Journal of Computer Information Systems

ISSN: 0887-4417 (Print) 2380-2057 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ucis20

Students’ acceptance of E-books: An application of

UTAUT

Assion Lawson-Body, Lori Willoughby, Laurence Lawson-Body & Eric

Matofam Tamandja

To cite this article: Assion Lawson-Body, Lori Willoughby, Laurence Lawson-Body & Eric Matofam
Tamandja (2018): Students’ acceptance of E-books: An application of UTAUT, Journal of Computer
Information Systems, DOI: 10.1080/08874417.2018.1463577

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/08874417.2018.1463577

Published online: 19 Apr 2018.

Submit your article to this journal

Article views: 5

View related articles

View Crossmark data

Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at

http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=ucis20
JOURNAL OF COMPUTER INFORMATION SYSTEMS
https://doi.org/10.1080/08874417.2018.1463577

Students’ acceptance of E-books: An application of UTAUT

Assion Lawson-Bodya, Lori Willoughbyb, Laurence Lawson-Bodya, and Eric Matofam Tamandjac
University of North Dakota, Grand Forks, ND, USA; bMinot State University, Minot, ND, USA; cDakota State University, Madison, SD, USA
a

ABSTRACT KEYWORDS
Electronic book (e-book) technologies have been shown to improve students’ learning. The question Accounting students;
arises as to which factors may influence accounting students when considering e-books. This study uses acceptance of e-books;
the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT), which benchmarks eight different perceived usefulness;
models related to the information technology (IT) acceptance, as the theoretical bases to identify factors perceived ease of use; and
attitude toward e-books
that may influence accounting students’ acceptance of e-books. Data were collected from 107 account-
ing students to test an acceptance model of e-books. The results show that many of the hypotheses
were found to be significant. Surprisingly, perceived ease of use did not have a positive impact on any
factor as anticipated in the hypotheses. Perceived ease of use has negative impacts on perceived
usefulness and attitude toward e-books. This suggests that because of the analytical knowledge
required in accounting, accounting students found e-books impractical when solving problems or
completing assignments.

Introduction institutions are also part of these challenges.7 Many

accounting institutions have adopted e-books to minimize
Many organizations make considerable gains from the
the learning cost for students in order to overcome a
worldwide growth of the use of electronic books (e-books).-
1–6 declining retention rate in accounting courses and to attract
In general, e-books are defined as digitized versions of
more students to become accounting majors without sacri-
paper-based books that can be delivered on a variety of
ficing student learning or increasing costs.7
electronic platforms, ranging from PCs to mobile devices.4,6
According to the Association of American Publishers1,
That is because the Internet, other networks, and the emer-
e-books made up nearly a quarter of U.S. trade publishers’
gence of smart phones have transformed individuals’ reading
book sales. This trend has continued to increase6, as a matter
experiences, making e-books an increasingly popular plat-
of fact, the share of global e-book market was approximately
form for delivering reading materials.2,5,6 The growing inter-
12.6% of the global book publishing market in 2014 and is
est in the use of e-books is also playing a tremendous role in
expected to increase to 27.8% by 2019.10 The popularity of
many academic disciplines including accounting.6
smart phones, tablet PCs, and other digital devices has chan-
Accounting education is one of the most important aca-
ged the perception of traditional print publications. Forecasts
demic disciplines as it plays a significant role, from an
indicate growing demand for the convenience of digital con-
economical point of view, in many colleges and universities.7
tent, which opens countless revenue possibilities.6 From the
Therefore, academic executives have been giving increased
consumer demand perspective, companies that market digital
attention to accounting courses and their use of interactive
devices and e-books have a vested interest in understanding
learning technologies, which are heavily incorporated into
the behavior of digital device and e-book users.3
accounting education.8
Technological innovations have driven libraries in recent
However, the current economic and socially turbulent
years to pay an increasing amount of attention to e-books.
environment has increased the challenges academic chair-
That has compelled many libraries to review their collections
men face when it is time to find the right management
and how they provide information services.4
tools to meet their prioritization requirements. Most of
The proliferations of e-book systems combined with the
those challenges came from governments that began redu-
high use rate of e-books by students in academic libraries
cing financial support for higher education, encouraging
indicate that students are adopting e-books. Many authors
competition, and demanding financial self-dependency.9
have studied the adoption of e-books among students.2,3,6
Therefore, many academic institutions are currently facing
However, many accounting students have to struggle with
declining enrollment rates that lead to financial
the analytical thinking process required in accounting7 when
consequences.7 These unprecedented financial constraints
reading e-books. In addition, not much is known about the
heighten the importance of attracting, retaining, and grad-
accounting students’ acceptance of e-books. Therefore, the
uating students.7 For most accounting academic executives,
purpose of this study is to examine what factors were related
student credit hours generated by their educational
to students’ decision to use an e-book in accounting courses.

CONTACT Assion Lawson-Body alawsonbody@business.und.edu 293 Centennial Drive Stop 8097 - Grand Forks, ND 58202, USA
© 2018 International Association for Computer Information Systems
2 A. LAWSON-BODY ET AL.
The question arises as to which factors may influence
accounting students when considering e-books. This study
uses the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology
(UTAUT) as the theoretical basis to identify factors that may
influence accounting students’ acceptance of e-books.
The rest of the paper is organized as followed: the next
section presents the literature review followed by the theore-
tical background, the research model, and hypotheses. The
research method is outlined in the following section. Data
analysis and the results are reported in the subsequent section.
The last section provides the discussion and conclusion.
Literature review
Many empirical studies involving the use of new technologies
and online tools to learn accounting topics have been
conducted.11,12 For instance, Lin et al.12 examined the influ-
ence that the use of an Affective Tutoring System (ATS) in
accounting courses has on learning effectiveness and usability.
These previous studies are related to the use of mobile devices
which can be utilized for reading online. It, however, remains
that these studies were not specifically about e-books.
Furthermore, none of these studies have applied UTAUT to
examine the accounting students’ acceptance of e-books.
An e-book is a digital reproduction of a print book.5,6,13
The e-book phenomenon originated from the seminal work of
Michael Hart in 1972 (cited in Ref. 3) Since then many efforts
to digitize publications have been made. The recent develop-
ment in the market of e-book readers and technologies has
given an unprecedented dimension to the e-book
phenomenon.13 Due to this, many authors have taken the
opportunity to undertake research on e-books. Their studies
were limited and revealed contradictory results when report-
ing student preference between electronic and traditional
print books and did not take into account the specificity in
the accounting field in their studies.
Students’ usage of e-books
While a number of studies examined the use of e-books
among other user groups14, this study examines how account-
ing students search for or use e-books differently than other
user groups. Librarians, in particular, offer a unique perspec-
tive on e-books: they collect these resources and train
accounting students as well as use e-books themselves.14
Librarians like e-books because they solve many of the
library’s long-term logistical problems, like shelving, checking
in and out, shelf-reading, and replacing lost or worn out
volumes.14 The relationship between accounting students
and librarians has seen a considerable change because of the
academic libraries’ preference for e-books. Librarians are
eager to know how accounting students use e-books, and
also how they feel about using these resources. Therefore,
librarians conducted many surveys to track student patterns
of e-book usage. The findings of those surveys showed pro-
blems with, or limitations to, e-book use.14 Unfortunately,
e-books are not being used as much as they should be.15
Gueval et al.16 reported that students bought e-books because
of lower cost and portability but prefer print books because of
familiarity.
The findings of those surveys also showed that when using
e-books for learning purposes, students showed a preference
for print over e-books, but their usage behavior was mitigated
by other factors, such as cost and accessibility.14 Tang and
Barnett-Ellis17 reported that barriers hindering readers of
e-books included the discomfort of reading on screens, non-
user-friendly design of delivery platforms, and a lack of
awareness of e-book availability. Martin-Beltran et al.18 exam-
ined how linguistically diverse students engaged with digital
and paper books. They found that students were more likely
to engage in meaningful talk and use text features to support
comprehension when using paper books than e-books.18
Other studies contradicted the aforementioned findings.
For instance, Tang and Barnett-Ellis18 reported that innova-
tive web technology has changed our lives and made commu-
nication much easier through the use of e-books. They also
explained that students used e-books more than the equiva-
lent print copies, and that nursing students at a large medical
center became proficient in using e-books within one seme-
ster. Gueval et al.16 mentioned that e-books expanded stu-
dents’ information retrieval skills and improved their
preparation. Finally, they found that faculty and students
had more proficiency and satisfaction with e-books over
time. Both groups expressed neutral feelings regarding
e-books enhancing learning. Gueval et al.16 concluded their
study by revealing some benefits and barriers for the use of
e-books. The perceived benefits of e-books include easy
searchability and portability. The barriers included eye strain
and time to master the use of e-books. Wang and Bai13 found
that there was a significant difference between students’ aware-
ness and usage of general e-books and academic e-books. They
interviewed three separate student groups: senior undergradu-
ate students, freshmen undergraduate students, and postgrad-
uate students. They found that freshmen undergraduate
students used e-books mainly for the purpose of leisure. In
contrast, postgraduate students and senior undergraduate stu-
dents used e-books more for academic purposes.
Raynard’s15 analysis showed that e-books and print books
are used differently for various reasons as discussed above, but
they are also used to complement each other. Wu and Chen19
surveyed the use of e-books to learn languages and explored
the effects of the combination of e-books on reading compre-
hension and knowledge sharing among students. They found
that the experimental group who used e-books performed
more satisfactorily than the control group who used print
books. Joo et al.20 found that perceived usefulness and satis-
faction have a direct and positive influence on the intention to
use e-books. Furthermore, they found that perceived enjoy-
ment has a non-significant influence on the intention to use
e-books.
The literature review shows that students’ acceptance of
e-books is more complicated than we first thought.
E-book pricing challenges
The e-book market has generated some controversies among
the authors, the publishers, the bookstores, and the electronic

