT) adoption studies have identified ICT as a tool capable of spurring innovative business development in small and medium-scale enterprises (SMEs) if used wisely. Adopting the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) model approach with adjustments by integrating two externally derived constructs (SME Managerial Creativity and SME Organisational Size as predictors), this study investigated factors that influence ICT usage among Malaysian agro-based SMEs. A pre-tested survey instrument consisting of 132 items was administered to 400 purposively selected workers from 43 agro-based SMEs that were randomly selected in Selangor. The study was mainly aimed to determine factors that influence ICT usage among the agro-based SMEs, determine the relationship between the six predictors: performance expectancy, effort expectancy, facilitating conditions, SME organisational size and SME creativity and innovativeness and (the dependent variable) ICT usage. Also aimed to be determined was the moderating effect of gender, age and experience on the relationship. Factor analysis was run and a new test model was designed with Structural Equation Modelling. The study concludes that integrating firm and management characteristic constructs into UTAUT model provides a scale capable of explaining ICT usage behaviour of Malaysian agro-based SMEs better.

Driving Agribusiness with Technology Innovations, 2017

This chapter proposes a modified conceptual framework for investigating the influence of cognitive, management characteristics and organizational size factors on information and communication technology (ICT) adoption by agribusinesses. Agro-based small and medium-scale enterprises (SMEs) often deal in commodities that have shorter shelf life. Given that, researchers often face challenges determining the appropriate conceptual framework to adopt, which yields results that proffer both practical and theoretical solutions to business problems, hence, it is imperative for agri-preneurs to harness technology for maximum profit and food security. The unified theory of use and acceptance of technology (UTAUT) model, which has four key predictors, was adopted with the integration of two external variables: SME Managerial Characteristics and SME Organizational Size. Factor analysis shows that five out of the six predictors loaded strongly. The study concludes that researchers in technology adoption should consider integrating organization and management quality variables into their research frameworks.

Research on Humanities and Social Sciences, 2018

Information and communication technology (ICT) adoption studies have identified ICT as a tool capable of spurring innovative business development in small and medium-scale enterprises (SMEs) if used wisely. Adopting the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) model approach with adjustments by integrating two externally derived constructs (SME Managerial Creativity and SME Organisational Size as predictors), this study investigated factors that influence ICT usage among Malaysian agro-based SMEs. A pre-tested survey instrument consisting of 132 items was administered to 400 purposively selected workers from 43 agro-based SMEs that were randomly selected at Selangor. The study was aimed to identify the predominantly used ICTs by the agro-based SMEs in their businesses, to determine factors that influence ICT usage among the agro-based SMEs and to determine the relationship between the six predictors: performance expectancy, effort expectancy, facilitating conditions, SME organisational size and SME creativity and innovativeness and the dependent variable: ICT usage. Objective 4 was to determine the moderating effect of gender, age and experience on the relationship. Factor analysis was run to reduce the voluminous data; a new, robust model was designed using Structural Equation Modelling. The study concludes that integrating firm and management characteristic constructs into UTAUT model provides a scale capable explaining ICT usage behaviour of Malaysian agro-based SMEs better.

