Incorporating Personality into UTAUT: Individual Differences and User Acceptance of IT

This paper addresses a gap in individual adoption literature by incorporating the effect of individual differences on IT adoption and use decisions. The research model builds on the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) (Venkatesh et al., 2003). The proposed model incorporates the five dimensions of personality (Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Neuroticism and Openness to Experience – commonly referred to as the Big-5 in Organizational Behavior literature as potential moderators of the relationship between core UTAUT constructs: performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence, facilitating conditions and the dependant variables: (behavioral intent to adopt and use behavior). Hypotheses are developed for each of the relationships that are expected to be impacted by the moderators. An outline of the methodology and discussion of the implications of the findings are presented.