retailers like Amazon.10,17 This is due to the fact that tradi-
tionally, retail prices of physical books are controlled by book-
stores, but there is a paradigm change with the advent of
e-books.21 The pricing model of e-books has changed with
the advent of Kindle, Nook, ePub, Apples iBook-store, and
Google eBooks.21 With this pricing model, the e-book pricing
relationship between the publishers and Amazon.com is com-
pletely new. The publishers provide Amazon with authoriza-
tion to sell e-books on its websites.21 The main disadvantages
of the pricing model is that Amazon may use the low price
strategy to enhance sales that will eventually hurt the
publishers21 and the e-book copyright issues have hindered
the publication and development of academic e-books.5
Lu et al.21 examined pricing models of e-books and found
that the benefit from e-book sales may be greater than the loss
in print book sales. They also found that publishers and book-
stores have great potential for profit improvement by selling
e-books. Tang and Barnett-Ellis17 outlined a mechanism to
push for expanded e-book access with more aggressive strate-
gies that facilitate students to obtain e-books under reasonable
terms, conditions, and costs. Rao et al.10 studied the difference
between the prices of the print versions of academic titles and
their digital counterparts across many subjects, including
accounting. They found that the print versions of academic
titles are cheaper and more available than their digital counter-
parts. Rao et al.10 emphasized that there is a change in the
information seeking behavior of college students who prefer-
ably want everything in digital format including e-books. As a
result of this, libraries, bookstores, publishers, and authors
must meet college students’ expectations and needs by acquir-
ing e-books.10 Furthermore, the delayed release of e-books
results in a small increase in the print sales, but a large decrease
in the sale of the total e-books. They also added that such a
delay can be associated with the delay in the e-book technolo-
gies like Kindle.
Even though the e-book phenomenon remains specialized,
presents advantages for some, and disadvantages for others,
the previous study on e-books does not focus on the case of
accounting students. This paper presents the results of a study
that is an effort to fill this gap.
Theoretical background
This research investigates how the UTAUT can be applied to
study the accounting students’ acceptance of e-books. The
UTAUT model is an evolved version of the Technology
Acceptance Model (TAM) of Davis.22,23 Venkatesh, Morris,
Davis, and Davis (cited in Ref. 24) offered the UTAUT after
benchmarking eight different models related to the information
technology (IT) acceptance. The eight models are the following:
the theory of rational action (TRA), the TAM, the motivational
model, the theory of planned behavior (TPB), the combined TAM
and TPB model, the model of PC utilization, the innovation
diffusion theory, and the social cognitive theory.25,26 Recently,
the UTAUT framework has been revised in order to more accu-
rately predict IT usage within the consumer context, resulting in
the extended UTAUT.227 The UTAUT was chosen in the present
study because despite its revision, it still keeps its comprehensive-
ness and high explanatory power. The UTAUT model identifies
JOURNAL OF COMPUTER INFORMATION SYSTEMS 3
performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence, and
facilitating conditions as direct determinants of behavioral inten-
tion and use behavior.26,28,29
The UTAUT model has been applied to study the technol-
ogy innovation for supporting higher education.22,30
Specifically, this UTAUT model has also been scrutinized in
wide-ranging educational environments such as virtual learn-
ing technologies, cloud-based virtual learning environments,
desktop web-conferencing, and interactive whiteboards.28
Halili and Sulaiman30 investigated rural students’ acceptance
toward using information, communication, and technology
(ICT) for educational purposes based on the UTAUT model.
Hence, the model has been proven to be successful in a wide
range of educational situations, and hence it is used in this
study as a guiding principle in the examination of accounting
students’ behavioral intention to accept e-books.28
Lin et al.22 examined how types of users may affect adop-
tion patterns of podcasting differently for educational pur-
poses. They found that the intention to adopt podcasting is
more important to students than teachers. Shin et al.31 found
that perceived usability and perceived quality influenced
smartphone users’ attitude and behavioral intention.
Although several studies have applied UTAUT in various
organizational, educational, and cultural contexts, there is
still a lack of studies examining all of its constructs in the
accounting educational areas.30
The UTAUT framework has also been used to explore
factors that affect user’s acceptance of e-books. Jin3 found
that the relationships between external/internal factors and
user intention to continue using e-books were positive and
statistically significant. Shim et al.32 found that complexity
was the main factor blocking the adoption of e-books,
whereas observability was the main factor stimulating adop-
tion of e-books. In addition, they found that the relative
advantage of e-book readers is significant only in the affective
stage, while compatibility is meaningful only in the behavioral
stage. But, none of the existing research has studied the
accounting students’ acceptance of e-books. The interest of
the current study is to explore the acceptance of e-books by
accounting students.
Research model and hypotheses
According to the UTAUT model, the rate of acceptance of
e-book technologies can be affected by many characteristics or
factors such as perceived usefulness, perceived risk, innova-
tiveness, perceived ease of use, and attitude toward e-books.
The objective of this study and the relationships among
factors in the research model suggest that the level of per-
ceived usefulness of e-books in accounting classes should be
high. In order to understand accounting students’ experience
with e-books, perceived ease of use should impact perceived
usefulness. Perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness
should impact attitude toward e-books. Innovativeness should
influence e-book users’ perceived ease of use and e-book
users’ perceived usefulness. Finally, it is expected that only
accounting students who perceive using e-books as a low risk
undertaking would be inclined to accept it. Perceived risk
4 A. LAWSON-BODY ET AL.
Figure 1. Research model for the acceptance of e-books.
should impact accounting students’ acceptance of e-books
(Figure 1).
Perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use
The UTAUT model offers a useful analytical framework for
determining the relationship among perceived usefulness, per-
ceived ease of use, and many external variables.3 Other
authors used this framework to conduct empirical studies
and found that user intention regarding technology accep-
tance is determined by perceived ease of use and perceived
usefulness.3,33 Davis29,34 defined perceived usefulness as the
degree to which an individual believes that using a particular
technology would enhance his or her productivity while per-
ceived ease of use is defined as the degree to which an
individual believes that using a particular technology will be
free of effort. Halili and Sulaiman30 found that perceived
usefulness and perceived ease of use were significant determi-
nants of behavioral intentions to use ICT for educational
purposes. Jin3 stated that this framework should be applied
to e-book usage as well. In the present context, perceived
usefulness refers to students’ belief that using e-books is useful
and interesting.28 This study also considers perceived ease of
use as the students’ belief that using e-books within their
lessons is easy for them, i.e., requiring little effort.28
Accounting students, however, are not expected to exhibit
different behaviors or patterns here. This is why we define
perceived usefulness as the degree to which an accounting
student considers whether the use of e-book technologies will
improve his or her performance in the accounting field. The
other relevant variable that Davis34 proposes is perceived ease
of use, which is defined in this study as the extent to which
accounting students will not have to make any special effort to
use e-books to learn accounting knowledge. According to
Pando-Garcia et al.35, perceived usefulness and perceived
ease of use are both theoretically positive antecedents of
attitude toward use. Furthermore, Pando-Garcia35 stated that
based on the original model of TAM which is included in
UTAUT, there is a positive relationship between perceived
ease of use and perceived usefulness. Finally, Pando-Garcia
et al.35 found another aspect of UTAUT which theorizes the
effect of perceived usefulness on the intention to accept a new
technology. Consequently, our study presents the following
hypotheses:
H1: The greater the perceived usefulness of e-books, the more
likely e-books will be accepted.
H2: The greater the perceived usefulness of e-books, the more
likely positive attitude toward e-books.
H3: The greater the perceived ease of use of e-books, the
more likely positive attitude toward e-books.
H4: The greater the perceived ease of use of e-books, the
higher the perceived usefulness among accounting students.
Innovativeness
Innovativeness is defined as the willingness of an individual to
try out any new IT.29 Shim et al.28 analyzed the previous
definitions of innovativeness and conceived that it refers to
the predisposition to buy new and different products and
brands rather than remain with previous choices and consu-
mer patterns. Okumus et al.29 explained the influence of
individuals’ innovativeness on their perceptions and beha-
viors. They also mentioned that innovativeness refers to the
degree to which the individual is receptive to new ideas and
makes innovation decisions independently of the communi-
cated experience of others. These definitions suggest that
innovativeness has been used as an explanatory variable in
the diffusion of innovation studies.32 However, many IT
acceptance studies can also use innovativeness as an explana-
tory factor because the adoption stage should influence the
individual’s decision to accept the technologies. As a matter of
fact, Jin3 stated that previous studies have integrated the
diffusion of the innovation theory into the UTAUT model
to investigate technology acceptance behavior.
Furthermore, Shim et al.32 developed a framework that
includes four dimensions of motivated innovativeness (hedo-
nic innovativeness, functional innovativeness, social innova-
tiveness, and cognitive innovativeness). They used this
framework to conduct an empirical study in the adoption of