Information and communication technology (ICT) has been identified as a mean that has great potential to spur innovative development in small and medium-scale enterprises (SME). Accordingly, information systems (IS) studies have been designing research models and providing empirical evidence that invariably supports this notion. The Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) is one such model that has been extensively employed in ICT adoption studies. This study was conducted in order to achieve four specific objectives. Objective 1 of the study was to identify the ICTs that are predominantly used by the agro-based SMEs in their businesses. Objective 2 was to determine the factors that affect ICT usage among agro-based SMEs in Selangor. Objective 3 was to determine the relationship between performance expectancy, effort expectancy, facilitating conditions, SME organisational size and SME creativity and innovativeness and ICT usage. Objective 4 was to determine the moderating effect of gender, age and experience on the relationship between performance expectancy, effort expectancy, facilitating conditions, SME organisational size and SME creativity and innovativeness and ICT usage. This study adopted the UTAUT Model and modified it by integrating two externally derived constructs, SME managerial creativity and SME organisational size as predictors. This study investigated the factors that affect ICT usage by agro-based SMEs in Selangor. A four-section survey instrument consisting of 132 items was designed and administered to 400 personnel in 43 agro-based SMEs that were randomly selected in Selangor. Three hundred and ninety-five (395) completed questionnaires were retrieved successfully. The study found that SME managerial creativity, SME organisational size and performance expectancy significantly predicted ICT usage. In addition, age, gender and experience moderated the relationship with various levels of significance. Importantly however, performance expectancy was moderated by experience, which implies that agro-based SMEs that are run by employees and managers with prior ICT usage experience stand better chances of deriving much benefits from using ICT in their businesses. In addition, the measurement model of this study that was generated by factor analysis predicted 31% (R2 .31) of the variance in ICT usage. Therefore, the study concludes that characteristics of enterprise managers, enterprise organisational size and the anticipation of ICT usage benefits, influenced by the demographic characteristics and personnel’s ICT usage prior experience are the critical factors that affected the ICT usage behaviour of the agro-based SMEs in Selangor.

This paper empirically sought to determine the critical factors that influence the usage of information and communication technology (ICT) for business development among agro-based small and medium-scale enterprises (SMEs) in Malaysia. A composite research framework was designed, adopting the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) perspective. Since this paper focused on the personnel of entrepreneurial organisations, two external variables from firm-manager-characteristics and organisational size concepts were incorporated to the model, which increased the number of predictors to six. A pre-tested and validated survey questionnaire was administered purposively to 400 personnel of 43 agro-based SMEs that were randomly selected across Selangor. The data collected was analysed using the statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) and the analysis of a moment structures (AMOS) software. This paper found managerial creativity and innovativeness (C&I) and performance expectancy (PE) could collectively account for 72.761% of the variations in ICT usage. Therefore, the paper concludes that SME organisational leadership quality and ICT usage benefit expectances are the key factors that influence ICT usage for entrepreneurial development among Malaysian agro-based SMEs.

FACTORS AFFECTING ICT USAGE FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF SMALL AND MEDIUM-SCALE AGRO-BASED ENTERPRISES IN SELANGOR, MALAYSIA, 2017

