An Exploration of Facebook.Com Adoption in Tunisia Using Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA)

Transcription

1 An Exploration of Facebook.Com Adoption in Tunisia Using Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA) Wadie Nasri Assistant Professor of Marketing in the Higher Institute of Management of Gabes, University of Gabes, Tunisia Lanouar Charfeddine* 17 (*) Assistant Professor, College of Administrative Sciences, University of Najran, BOX 1988, Alsawady Aireport, Najran. Abstract This paper aims to examine empirically the factors that affect the adoption of Facebook by Tunisian students. Technology acceptance model (TAM) and The Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA) as the base model in order to investigate the adoption of Facebook. The model employs snoop, news, perceived enjoyment, information receiving and self efficacy, in addition to perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, attitude, social norm, and intention to use Facebook. A survey involving a total of 240 respondents is conducted and confirmatory factor analysis used to determine the measurement efficacies. Theoretically, this study confirms the applicability of the TAM model and TRA in predicting Facebook.com adoption by Tunisian students. This study contributes to the validation of technology acceptance model outside of the Anglo-Saxon context, especially in developing country. From a practical perspective, this study results suggests important implications for companies aiming exploiting the marketing potentialities of Facebook because it is the most popular online social networking site among university students Keywords Facebook, Technology adoption, Technology Acceptance Model, Theory of Reasoned Action, Structural equation modelling, Tunisia COPY RIGHT 2012 Institute of Interdisciplinary Business Research 948

2 1. Introduction Since their introduction, social networking sites (SNSs) such as MySpace, Facebook, Cyworld, and Bebo have attracted millions of users, many of whom have integrated these sites into their daily practices. These sites have changed the way people communicate with each other, helping users find a social network, share common interests, connect with friends, participate in discussion forums, and express themselves through a personalized blog or minihomepage. (Kim et al, 2011). Social networking sites provide a public forum that enables the exchange of digital information, such as pictures, videos, text, blogs, and hyperlinks between users with common interests, such as hobbies, work, school, family, and friendship (Sledgianowski & Kulviwat, 2009). Popular Social network sites include Myspace, Facebook, and Friendster, with Myspace reported, to have over 200 million members (Thill & Bovee, 2009). Facebook ( is the most popular social networking site. The use of Facebook has become an international phenomenon, with over 8 million users. Social networking sites (SNSs) particularly evolve around special interests or shared contexts like students populations at universities (Lampe et al., 2007), i.e. students use them typically to stay in contact, communicate with and spy on their online friends. This study focuses on new channel of communication and information technology adoption in a developing country, namely Tunisia, where social network sites (SNS) is still emerging. We believe that Facebook is appropriate for the current study as it is the most popular online social networking site among university students There is no published empirical research studying the determinants of intention to use this technology in Tunisia country. This paper addresses the following research questions: (1) what are the factors that influence the use of Facebook?; (2) what is the relative importance of these factors? and (3) what is the nature and strength of the relationship among these factors? In order to explain the factors, this paper extends the technology acceptance model in two ways. First, we included five factors that influence the use of Facebook: self efficacy, subjective norm, perceived enjoyment, snoop and information receiving. Also, we added four key demographic constructs as external variables to the TAM (i.e., age, education, income and race). The remainder of the paper is divided into five sections. The first section contains a literature review about information technology acceptance. In this section, we present our research model, which we call the Facebook Adoption model. The second section describes the methodology used to empirically investigate our hypotheses. The third section comprises the data analysis and hypotheses testing results. The Fourth section consists to discuss the main findings and draw implications for theory and practice. Fifth and finally, we suggest limitations of our research and suggestions for future research. 2. Theoretical background Social Networking and Facebook Social network sites (SNSs) as web-based services that, allow users to create profiles on the site, to post information and share that information and communicate with other users of the site (Kaplan and Haenlein, 2010). These sites have changed the way people communicate with each other, helping users find a social network, share common interests, connect with friends, participate in discussion forums, and express themselves through a personalized blog or minihomepage. (Kim et al, 2011). COPY RIGHT 2012 Institute of Interdisciplinary Business Research 949