e-book readers in Korea and found that people with a high
innovativeness are more likely to have an interest in and
intention to purchase e-books. In other words, they found
that e-books can be used interchangeably with print books.
Over the last few years, accounting students’ interest in
e-book readers has not been as high as was expected. Thus,
our study presents the following hypotheses:
H5: The greater the innovativeness of e-books, the higher the
perceived usefulness among accounting students.
H6: The greater the innovativeness of e-books, the more likely
perceived ease of use of e-books.
Attitude toward e-books
According to Pando-Garcia et al.,35 attitude toward behavior
measures users’ interests in using a new technology. In our
study, the definition of attitude toward behavior provided by
Hsiao and Chen36 is adapted. Therefore, attitude can be defined
as the student’s feelings regarding the use of e-book technologies
in accounting courses. Pando-Garcia et al.35 mentioned that atti-
tude also appears a long-side perceived usefulness and perceived
ease of use in the UTAUT model. They also found a positive
correlation between users’ attitude toward technology and beha-
vioral intentions to accept a new technology. In the context of this
study, attitude is seen as an important factor influencing account-
ing students’ behavioral intentions toward the use of e-books.
Furthermore, past empirical studies have confirmed a positive
relationship between the attitude and intention to accept a new
technology.5,36,37 For instance, Cai et al.38 found that males still
hold more favorable attitudes toward technology use than females.
Jimenez and San-Martin39 found user’s positive attitude toward
mobile advertising and mobile repurchase in connection with the
use of e-books. Wu and Chen19 found that students had a positive
attitude toward the combination of e-books, reciprocal teaching,
and mind mapping.
In addition, research has provided evidence for a positive
relation between students’ attitude toward reading and read-
ing behavior in general and for a negative relation between
attitude toward reading and reading enjoyment.40 These
empirical studies about positive or negative attitude toward
reading behavior, however, did not elaborate on the reading
technologies the students used. It was difficult to determine
whether or not the students used e-books before developing
these positive or negative attitudes. Hsiao and Chen41 exam-
ined the factors influencing readers’ intention to pay for
e-book subscription services and found that environmental
concerns do not directly affect readers’ payment intention,
both concerns and habits influence the intention indirectly
through positive attitude. In their study, Hanz and
Mckinnon14 found that librarians’ use of, and attitudes
toward, e-books is not the same as that of undergraduate
students whose attitude toward e-books was mitigated by
many other factors like cost, nature of their discipline, avail-
ability, and e-book technology richness. Thus, our study pre-
sents the following hypothesis:
JOURNAL OF COMPUTER INFORMATION SYSTEMS 5
H7: The more positive the attitude toward e-books, the more
likely e-books will be accepted.
Perceived risk
The concept of perceived risk was originally proposed by
Harvard’s scholar Bauer (cited in Ref. 42) in his consumer
behavior research. Bauer (cited in Ref. 42) defined perceived
risk as a combination of uncertainty and seriousness of outcome
involved. Yang et al.42 emphasized uncertainty on their defini-
tion by asserting that perceived risk is a general measure of
feelings of uncertainty, discomfort, and/or anxiety, while con-
ducting online activities. The definition provided by Featherman
and Pavlou (cited in Ref. 42) is the potential for loss in the
pursuit of a desired outcome of using an e-service. Much
research has included an alleged uncertainty about the outcome
and consequences in the definition of perceived risk. Therefore,
this article defines perceived risk as accounting students’ percep-
tion about the uncertain negative outcomes using e-book tech-
nologies. Other empirical studies found relationships between
perceived risk and intention to accept a new technology. For
instance, Chao et al.43 found that perceived risks of users in
connection with the use of search engines negatively affects
their behavioral intention. Tseng and Wang44 found that per-
ceived risk negatively influences the behavioral intention of users
of travel websites. Furthermore, they found that perceived infor-
mation usefulness moderates the relationship between perceived
risk and the travelers’ intention to use travel websites. Pappas45
found associations among Internet perceived risks, trust, and
online purchasing intention.
Tseng and Wang44 introduced high-perceived risk indivi-
duals in the literature. Those individuals tend to seek more
information from diverse sources in order to minimize the
risk.44 Therefore, those individuals rely heavily on those
sources for risk reduction.44 Thus, accounting students who
perceived significant risk about using e-books may engage in
extensive information search. Through this search, they may
find that e-books may or may not satisfy their learning goals.
Thus, our study presents the following hypothesis:
H8: The greater the perceived risk of use of e-books, the less
likely e-books will be accepted.
Research methods
Measurement instrument
Many researchers have developed and validated measurement
instruments of IT acceptance. In this study, a new measure-
ment instrument was not developed to assess accounting
students’ acceptance of e-books. Instead, questions (items)
were derived from the existing validated instruments in the
IT acceptance literature to represent each construct, and
wording was modified to fit the e-book context. Table 1
shows the sources of the measurement items.
Data collection and demographic profile
A survey was distributed to five accounting classes with 48
students each. We collected 114 responses. Seven participants
6 A. LAWSON-BODY ET AL.

