User Acceptance of Information Technology across Cultures

The user acceptance of prepayment metering systems, an innovative Information Technology based application, is examined with the help of a structural equation model in the two different cultures of India and the United States. The intention to use prepayment metering systems is measured along three dimensions: performance expectancy, effort expectance, and social influence. The same measures of the various aspects of user acceptance of prepayment metering systems are applied in the two countries. In both countries, performance expectancy, effort expectancy, and social influence, taken together, are found to have a significant positive impact on consumers’ intention to use the prepayment metering systems. Individually, different dimensions have significant impacts on behavioral intention in the two countries. INTRODUCTION User Acceptance of information technology (IT) has become a significant area of research in the discipline of management information systems in recent times. Most empirical studies on user acceptance of information technology have been conducted in North America. As the competition in the IT industry in the domestic U.S. market intensifies, more firms are now considering marketing their products and services to foreign countries. To succeed in overseas markets, firms need to gain a better understanding of the differences in consumers’ perception and adoption of information technology applications. Gaining access to any foreign market will require careful analysis of consumer usage behavior. We add a cross-cultural dimension to our study by comparing the user acceptance of an innovative technology, prepayment metering systems, in the United States with that in another country with a vastly different cultural setting – India. The Indian market presents lucrative opportunities for multinational marketers. Even though the overall per-capita gross national income of the 1.1 billion population of India is relatively low at $820, there are about 180 million middle-class consumers in the country with growing purchasing power. In recent times, the declining value of the dollar has accelerated these opportunities. According to a NASSCOM-