A study on relationship between attitude of households and the broadband acceptance: a case of household of capital city of Alor Setar, Kedah in Malaysia / Abdul Manaf Bohari and Zainal Md. Zan

In general, an information and communications technology (ICT) adoption is importance initiatives in transforming the current status of socio-economy of people as well as contributes to the economic well being of nations. The studies and literature point of view has evolved to examine the impact of ICT on social-economic growth, as well as internet impact on daily social life of societies, includes in Malaysia. Currently, the broadband internet is being viewed as the most significant evolutionary step and always considered to be an innovation that will offer end users with fast access to new services, applications and digital content with latest real lifestyle and productivity benefits. On the one hand, previous research undertaken on the adoption of broadband internet has emphasized a demand perspective as well. Therefore, the examining of deployment of broadband it was found that such perspective is limited. The objective of this study is to identify the attitudes, subjective norm and perceived behavioural control factors that can influence adoption or rejection of internet broadband in the household sector. This study was conducted in the household area of Capital city of Alor Setar, Kedah as a study setting and sample selection will be determined by the convenience sampling method. At the end, this study will recommend some idea on how to increases the usage of broadband internet with specific to the household sector in Malaysia

Examining Role of Usefulness, Ease of Use and Social Influence on Jordanian Citizen’s Intention to Adopt E-Government

Electronic Government (eGov) offers several benefits to citizens (particularly in the context of developing countries) in terms of convenience, anytime, anywhere access to government services, transparency, reduced corruption and reduced bureaucracy. Despite it offering such benefits, citizens of many countries are reluctant in adopting eGov systems. This study developed and tested an extended technology acceptance model (TAM) that integrates social influence with perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use in order to investigate factors determining Jordanian citizens’ intention to adopt eGov. The model was empirically tested employing data collected from a survey of Jordanian citizens. A regression analysis was conducted to evaluate the influence of three independent constructs on behavioural intention to adopt eGov. Results of this research indicated that all three independent constructs significantly affected Jordanian citizens\u27 behavioural intention to adopt eGov. The findings presented in this submission are likely to be useful for the Jordanian government in terms of developing user friendly system and encouraging citizens to promote widespread adoption. A concluding section presents key conclusions, limitations and future research directions arising from this research

An evaluation of the broadband ecosystem in Western Downs region (WDR)

There is a large body of research on broadband adoption and use at the macro and national level, however, there is limited research on rural and remote areas. This research provides an in-depth understanding of the broadband ecosystem in terms of supply (broadband infrastructure), and household demand (adoption and use) of broadband Internet and its impact (building and maintaining social capital) in the Western Downs Region (WDR) of Queensland, Australia. Using the broadband ecosystem as an overarching framework, three phases and a mixed methods approach was used to conduct an in-depth explanatory case study of the WDR. The first research phase collected publicly available archival (primarily quantitative) data and field data from testing of mobile networks to determine and evaluate the status (supply) of broadband infrastructure in the WDR (RQ1). The second research phase collected primarily qualitative information using semi-structured interviews to address research questions (RQ2 and RQ3). The third phase, using a survey, collected quantitative data to validate and test broadband adoption, use and impact components of the broadband ecosystem (RQ2 and RQ3, 13 hypotheses). Thereby, the second and third research phase determined the extent of adoption and use of broadband Internet services by households and its impact in helping to build and maintain social capital in rural communities in the WDR. The research findings show that there are limitations in broadband infrastructure in remote and outer regional locations. In these locations, most households rely on mobile broadband services which were clearly demonstrated to be patchy at best in most areas of the WDR. To a lesser extent in remote and outer regional locations affordability of mobile broadband is also an issue for households given the lower socio-economic status of much of rural Australia including the WDR. Furthermore, data quotas are much more expensive for mobile broadband and satellite broadband in comparison to wired broadband. Hence, there would also appear to be a digital divide, particularly between remote and outer regional locations of the WDR and inner regional and urban locations in Australia. The researcher also demonstrated that this reflects a similar situation in many other remote and outer regional locations in Australia. The findings indicate that most households have moved beyond the adoption phase to the use phase and indicate that hedonic outcomes, self-efficacy and number of years of Internet use are significant determinants of actual use of broadband. Conversely, perceived cost, prior knowledge and experience factors were found to be significant determinants of intention to adopt and use broadband services. However, utilitarian outcomes and purchase complexity had no significant impact on intention to adopt and use. The study also found that broadband Internet use has significant impact for rural communities in the WDR by helping to build and maintain social capital (bonding and bridging). This research has made several important contributions to knowledge, theory and practice. Firstly, this research adapted the Broadband Ecosystem framework to incorporate system quality and impact components of information systems success theory, Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and Model of Adoption of Technology in Household (MATH) technology adoption theories and two dimensions of social capital theory (bridging and bonding theory) which complement the overarching economic theory of supply and demand in this theoretical and conceptual model. Secondly, this research addressed an important gap in information systems research -the lack of empirical research on digital infrastructure. In this study, broadband infrastructure was included in a comprehensive evaluation of the broadband ecosystem in a rural setting, the WDR. Thirdly, by focusing on two units of analysis broadband infrastructure in a rural region and household adoption, and use and impact of broadband this study addresses important research problems from a societal and government policy perspectives. Fourthly, this research examined and validated the broadband ecosystem framework using mixed methods approach in a rural context. Finally, this research has made significant practical contributions which can inform government policy by identifying that availability, reliability and affordability shortcomings of broadband infrastructure in outer regional and remote regions is impacting household adoption, use and benefits of broadband services in rural Australia. Hence, future government policy needs to ensure that access to reliable and high speed broadband services is part of its Universal Service Obligation so that the current shortcomings in broadband infrastructure in rural Australia are prioritised and addressed. This study confirms that improved access and more effective use of broadband could help to address the digital divide that currently exists between rural and urban Australia and also help to build and maintain social capital in rural communities