Table 1. Source of the measurement items. measurement in the literature. Since perceived risk and innova-
Variables Source of references tiveness are part of our instrument as well as perceived useful-
Perceived usefulness [26;20;18;23] ness, perceived ease of use, attitude, and acceptance of e-books,
Perceived ease use [26;20;18;23]
Attitude toward e-books [26;23;3]
we then assess the reliability and the validity of the entire
Innovativeness [28;18] instrument using PLS software.
Perceived risk [43;1;40;50; 51]
Acceptance of e-books [26;20;18;23]
Descriptive statistics
were excluded from analysis because they answered less than Table 3 shows the variables and number of items. Five scales
one-third of the questions on the survey. As an incentive, were used in the survey. All items were measured on a five-
students were told that a summary of the results would be point Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree, 2 = disagree, 3 = neu-
sent at their request. The final sample consisted of 107 parti- tral, 4 = agree, and 5 = strongly agree). Table 3 shows the
cipants. Table 2 shows the demographic profile for all respon- mean and standard deviation of each variable. The attitude
dents. There were 60% males and 40% females. In terms of the toward e-books and acceptance of e-books have the highest
current profession of the participants, 100% of the respon- means of, respectively, 2.97 and 3.10. Their standard devia-
dents were students, but some were employed on campus. In tions are 1.14 and 1.08. The attitude toward e-books has the
terms of the number of accounting courses taken, 42% of the highest standard deviation while Table 3 also shows that
students responded that they had taken more than six and perceived risk has the lowest standard deviation which is 0.93.
58% said they had taken between one and five accounting
courses. In terms of the years in college, 10% were freshmen,
22% were sophomores, 65% were juniors, and 3% were Factor analysis
seniors. All respondents (100%) were majoring in accounting. Factor analysis was conducted to examine the factor structure
Table 2 shows that 66% of the students were between 18 and of the instrument. The instrument’s reliability and construct
20 years old. About 29% of the students were between 21 and validity (convergent and discriminant validities) were also
25 years old. Roughly, 5% of the students were over 25 years assessed with PLS. In the literature, confirmatory factor ana-
old. Finally, 99% of students had used e-books before and 90% lysis (CFA) was used to confirm construct validity (Bagozzi
of the students were planning to use e-books in the future. and Yi cited in Ref. [3;46]). The 28-item scale and its six
factors were submitted to the PLS software to perform CFA,
which provides the rationale behind variance shared between
Data analysis and results constructs or factors.46 Then, the PLS method and software
Before testing the hypotheses shown in our research model, we were used to find simultaneously the theoretical relations
conducted the reliability and validity tests using factor analysis. between latent variables and to measure the relations between
The measurements proposed by David34 for perceived useful- latent variables and their indicators.46 PLS is appropriate to
ness, perceived ease of use, attitude, and intention to use have this study because it is based on a method close to data and
been augmented, changed, and adjusted to assess IT adoption does not require the assumption of data normality.46
and IT acceptance in a variety of contexts.3,22,35 Since these Table 4 shows factor loadings and each item loading is
constructs have stable measurement instruments in the litera- greater than 0.70 on the respective latent factor and less than
ture, it might not be necessary to perform a factor analysis 0.70 on the other factors. Items displaying very weak loading on
study for a well-validated instrument. However, perceived risk their factors were deleted and items displaying very strong
and innovativeness do not have a stable or well-known loading on their factors were kept for the remaining of the
analysis. This included one factor for perceived usefulness
(five items), one factor for perceived ease of use (four items),
Table 2. Demographic data of the participants. one factor for innovativeness (four items), one factor for atti-
Percentage tude toward e-books (five items), perceived risk (four items),
Gender Male 60 and one factor for acceptance of e-books (three items). The final
Female 40
Age 18–20 66
21–25 29
Over 25 5 Table 3. Means and standard deviations.
Technology skills Not bad 15 Number
Sufficient 55 Variables of items Response scale M SD
Very good 30
Current profession Student 100 Perceived usefulness 5 1 = strongly disagree; 2.82 1.01
Professional 0 5 = strongly agree
Previous use of e-books No 1 Perceived ease use 6 1 = strongly disagree; 2.94 1.09
Yes 99 5 = strongly agree
Plan to use e-books in the future No 10 Attitude toward e-books 7 1 = strongly disagree; 2.97 1.14
Yes 90 5 = strongly agree
Accounting courses taken 1–5 58 Innovativeness 6 1 = strongly disagree; 2.84 1.04
More than 6 42 5 = strongly agree
Years in college Freshmen 10 Perceived risk 4 1 = strongly disagree; 2.48 0.93
Sophomore 22 5 = strongly agree
Junior 65 Acceptance of e-books 3 1 = strongly disagree; 3.10 1.08
Senior 3 5 = strongly agree
 JOURNAL OF COMPUTER INFORMATION SYSTEMS 7

Table 4. Factor loadings.

Factor 4: Attitude Factor 6:
Coded Factor 1: Perceived Factor 2: Perceived ease of Factor 3: toward Factor 5: Perceived Acceptance of
items usefulness use Innovativeness e-books risk e-books
PU1 0.93 0.11 0.02 0.10 0.21 0.08
PU2 0.72 0.09 0.14 0.00 0.02 0.05
PU3 0.70 −0.22 0.03 0.17 0.00 0.09
PU4 0.77 0.17 0.07 0.08 0.17 0.01
PU5 0.80 0.08 0.02 0.24 0.27 0.12
PEOU1 0.01 0.83 0.05 0.28 0.14 0.03
PEOU2 0.23 0.74 0.11 0.05 0.04 0.20
PEOU3 0.02 0.86 0.18 0.01 0.06 0.26
PEOU4 −0.09 0.75 0.23 0.08 0.17 0.19
INNO1 0.03 0.10 0.94 0.11 0.15 0.02
INNO2 0.19 0.00 0.92 0.14 0.10 0.11
INNO3 0.20 0.13 0.95 0.03 0.05 0.07
INNO4 0.11 0.05 0.76 0.23 0.07 0.03
ATT1 0.08 0.01 0.17 0.68 0.01 0.21
ATT2 0.13 0.13 0.06 0.91 0.09 0.05
ATT3 0.07 0.20 0.00 0.72 0.13 0.17
ATT4 0.15 0.08 0.15 0.88 0.04 0.12
ATT5 0.06 0.17 0.06 0.69 0.12 0.10
PR1 0.04 0.11 0.23 0.14 0.74 0.21
PR2 0.16 0.14 0.24 0.01 0.71 0.00
PR3 0.21 0.03 0.19 0.12 0.92 0.11
PR4 0.03 0.22 0.09 −017. 0.89 0.04
INT1 0.14 0.17 0.13 −011 0.22 0.78
INT2 0.06 0.00 0.01 0.08 0.04 0.91
INT3 0.17 0.01 0.04 0.00 0.16 0.87

