The Behavior Intention of Tunisian Banks' Customers on using Internet Banking

This paper examines empirically the factors affecting the adoption of internet banking in Tunisia using the Theory of Acceptance Model (TAM) and the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB). Security and privacy construct were selected as additional factors because of their potent influence on the use of internet banking system. For this purpose, a Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) is employed to examine the inter-correlations among the seven proposed constructs. A survey involving a total of 284 respondents is conducted and confirmatory factor analysis used to determine the measurement efficacies. This study confirms the appropriateness of TAM, TPB, and the security and privacy construct in predicting intention to use internet banking in a Tunisian banking environment. This research reveals that TAM and TPB could be used to provide a solid theoretical foundation of internet banking in Tunisian acceptance case. The study contributes to the literature of internet banking in Tunisia. DOI: 10.4018/jide.2013010102 International Journal of Innovation in the Digital Economy, 4(1), 16-30, January-March 2013 17 Copyright © 2013, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited. strategies in order to grow consumer internet banking demand. Thus, understanding factors affecting the adoption of internet banking in Tunisia seems an important task for Banks’ decision makers. This helps Banks to adopt a better marketing strategies to increase the use of IB in the Tunisia country. This paper investigates the behavior intention of Tunisian banks’ customers to use the IB. We use the Theory of Acceptance Model (TAM) and the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) in order to investigate the internet banking acceptance system. Seven constructs was used to identify factors that influence intention to adopt Internet banking in Tunisia: perceived use, perceived ease of use, subjective norm, perceived behavior control, security and privacy, and attitude. Security and privacy were selected as additional factor to the TAM and TPB constructs because of their important influence on the use internet banking system. To do that, we collect data from bank customers in Tunisia. Two hundred eighty four usable responses are considered and Equation Structural Model (SEM) is used to fit data to the basic proposed model. The remainder of the paper is set out in four sections. First, we provide a literature review of earlier studies of factors influencing consumers’ use of IB and set the proposed hypothesis for this work. Then, we report the empirical methodology that was employed. Afterwards, we provide empirical findings and discuss results according to the conceptual framework of the TAM of internet banking. Finally, we conclude and suggest future research directions. 2. LITERATURE REVIEW AND HYPOTHESIS DEVELOPMENT 2.1. The Theory of Acceptance Model (TAM) The majority of empirical works that have investigated the intention to use IB have been conducted using the Theory of Acceptance Model (TAM) (Davis, 1992; Hsu, 2004; Hsu et al., 2006). The TAM has been developed originally by Davis (1989). A graphic representation of the TAM is given in Figure 1. Following this theory, two theoretical constructs, Perceived Usefulness (PU) and Perceived Ease Of Use (PEOU), are considered as fundamental determinants of computer system use in organization. The first construct, the PU, reflects a person’s belief in the use of technology. The second construct, The PEOU, reflects the person’s belief of facility of use of the technology. These two factors are the most commonly used in the empirical literature (Davis, 1989; Venkatesh & Davis, 2000; Fagan et al., 2008; Hsu et al., 2006; Huang, 2008; Norazah & Norbayah, 2009; Norazah et al., 2008). Lederer et al. (2000), Moon and Kim (2001), and Wadie and Charfeddine (2011) among others have tested the TAM and have showed that the two constructs, PU and PEOU, influence positively the attitude and the attention to use Online Banking. Moreover, perceived of usefulness is supposed to be influenced by the perceived of ease of use. In order to investigate the TAM, we emit the following 5 hypotheses, H1: Perceived usefulness positively influences the intention to use IB. H2: Attitude positively influence positively influences the intention to use IB. H3: Perceived usefulness positively influences attitudes towards the use of IB. H4: Perceived ease of use positively influences attitudes towards the use of IB. H5: Perceived ease of use positively influences the perceived usefulness of the use of IB. In addition, a new construct is introduced to the TAM. Following Salisbury et al. (2001), Miyazaki and Fernandez (2001), and Nissenbaum (2004), security and privacy is considered as an important factor that influence the use of IB, see for instance Godwin (2001) and Aladwani (2001). The importance of security and privacy concerns in online banking environment has been broadly discussed and reported in many studies. Godwin (2001) reported that privacy and security concerns were found to be a major 18 International Journal of Innovation in the Digital Economy, 4(1), 16-30, January-March 2013 Copyright © 2013, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited. barrier to Internet shopping. This concern has been extended to the Internet banking environment. Security has been widely recognized as one of the main obstacles to the adoption of electronic banking (Aladwani, 2001), and privacy issues have proven important barriers to the use of online services (Westin & Maurici, 1998). White and Nteli (2004) reports that the level of increase of internet banking usage for banking purposes has not changed in the UK because of the continuing consumer fear about security. In a study about the adoption of internet banking (Sathye, 1999) reports that privacy and security were found to be significant obstacles to the adoption of online banking in Australia. Therefore, the following new hypothesis will be introduced to the TAM. H6: Security and privacy positively influences the perceived usefulness of the use of IB. 2.2. The Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) The Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) was proposed by Ajzen (1985, 1991) as an extension of the theory of reasoned action (Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975). Figure 2 reports a graphic representation of the TPB. Following this theory, individuals do not have complete control over their behaviour (Ajzen, 1991). The TPB suggests that individual behaviour is determined by behavioural intentions. Theses laters are considered as a function of three constructs: the individual attitude toward the behavior, the subjective norms surrounding the performance of the behavior, and Perceived behavioral control. This later construct indicates that a person’s motivation is influenced by how difficult the behaviors are perceived to be, as well as the perception of how successfully the individual can, or cannot, performs the activity. Perceived behavioral control can influence behavior directly or indirectly through behavioral intentions. To investigate the TPB, we emit the following two hypotheses: H7: Subjective norm positively influences the intention to use online banking. H8: Perceived behavior control positively influences the intention to use online banking. 2.3. Research Model and Hypothesis We use the two theories described in the previous section in order to develop our main research model and proposed hypothesis. By combining the TAM and the TPB in addition to the security and privacy construct we propose our main research model as described in Figure 3. The proposed model includes five independent variables, perceived of usefulness, perceived Figure 1. The TAM following Davis (1989) and Venkatesh et al. (2003) in solid line, and security and Privacy construct; Salisbury et al. (2001) in dash line. International Journal of Innovation in the Digital Economy, 4(1), 16-30, January-March 2013 19 Copyright © 2013, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited. ease of use, security and privacy, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control, one intervening variable, the attitude of use, and the intention to use as the dependent variable. Our main object in this paper is to test the strength of the eight hypothesized relationships embedded in the theoretical model. Precisely, we investigate the robustness of the proposed model in predicting customers’ intention to adopt Internet banking in Tunisia. The eight hypotheses that we want to test in the empirical investigation are reported in Figure 3. In order to investigate the proposed research model, we follow a two step procedure as suggested by Anderson and Gerbing (1988) and Koufteros (1999). First, we estimate the measurement model in order to assess convergence and discriminant validity. Then, we examined the structural model in order to assess if the parameter estimates are expected to exhibit the correct sign and size, and to be consistent with underlying theory. Figure 2. TPB (Ajzen, 1985, 1991) Figure 3. Proposed research model 20 International Journal of Innovation in the Digital Economy, 4(1), 16-30, January-March 2013 Copyright © 2013, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited. 3. METHODOLOGY