Year

2005

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Department

School of Economics and Information Systems - Faculty of Commerce

Abstract

This thesis reports the findings of a study into issues concerning the acceptance of Internet Banking in Jordan, a country of the Middle East. Although conducted at a particular site on a particular IT application, there is justification for claiming that the findings are relevant to the introduction of the broad spectrum of Internet applications into other countries of the region and into developing countries in general. Thus the study makes significant contributions across all areas of IT adoption and usage research and practice as well as informing the banking sector in Jordan. The research began with an exploratory study involving some preliminary interviews with bank managers in Jordan and a review of some relevant literature. This led to the decision to base the study on the well-known Technology acceptance Model (TAM) with extensions to make it more relevant for a developing country such as Jordan whose environment is significantly different from that of the Western countries where the technology originated. To this end external variables were added to the model consisting of constructs under the heading of culture and trust from the consumer side and technology quality from the banking side. For the main study a mixed method approach was taken. An extensive empirical survey was undertaken to collect and analyse quantitative data from bank customers to test the expanded TAM. At the same time interviews were conducted with bank managers, IT people and academics in the field of social science. This qualitative data was processed using manual inspection and computer-based content analysis techniques to supplement the output of the quantitative study. The results of the quantitative and qualitative studies are discussed in terms of their academic contribution to the understanding of IT acceptance in developing countries and the development of additional constructs to TAM. There is also a major contribution to specific issues of technology acceptance in Jordan which may guide those responsible for decisions on the future economic and societal directions of the country.

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Unless otherwise indicated, the views expressed in this thesis are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the University of Wollongong.