Information and communication technology (ICT) has been identified as a means that has great potential to spur innovative development in small and medium-scale enterprises (SME). This study adopted the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) model perspective to investigate factors affecting ICT usage by agro-based SMEs in Selangor. This study aimed to achieve four specific objectives as follows: to identify the ICTs predominantly used by the agro-based SMEs in their businesses; to determine the factors that affect ICT usage among the agro-based SMEs; to determine the relationship between performance expectancy (PE), effort expectancy (EE), social influence (SI), facilitating conditions (FC), SME organisational size (SOS) and managerial creativity and innovativeness (MC&I) and ICT usage (IU); and to determine the moderating effect of gender, age and experience on the relationship between PE, EE, SI, FC, SOS and MC&I and IU. The UTAUT model was adopted with some modifications by integrating two externally derived constructs, SME managerial creativity and SME organisational size as predictors. Furthermore, the behavioural intention dimension, which is also theorized to predict direct ICT usage, was dropped because many past studies have supported the claim that when behaviour becomes routine, it translates to habit, which is tantamount to automaticity. The moderation influence of only gender, age and experience was investigated as voluntariness of use was also dropped for convenience reasons. A questionnaire containing 132 items was administered to 400 workers (including managers). The workers were selected using purposive sampling from 43 agro-based SMEs in Selangor. After data collection, 395 completed questionnaires were retrieved successfully. The data were analysed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 22 and Structural Equation Model -Analysis of Moment Structure (SEM-AMOS) statistical software. The descriptive data and multiple regression analyses were performed using SPSS while factor analysis was performed using SEM-AMOS. SEM-AMOS was mainly used to test the hypotheses and determine the statistical fitness, or statistical strength of the new research model (also known as the structural model of this study), which was designed using SEM-AMOS to measure the research data adequately. To determine the statistical significance of each of the six predictors and their respective measurement items in the conceptual framework, principle component analysis (PCA) was run. At PCA, the social influence (SI) construct loaded with very weak items, which indicates that the construct was statistically non-significant, and if it was retained it would affect the statistical significance of the conceptual framework negatively, hence it was eliminated from the research framework as recommended in statistics rules. Thus, only five valid constructs remain in the conceptual framework of this study, namely performance expectancy, (PE), effort expectancy (EE), facilitating conditions (FC), managerial creativity and innovativeness (MC&I), SME organisational size (SOS) and ICT usage (IU). Furthermore, to confirm the statistical significance of each of the five remaining predictors with their respective measurement items, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was run. CFA reduced the number of measurement items in each of the constructs to only three except for the ICT usage construct, which was reduced to nine items. All the measurement items in the entire research scale recorded very high internal consistency reliability (Cronbach alpha) coefficient, ranging from 0.951 to 0.842, with a good overall model fit index (RMSEA) value = .79, indicating that the structural model was sufficiently fit to measure the data and yield valid results. The study found that performance expectancy, SME organisational size and SME managerial creativity and innovativeness significantly predicted ICT usage. In addition, age, gender and experience moderated the relationships at various levels of significance. Importantly, however, performance expectancy was moderated by experience, which implies that agro-based SMEs that are run by employees and managers with prior ICT usage experience stand better chances of deriving many benefits from using ICT in their businesses. The structural (measurement) model predicted 31% (R2 0.31) of the variances associated with ICT usage. Therefore, the study concludes as follows. (1) That the anticipation of ICT usage benefits, enterprise organisational size and characteristics of enterprise managers, moderated by the workers’ demographic characteristics and ICT usage experience are the critical factors that affect the usage of ICT by agro-based SMEs in Selangor; (2) gender, age and experience of the workers (as well as those of the managers) can influence ICT usage by agro-based SMEs in Selangor; and that (3) female employees using ICTs are more likely to perform work better and yield higher gains than their male counterparts may be able to do. Therefore, this study suggests that a paradigm shift from a male-dominated industrial ICT usage bias towards a female-dominated one may be imminent, at least in the Selangor context.

2017

Small Farm Management of Information Communication Technology, E-Commerce, and Organization Performance by Shenique Carmichael MBA, Pfeiffer University, 2009 BS, St. Augustine’s University, 1999 Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Management Walden University October 2017 Abstract Many small farm farmers in the United States are reluctant to use information communication technology (ICT) and e-commerce, yet little is known about their decision-making rationale. The purpose of this transcendental phenomenological study was to explore U.S. small farm farmers’ decision making, specifically, regarding use or non-use of e-commerce, in managing farm operations by using the Miles and Snow’s typology of strategic management. The purposive sample consisted of 30 small farm farming operations in Kansas and Missouri with revenue less than $250,000 per annum. Data analysis was 3-tiered and involved use of horizontalization, th...

Basrah journal for engineering science

Thermal steam power plants represent the most important and dependable type for supplying the base load of electricity around the world. The thermos-economic analysis is an important tool for improving the performance of thermal steam power plants. In the present study, a thermo-economic analysis of a simple steam power plant for different boiler pressure was performed. The analysis comprises the energy, exergy, entropy, economics, and exergy-economic of a simple cycle steam power plant for different boiler pressure. The analysis was performed for a simple steam power plant with the constant output power of 10 MW and the boiler pressure is varied from 10 bar to 100 bar by a step of 10 bar. For each boiler pressure and constant output power, firstly, the fuel mass flow rate, steam flow rate, energy and exergy efficiency, and cost of electricity were calculated. Secondly, entropy generation, exergy destruction, and exergy efficiency for each component were calculated. Finally, exergy ...