A Qualitative Approach to Examine Technology Acceptance

The research field of technology acceptance and software acceptance is a fertile field in the discipline of MIS. Acceptance research is mainly affected by the technology acceptance model (TAM). The TAM is counted as the major guideline for acceptance research. But recently more researchers discover the deficits of former acceptance research. The main cause of the criticism is the focus on quantitative research methods. We will show this with the help of former meta-studies and a literature review. Quantitative approaches are basically appropriate for the testing of theories. The development of new theories or constructs is followed to a lesser intent. In the article we will show how a qualitative approach can be used for theory-construction. We will introduce a qualitative research design and show how this approach can be used to develop new constructs of acceptance while some existing constructs taken from TAM and related theories cannot be confirmed.