instrument of 25 items represents six distinct factors in this
study. Assessing the loadings of the items on their correspond-
ing factors indicates good construct validity.46 The definition of
the coded items in Table 4 can be found in Table 5.
Convergent validity
Convergent validity is the extent to which each measurement
item loads with a significant t-value on its latent construct.11 The
average extracted variance (AEV) column in Table 5 shows the
convergent validity assessment for each factor.46 PLS software
was used to obtain these values. PLS uses an averaged variance
shared between each construct and its measure to calculate
AEV.46,47 In other words, PLS runs the following formula to
determine AEV: AEV = Σλi2/n; where λi is the factor loading
provided by PLS and n represents the number of items loading
significantly on the construct.46 Fornell and Larcker48 suggested
that convergent validity coefficients should be higher than or
equal to 0.50. Convergent validity coefficients for all factors in
this study were higher than or equal to 0.50, indicating accep-
table convergent validity for all factors. Also, all items load with
significant t-values on their respective factors, which means that
the measurement indices exhibit convergent validity.3
Reliability analysis: Rho
To assess the reliability of the constructs using PLS, the
Rho coefficients were calculated (Chin, cited in Ref. 22).
Rho is interpreted like a Cronbach’s alpha internal reliabil-
ity estimate, a Rho in excess of 0.70 is considered accep-
table for research.48 Rho is an internal consistency
coefficient developed by Fornell and Larcker.48 The formula
suggested by Fornell and Larcker48 to determine Rho coef-
ficient is the following: rho = (Σλi)2/(Σλi)2+Var(ξ); where
λi is the factor loading provided by PLS.46 Var (ξ) is
equivalent to Σ(1 – λi2).46 PLS software computes Rho
based on this formula.46 Table 6 shows that all Rho coeffi-
cients ranged between 0.86 and 0.94. These coefficients are
higher than 0.70, therefore, the scale reliabilities calculated
in this study are satisfactory.
Discriminant validity
Discriminant validity is the degree of expected “disagree-
ment” between items measuring different factors.47 To test
the discriminant validity, the AEV of each factor was com-
pared with the square of their correlation.3 Fornell and
Larcker48 suggested a comparison between the AEV for
each construct and the variance shared between the con-
structs. Following Fornell and Larcker48, Macintosh and
Lockshin49 have used a matrix of a covariance square (PHI
square) between the constructs to test the discriminant valid-
ity. In this study, we show both ways to test the discriminant
validity. Table 7 shows the correlation matrix, Table 8 shows
the squared correlation matrix, and Table 9 shows variance
shared between constructs. The discriminant validity was
assessed in Table 8 and Table 9. In each of these two
matrices, the diagonal was replaced with the AEV (under-
lined in Tables 8 and 9). The numbers (AEV) on the diag-
onal (underlined) are all much larger than the elements off
the diagonal. In both tables, the extracted AEV range
between 0.61 and 0.72. In Table 8, the squared correlation
coefficients range between 0.00 and 0.27. In Table 9, the
variance shared between constructs’ coefficients ranges
between 0.00 and 0.19. These analyses indicate that the
AEV for each factor is higher than the squared correlation
coefficients and the variance shared between constructs’
coefficients. In conclusion, the discriminant validity of the
measures appeared to be satisfactory.
8 A. LAWSON-BODY ET AL.

Table 5. Factor analysis and convergent validity.

Loading
Coded items Items and factors (λi) t-Value AEV
Perceived usefulness 0.61
PU1 I expect that using e-book technologies will improve my academic performance 0.93 3.13*
PU2 I am more likely to study harder or for longer periods with an e-book than a print book 0.72 1.81*
PU3 Using e-book technologies is a convenient reading and studying behavior 0.70 1.70*
PU4 I can get most of the knowledge needed for passing an accounting class by using e-book technologies 0.77 2.23*
PU5 Using e-book technologies is, overall, an efficient way to study 0.80 1.73*
Perceived ease of use 0.62
PEOU1 I will find it easy to navigate among chapters and topics when using an e-book 0.83 1.92*
PEOU2 The e-book technologies in accounting classes are easy to use 0.74 3.02*
PEOU3 I will find reading/studying to be easy when using an e-book 0.86 2.71*
PEOU4 I will find information faster in an e-book than a print book 0.75 2.56*
Innovativeness 0.79
INNO1 Peers and my friends who influence me want to use e-books in accounting classes 0.94 2.02*
INNO2 I am able to explain how to use e-book technologies in accounting class to others 0.92 1.69*
INNO3 People who know me have positive feeling about using e-book technologies in accounting classes 0.95 1.84*
INNO4 There are other students who are using e-books around me 0.76 3.20*
Attitude toward e-book 0.60
ATT1 I am satisfied with the quality of available e-book content 0.68 1.88*
ATT2 I am able to retain accounting information through the use of e-book technologies 0.91 1.82*
ATT3 Using e-book technologies will help me to meet my course goals/objectives 0.72 2.89*
ATT4 I am satisfied, overall, with e-book technologies in the accounting classes I have taken thus far 0.88 2.61*
ATT5 In general, my attitude toward the use of e-books in the accounting classes is positive 0.69 1.78*
Perceived risk 0.66
PR1 After using the e-book, I could not resell 0.74 3.29*
PR2 It could be hard to review any accounting topic if my access to the e-book expires 0.71 3.01*
PR3 I may need to have access to the Internet to be able to use the e-book technologies 0.92 1.72*
PR4 The connection and the technology problems of my e-book supplier affect my schedule 0.89 1.68*
Acceptance of e-book 0.72
INT1 I will recommend e-books to my friends 0.78 3.12*
INT2 I intend to buy or lease e-books in future accounting classes 0.91 2.22*
INT3 I intend to accept to use e-books in future accounting classes 0.87 1.76*
AEV = Σλi2/n
*T-Student significant at 1.64 (p ≤ 0.05)

Table 6. Reliability assessment.