3 Social networking services (SNS) allow users to gather together as an "online community", with connections to current personal relationships, such as friends/family, or to meet other people on the basis for friendship, activities, professional networking, or romance (Kim et al, 2011). The nature and nomenclature of these connections may vary from site to site. Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn might be the first sites that come to mind when thinking of social networking sites, these popular websites do not represent the full scope of social networks that exist, such as Twitter, Myspace, Friendster, Youtube, Badoo, Wikis, Skype Since their introduction, these social network sites have attracted 200 millions of users, many of whom have integrated these sites into their daily practices Facebook is a social networking website intended to connect friends, family, and business associates. It is the largest of the networking sites, with the runner up being MySpace (Mary White: Facebook users create a profile page that shows their friends and networks information about themselves. The choice to include a profile in a network means that everyone withing that network can view the profile. This profile includes: Information, Status, Friends, Photos, Notes, Groups, and The Wall. Facebook was founded in 2004 by Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg and originally called the Facebook. It was quickly successful on campus and expanded beyond Harvard into Stanford and Yale where, like Harvard, it was widely endorsed. With the phenomenon growing in popularity, Zuckerberg enlisted two other students, Duston Moskovitz and Chris Hughes, to assist. Within months, the Facebook became a nationwide college networking website in Canada and USA. In August of 2005, the Facebook was renamed Facebook.com, and the domain was purchased for a reported $200,000 USD. At that time, it was only available to schools, universities, organizations, and companies within English speaking countries, but has since expanded to include anyone. Finally, it is in September 26, 2006 he decided to open Facebook to the public (ages 13 and older with a valid address). And since that day, he became the most popular social networking site, with over 350million subscribers worldwide (according to Facebook.com statistics retrieved in March, 2010). Theory Acceptance Model and related theories Three models have been applied to explain the acceptance and usage of information technology: the technology acceptance model (TAM) originally proposed by Davis (1989), the theory of reasoned action (TRA) originally proposed by Fishbein and Ajzen (1975), and the extension of TRA into a theory of planned behavior (TPB) originally proposed by Ajzen (1991). The technology acceptance model (TAM) (Davis, 1989; Davis et al, 1989) adapted from the Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA) (Ajzen & Fishbein, 1980; Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975) has received significant attention in IT/IS acceptance literature. Technology acceptance model (Davis 1989, Davis et al. 1989) focuses on the attitudinal explanations of intention to use a specific technology or service. Technology acceptance model posits that two particular beliefs, perceived usefulness (PU) and perceived ease of use (PEOU) are main determinants of the attitudes (AT) toward using a new technology. (PU) is the degree to which the user believes that using the technology would improve his or her performance on a task, while PEOU is defined as the degree to which a person believes that using a particular system would be free of effort (Davis, 1989; Davis et al., 1989). The Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA), developed by Fishbein and Ajzen (1975), is one of the most influential theories used to explain human behaviour. According to this theory, the behavioral intention can be explained by the attitude towards behavior and subjective norm. The attitude towards behavior is defined as an individual s positive or negative feelings (evaluative COPY RIGHT 2012 Institute of Interdisciplinary Business Research 950