Factors Rho
Perceived usefulness 0.88
Perceived ease of use 0.87
Attitude toward e-books 0.88
Innovativeness 0.94
Perceived risk 0.89
Acceptance of e-books 0.86
Rho = (Σλi)2/(Σλi)2+Var(ξ)
Var (ξ) = Σ(1 – λi2).
Hypothesis tests
To test the group of hypotheses (H1 through H8), PLS was used.
PLS is based on a method that does not require the assumption
of data normality. Therefore, a data distribution normality test
was not conducted in this study using either the actual range and
the possible range or the skewness and kurtosis tests.
Table 10 shows that Students’ T (t-values) between per-
ceived usefulness and acceptance of e-books (1.91), between
attitude toward e-books and acceptance of e-books (3.01),
and between perceived risk and acceptance of e-books
(1.76) are higher than 1.65 (p ≤ 0.05). Table 10 also
shows that Students’ T (t-values) between innovativeness
and perceived usefulness (2.77), between perceived useful-
ness and attitude toward e-books (1.98), and between inno-
vativeness and perceived ease of use (2.03) are higher than
1.65 (p ≤ 0.05). However, Table 10 finally shows that
Students’ T (t-values) between perceived ease of use and
perceived usefulness (0.61) and between perceived ease of
use and attitude toward e-books (0.88) are lower than 1.65
(p ≤ 0.05). That means that perceived usefulness positively
influences acceptance of e-books; attitude toward e-books
positively influences acceptance of e-books; perceived risk
negatively influences acceptance of e-books; innovativeness
positively influences perceived usefulness; and perceived
usefulness positively influences attitude toward e-books. In
contrast, perceived ease of use negatively impacts perceived
usefulness and perceived ease of use negatively impacts
attitude toward e-books.
Discussion and conclusion
The current study examines the structural relationships among
perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, innovativeness, atti-
tude toward e-books, perceived risk, and accounting students’
acceptance to use e-books, based on the UTAUT model. More
specifically, this empirical study is aiming to understand
accounting students’ acceptance of e-books.
The results were consistent with most of the hypotheses.
The hypothesis positing the greater the perceived usefulness
of e-books, the more likely e-books will be accepted was
confirmed. This finding is interesting because it shows that
accounting students are part of the new generation of
students who have been born and raised in digital environ-
ments where sharing learning and skills within a virtual
space have become fundamental.20 The result of this
hypothesis supports the findings of Gueval et al.16 who
stated that the use of e-books is a major factor for
 JOURNAL OF COMPUTER INFORMATION SYSTEMS 9

Table 7. Correlation matrix.

Attitude
toward
Perceived usefulness Perceived ease of use e-books Innovativeness Perceived risk Acceptance of e-books
Perceived usefulness 1.00
Perceived ease of use 0.27 1.00
Attitude toward e-books 0.12 0.28 1.00
Innovativeness 0.46 0.16 0.52 1.00
Perceived risk 0.20 0.49 0.46 0.48 1.00
Acceptance of e-books 0.14 0.29 0.18 0.22 0.03 1.00

Table 8. Squared correlation matrix.

Attitude
toward
Perceived usefulness Perceived ease of use e-books Innovativeness Perceived risk Acceptance of e-books
Perceived usefulness 0.61
Perceived ease of use 0.07 0.62
Attitude toward e-books 0.01 0.07 0.60
Innovativeness 0.21 0.02 0.27 0.79
Perceived risk 0.04 0.24 0.21 0.23 0.66
Acceptance of e-books 0.01 0.08 0.03 0.04 0.00 0.72

Table 9. Variance shared between constructs.

Attitude
toward
Perceived usefulness Perceived ease of use e-books Innovativeness Perceived risk Acceptance of e-books
Perceived usefulness 0.61
Perceived ease of use 0.17 0.62
Attitude toward e-books 0.01 0.02 0.60
Innovativeness 0.08 0.14 0.11 0.79
Perceived risk 0.19 0.00 0.05 0.16 0.66
Intention to accept e-books 0.13 0.00 0.12 0.10 0.09 0.72

Table 10. Path coefficients and Students’ T (t-values). it is more important that the user has a positive attitude toward
Path coefficients (Betas Students’ T it. It is also in accordance with the results found by Sang et al.33
standardized) (t-values)
that perceived usefulness was among the significant factors
Acceptance of e-books
Perceived usefulness 0.221 1.91* influencing the attitude of students using web technologies.
Attitude toward 0.178 3.01* Furthermore, the result of our investigation is in line with the
e-books study of Raynard15 who examined e-books acceptance using the
Perceived Risk 0.143 1.76*
Perceived usefulness diffusion of the innovation theory and found some similarities
Perceived ease of use 0.018 0.61 and differences between the use of e-books and print books.
Innovativeness 0.290 2.77*
Attitude toward e-books Mainly, he found that e-books and print books complement each
Perceived usefulness 0.124 1.98* other. Accounting students maintain positive attitude toward
Perceived ease of use 0.016 0.88 e-books because they capture the accounting subjects faster
Perceived ease of use
Innovativeness 0.371 2.03* with e-books than with print books, this is because e-books
*Students’ T (t-values) significant at: 1.64 (p ≤ 0.05). present more flexibility than the print books.
The hypothesis which states that the more positive the
attitude toward e-books, the more likely e-books will be
information retrieval. Accounting is a discipline which accepted is significant. This finding corroborates with the
requires tremendous class preparation and participation, findings of Wu and Chen19 who identified a positive attitude
therefore, the use of e-books helps accounting students of language students toward the use and the adoption of
with both. Overall, this result indicates that accounting e-books. It is also aligned with the findings of Joo et al.20
students had more academic proficiency, productivity, and who reported that students use e-books because they provide
success with e-books over time. diverse learning resources, learning support, and customized
The hypothesis which outlines that the greater the perceived curriculums by motivating learners and enhancing colla-
usefulness of e-books, the more likely positive attitude toward boration and information sharing. In terms of information
e-books was found to be significant. In other words, we found retention, the accounting discipline requires reading com-
that perceived usefulness has a significant impact on attitude prehension than memorization. Wu and Chen19 found that
toward e-books. This result is consistent with the study done by e-books are more appropriate to enhance students’ reading
Huang and Liaw (cited in Cakir et al.37), which stated that no capacity, therefore, the study of Wu and Chen19 can be used
matter how sophisticated and powerful the state of technology is, to explain the results of this study.
10 A. LAWSON-BODY ET AL.
The hypothesis that the greater the perceived ease of use of
e-books, the more likely positive attitude toward e-books was
found to be non-significant. This negative finding is surpris-
ing because since e-books are available, cost effective, and
accessible, the use of e-books allows accounting students to
reduce their efforts to print more frequently.15 The results of
this study are not in accordance with the results found by
Sang et al.33 which said that perceived ease of use was the
significant factor influencing the attitude of students using
web technologies. However, the result of this hypothesis
which shows that accounting students displayed a negative
attitude toward e-books is aligned with the findings of Tang
and Barnett-Ellis17 who found that the use of e-books is
hindered by the discomfort of reading on screen and the
non-user-friendly design of delivery platforms.
The second hypothesis related to perceived ease of the use of
e-books was also found to be non-significant in this study.
Surprisingly, perceived ease of the use of e-books has a negative
impact on perceived usefulness. This finding is not aligned with
the study of Jin,3 which confirmed that perceived ease of use
positively affects perceived usefulness. This suggests that because
of the analytical knowledge required in accounting, accounting
students found e-books impractical when solving problems or
completing assignments, whereas students in other fields consid-
ered e-books easy to use and useful. Learning accounting topics
requires more learning by doing than learning by reading. This
finding is aligned with the study of Hanz and Mckinnon14 who
demonstrated that students like and have a strong preference for
the print books. This finding supports the study of Martin-Beltran
et al.18 who explained that the print books are appropriate to
elevate students’ comprehension more than e-books.
One of the hypotheses of our study outlines that perceived
risk negatively influences the acceptance of e-books. This means
that accounting students do not accept e-books when they per-
ceived risks for using or adopting them. There is a very strong
analytical and practice component in the accounting field. Every
time, accounting students perceived the use of e-books as a
threat to the components of their field, they will reject them.
There are similarities between this finding of our study and the
results of some surveys ordered by librarians who wanted to
know the students’ perception of e-books. For instance, this
finding is aligned with one of the findings of Hanz and
Mckinnon14, who found limitations and inconveniences asso-
ciated with the use of e-books. In the same vein, this finding
corresponds to the results of the study of Raynard15 who deter-
mined that e-books are not being used at the same rate as the
print books.15
Another important hypothesis of our study shows that
innovativeness influences positively perceived usefulness.
According to Okumus et al.29, innovativeness refers to the
degree to which the individual is receptive to new ideas, new
products, and new technologies. Our findings show that
accounting students are willing to try out any new e-book
devices and make their own judgment about the e-books
without any influence from others. Also, this result of our
study demonstrates that accounting students are predisposed
to buy new e-books instead of keeping the traditional print
books. Therefore, accounting students believe that e-books
would increase their academic performance and productivity.
Shim et al.32 found that individuals with a high innovativeness
are inclined to adopt new technologies. Consequently, the
results of our study suggest that because accounting students
are willing to be earlier users of e-books, they are innovative
learners.
A second hypothesis concerning innovativeness was tested
in this study. That hypothesis mentions that innovativeness
influences positively perceived ease of use. Accounting students
prefer being the first group of users to discover how ease of use
or user friendly the new e-books are when learning accounting
subjects. The innovativeness of accounting students can also be
explained by the pricing model of e-books which benefits the
accounting students. According to Wen-Qi et al.5, the e-books
pricing model has created some conflicts among the authors,
the publishers, the bookstores, and the electronic retailers like
Amazon, but the final beneficiary in these conflicts is the
student because e-books are less expensive than physical
books. As long as accounting students would find themselves
in a position to buy e-books cheaper, their e-books’ innova-
tiveness would be higher because the e-book pricing model
favors them.
This study surveyed the acceptance of e-books by
accounting students. Previous studies conducted were
mainly about e-book use, in general, in academics, research,
or reading areas. This study will, therefore, contribute to
the understanding of accounting students in response to the
acceptance of e-books and form a basis for future research.
Most of the hypotheses were supported. We hope that
future studies can refer to these findings for comparisons
and discussions. The factors used in this study might not
encompass all the relevant factors that might affect the
motivation of the use and acceptance of e-books.
In terms of practical implications, the results of this study
can be used by accounting students to know which charac-
teristics of e-books are appropriate for their analytical skills.
Accounting students should take advantage of this study in
order to use e-books and adapt them to their analytical skills.
The results of this study should be useful for organizations
involved in the development, selling, and publishing of
e-books. Most of those organizations take considerable
advantages of the worldwide growth of the use of e-books.
Marketers or organizations publishing accounting e-books
should provide the desirable technology appropriate to the
discipline. The findings suggest that university executives
and academics of business schools should favor the use of
e-books as an effective and efficient educational approach,
and incorporate this tactic within online and on-campus
course deliveries in order to produce accounting managers
who are more creative in the applications of their ideas and
business concepts.
In terms of theoretical implications, this research is used to
extend the applicability of the UTAUT model in accounting
education. This study uses UTAUT to provide empirical evidence
on the factors related to students’ decision to use an e-book in
accounting courses. Future research might consider additional

factors such as students’ frustration in navigating e-books, usabil-
ity of e-books, and interactivity. Consequently, additional research
on factors affecting students’ motivation for using e-books is
essential to clarify the role that e-books may play in higher
education.
References
1. Walton E. Why undergraduate students choose to use e-books. J
Librarianship Inf Sci. 2013;46(4):263–70. doi:10.1177/
0961000613488124.
2. Aharony N. The effect of personal and situational factors on LIS
students’ and professionals’ intentions to use e-books. Libr Inf Sci
Res. 2014;36:106–13. doi:10.1016/j.lisr.2014.01.001.
3. Jin C-H. Adoption of e-book among college students: the per-
spective of an integrated TAM. Comput Human Behav.
2014;41:471–77. doi:10.1016/j.chb.2014.09.056.
4. Mulholland E, Bates J. Use and perceptions of E-books by
Academic Staff in further education. J Acad Librarianship.
2014;40:492–99. doi:10.1016/j.acalib.2014.05.018.
5. Wen-Qi F, Mei Z, Ling-Yan Y. Academic e-Book publishing in China:
an investigation of current status and publishers’ attitudes. J Acad
Librarianship. 2018;44:15–24. doi:10.1016/j.acalib.2017.12.008.
6. Roskos K, Brueck J, Lenhar L. An analysis of e-book learning
platforms: affordances, architecture, functionality and analytics.
Int J Child-Computer Interaction. 2017;12:37–45. doi:10.1016/j.
ijcci.2017.01.003.
7. Spiceland CP, Spiceland JD, Schaeffer JG III. Using a course
redesign to address retention and performance issues in introduc-
tory accounting. J Accounting Educ. 2015;33:50–68. doi:10.1016/j.
jaccedu.2014.12.001.
8. Özpeynirci R, Yücenurşen M, Apak I, Polat Y. A comparative
analysis of accounting education’s effectiveness with the balanced
scorecard method: A case study of KMU. Procedia Soc Behav Sci.
2015;174:1849–58. doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2015.01.847.
9. Lawrence S, Sharma U. Commodification of education and academic
labour-using the balanced scorecard in a University Setting. Crit
Perspect Accounting. 2002;13:661–77. doi:10.1006/cpac.2002.0562.
10. Rao KN, Tripathi M, Kumar S. Cost of print and digital books: a
comparative study. J Acad Librarianship. 2016;42:445–52.
doi:10.1016/j.acalib.2016.04.003.
11. Tamandja E, Lawson-Body A, Willoughby L, Lawson-Body L. Social
media-presence based trust for enterprise knowledge sharing: an
empirical investigation. Issue Inf Syst. 2016;17(2):44–55.
12. Lin H-C K, Wu C-H, Hsueh Y-P. The influence of using affective
tutoring system in accounting remedial instruction on learning
performance and usability. Comput Human Behav. 2014;41:514–
22. doi:10.1016/j.chb.2014.09.052.
13. Wang S, Bai X. University students awareness, usage and attitude
toward E-books: experience from China. J Acad Librarianship.
2016;42:247–58. doi:10.1016/j.acalib.2016.01.001.
14. Hanz K, McKinnon D. When librarians hit the books: uses of and
attitudes toward E-Books. J Acad Librarianship. 2018;44:1–14.
doi:10.1016/j.acalib.2017.12.018.
15. Raynard M. Understanding Academic E-books through the diffu-
sion of innovations theory as a basis for developing effective
marketing and educational strategies. J Acad Librarianship.
2017;42:82–86. doi:10.1016/j.acalib.2016.08.011.
16. Gueval J, Tarnow K, Kumm S. Implementing e-books: faculty and
student experiences. Teaching Learn Nurs. 2015;10:181–85.
doi:10.1016/j.teln.2015.06.003.
17. Tang Y, Barnett-Ellis P. Nursing students’ learning experience
with E-books. J Acad Librarianship. 2017;43:67–71. doi:10.1016/
j.acalib.2016.08.020.
18. Martin-Beltrán M, Tigert JM, Peercy MM, Silverman RD. Using
digital texts vs. paper texts to read together: insights into engage-
ment and mediation of literacy practices among linguistically
JOURNAL OF COMPUTER INFORMATION SYSTEMS 11
diverse students. Int J Educ Res. 2017;82:135–46. doi:10.1016/j.
ijer.2017.01.009.
19. Wu -T-T, Chen A-C. Combining e-books with mind mapping
in a reciprocal teaching strategy for a classical Chinese
course. Comput Educ. 2018;116:64–80. doi:10.1016/j.
compedu.2017.08.012.
20. Joo YJ, Park S, Shin EK. Students’ expectation, satisfaction, and
continuance intention to use digital textbooks. Comput Human
Behav. 2017;69:83–90. doi:10.1016/j.chb.2016.12.025.
21. Lu Q, Shi V, Huang J. Who benefit from agency model: a strategic
analysis of pricing models in distribution channels of physical
books and e-books. Eur J Oper Res. 2018;264:1074–91.
doi:10.1016/j.ejor.2017.07.002.
22. Lin S, Zimmer JC, Lee V. Podcasting acceptance on campus: the
differing perspectives of teachers and students. Comput Educ.
2013;68:416–28. doi:10.1016/j.compedu.2013.06.003.
23. Parameswaran S, Kishore R, Li P. Within-study measurement
Invariance of the UTAUT instrument: an assessment with user
technology engagement variables. Inf Manag. 2015;52:317–36.
doi:10.1016/j.im.2014.12.007.
24. Sumak B, Sorgo A. The acceptance and use of interactive white-
boards among teachers: differences in UTAUT determinants
between pre- and post-adopters. Comput Human Behav.
2016;64:602–20. doi:10.1016/j.chb.2016.07.037.
25. Hardy J, Veinot TC, Yan X, Berrocal VJ, Clarke P, Goodspeed
R, Gomez-Lopez IN, Romero D, Vydiswaran VGV. User accep-
tance of location-tracking technologies in health research:
implications for study design and data quality. J
Biomed Inform. 2018;79:7–19. doi:10.1016/j.jbi.2018.01.
003.
26. Howard R, Restrepo L, Chang C-Y. Addressing individual
perceptions: an application of the unified theory of acceptance
and use of technology to building information
modelling. Int J Project Manag. 2017;35:107–20. doi:10.1016/
j.ijproman.2016.10.012.
27. Macedo IM. Predicting the acceptance and use of information and
communication technology by older adults: an empirical exam-
ination of the revised UTAUT2. Comput Human Behav.
2017;75:939–48. doi:10.1016/j.chb.2017.06.013.
28. Suki NM, Suki N. Determining students’ behavioral intention
to use animation and storytelling applying the UTAUT model:
the moderating roles of gender and experience level. Int J
Manag Educ. 2017;15::528–38. doi:10.1016/j.ijme.2017.
10.002.
29. Okumus B, Ali F, Bilgihan A, Ozturk AB. Psychological factors
influencing customers’ acceptance of smartphone diet apps when
ordering food at restaurants. Int J Hospitality Manag. 2018;72:67–
77. doi:10.1016/j.ijhm.2018.01.001.
30. Halili SH, Sulaiman H. Factors influencing the rural students’
acceptance of using ICT for educational purposes. Kasetsart J
Soc Sci. 2018;1:1–6.
31. Shin D-H, Shin Y-J, Choo H, Beom K. Smartphones as smart
pedagogical tools: implications for smartphones as u-learning
devices. Comput Human Behav. 2011;27:2207–14. doi:10.1016/j.
chb.2011.06.017.
32. Shim D, Kim JG, Altmann J. Identifying key drivers and bottle-
necks in the adoption of E-book readers in Korea. Telematics
Inform. 2016;33:860–71. doi:10.1016/j.tele.2015.12.009.
33. Sang G, Valcke M, Braak J, Tondeur J. Student teachers’
thinking processes and ICT integration. Predictors of prospec-
tive teaching behaviors with educational technology. Comput
Educ. 2010;54:103–12. doi:10.1016/j.compedu.2009.07.010.
34. Davis F. Perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and user
acceptance of information technology. Mis Q. 1989;13:319–39.
doi:10.2307/249008.
35. Pando-Garcia J, Periañez-Cañadillas I, Charterina J. Business
simulation games with and without supervision: an analysis
based on the TAM model. J Bus Res. 2016;69:1731–36.
doi:10.1016/j.jbusres.2015.10.046.
12 A. LAWSON-BODY ET AL.
36. Hsiao K-L, Chen -C-C. What drives smartwatch purchase inten-
tion? Perspectives from hardware, software, design, and value.
Telematics Inform. 2017;1:11.
37. Cakır R, Solak E. Attitude of Turkish EFL learners towards
e-Learning through tam model. Procedia Soc Behav Sci.
2015;176:596–601. doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2015.01.515.
38. Cai Z, Fan X, Du J. Gender and attitudes toward technology use: a
meta-analysis. Comput Educ. 2017;105:1–13. doi:10.1016/j.
compedu.2016.11.003.
39. Jiménez N, San-Martin S. Attitude toward m-advertising and
m-repurchase. Eur Res Manag Business Econ. 2017;23:96–102.
doi:10.1016/j.iedeen.2016.12.001.
40. Pfost M, Schiefer IM, Artelt C. Intergenerational continuity in
attitudes toward reading and reading behavior. Learn Individ
Differ. 2016;51:179–88. doi:10.1016/j.lindif.2016.09.002.
41. Hsiao K-L, Chen -C-C. Value-based adoption of e-book subscription
services: the roles of environmental concerns and reading habits.
Telematics Inform. 2017;34:434–48. doi:10.1016/j.tele.2016.09.004.
42. Yang Q, Pang C, Liu L, Yen D, Tarn J. Exploring consumer
perceived risk and trust for online payments: an empirical study
in China’s younger generation. Comput Hum Behav. 2015;50:9–
24. doi:10.1016/j.chb.2015.03.058.
43. Chao C-Y, Chang T-C, Wu H-C, Lin Y-S, Chen P-C. The inter-
relationship between intelligent agents’ characteristics and users’
intention in a search engine by making beliefs and perceived risks
mediators. Comput Human Behav. 2016;64:117–25. doi:10.1016/j.
chb.2016.06.031.
44. Tseng S-Y, Wang C-N. Perceived risk influence on dual-route
information adoption processes on travel websites. J Bus Res.
2016;69:2289–96. doi:10.1016/j.jbusres.2015.12.044.
45. Pappas N. Marketing strategies, perceived risks, and consumer
trust in online buying behavior. J Retailing Consumer Serv.
2016;29:92–103. doi:10.1016/j.jretconser.2015.11.007.
46. Lawson-Body A, Willoughby L, Lawson-Body L, Logossah K.
Developing and validating a cultural user satisfaction instrument
in developing Countries. J Comput Inf Syst. 2016;57:319–29.
doi:10.1080/08874417.2016.1232977.
47. Bahli B, Rivard S. Validating measures of information technology
outsourcing risk factors. Omega. 2005;33:175–87. doi:10.1016/j.
omega.2004.04.003.
48. Fornell C, Larcker D. Structural equation models with unobser-
vable variables and measurement Erro. J Marketing Res. 1981;18
(1):39–50. doi:10.2307/3151312.
49. Macintosh G, Lockshin LS. Retail relationships and loyalty: a
multi-level perspective. Int J Res Marketing. 1997;14(5):487–97.
doi:10.1016/S0167-8116(97)00030-X.
50. Kerviler G, Demoulin NT, Zidda P. Adoption of in-store mobile
payment: are perceived risk and convenience the only drivers? J
Retailing Consumer Serv. 2016;31:334–44. doi:10.1016/j.
jretconser.2016.04.011.