4 effect) about performing the target behavior (Fishbein and Ajzen, 1975, p. 216). Subjective norm refers to perception that most people who really matter to the individual think that he either should or should not perform the behavior in question (Fishbein and Ajzen, 1975). The theory of planned behavior (TPB) was proposed as an extension of the theory of reasoned action for conditions where individuals do not have complete control over their behavior (Ajzen 1991). The addition of perceived behavioral control in TPB reflects the internal and external constraints on behavior, and is directly related to both behavioral intention to use and actual use (Ajzen 1991). The theory of planned behavior (TPB) suggests that a central factor in human behaviour is behavioral intention, which is affected by attitude toward behavior, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control (Ajzen, 1985, 1991, 2002). 3. Conceptual framework and hypotheses One benefit of using TAM to understand acceptance and usage of information technology is that it provides a framework to investigate the effects of external variables on system usage (Hong et al, 2001). Therefore, this research incorporates to TAM sex additional constructs: self efficacy, subjective norm, perceived enjoyment, snoop, news and information receiving, which would help us to better predict intention to use Facebook. Perceived usefulness and ease of use TAM theorizes that an individual's behavioral intention to adopt or use any information technology is determined by the by two beliefs: perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use. While perceived usefulness is defined as the degree to which a person believes that using the new technology will enhance their task performance, perceived usefulness was defined by Davis (1989) as the degree to which a person believes that using a particular system would enhance his or her job performance. Previous studies on the adoption of innovations suggested the important role for perceived usefulness on intention to use information technology (Tornatzky and Klein, 1982). Moreover, perceived usefulness mediates the effect of perceived ease of use on usage (Agarwal & Prasad 1999; Davis et al., 1989; Jackson et al., 1997; Venkatesh, 1999). Based on Davis (1993) perceived usefulness has a direct effect on intention to use over and above its influence via attitudes (Taylor and Todd, 2001). Ajzen (1991) defined intention as a person s subjective probability of performing a behavior. It reflects the willingness of an individual to engage in a certain behavior. Behavioral Intention to use is a measure of the likelihood that a person will adopt the application (Norazah and Norbayah, 2011). Several studies have supported the notion that behavioral intentions are found to have a positive effect on behavior (Hung et al., 2003; Tung, 2004; Nysveen et al., 2005 Amin et al., 2007). In summary, attitude toward the behavior, and social norm, lead to the formation of a behavioral intention (Azjen, 1991). Perceived ease of use refers to the degree to which a person believes that using a particular system would be free of effort (Davis, 1989). Perceived ease of use shows how much effort an individual needs to effort in using an information technology. Perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use are the two relevant beliefs for determining attitude toward using information technologies. Technology acceptance model postulates a positive direct impact of perceived ease of use on perceived usefulness (Davis, 1989). A considerable amount of prior studies supported the significant effect of perceived ease of use on behavioral intention, either directly or indirectly through perceived usefulness (e.g., Agarwal & Prasad, 1999; Davis et al., 1989; Hu et al, 1999; Jackson et al., 1997; Venkatesh, 1999; Yi & Hwang, 2003). In Tunisia, previous studies have well documented the importance of perceived ease of use in explaining technology information since introduced by Davis. Wadie and Lanouar, (2012) found COPY RIGHT 2012 Institute of Interdisciplinary Business Research 951

5 that there is a significant relationship between perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use and attitude toward using internet banking by Tunisian s consumers. There are many researchers who have studied the relationship between perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness. For instance, Moon & Kim, 2001 discovered that the relationship was significant perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness. Therefore, based on the theoretical and empirical support from the information technology literature, we tested the following hypotheses: Hypothesis 1. Perceived usefulness will have a positive effect on intention to use Facebook. Hypothesis 2. Perceived usefulness will have a positive effect on attitude toward using Facebook Hypothesis 3. Perceived ease of use will have a positive effect on attitude toward using Facebook Hypothesis 4. Perceived ease of use will have a positive effect on perceived usefulness of Facebook. Attitude towards Using Facebook Attitude is populated to be the first antecedent of behavioral intention. It is an individual s positive or negative belief about performing a specific behavior. An individual will intend to perform a certain behavior when he or she evaluates it positively. It has been demonstrated that attitude has a strong effect, direct and positive, on the real individual intentions by using a new system or technology (Bobbitt and Dabholkar, 2001; Dishaw and Strong, 1999; Venkatesh and Davis, 1996). In this research, attitude is hypothesized to influences the intention towards using services, and is defined as the degree to which an individual s attitude is favourably or unfavourably disposed towards using Facebook services. Accordingly, we hypothesized that: Hypothesis 5. Attitude will have a positive effect on intention to use Facbook. Social norm Social norm or normative pressure refers as the person s perception that most people (e.g., parents, teachers, friends ) who are important to her or him should or should not perform the behavior in question (Ajzen and Fishbein, 1980; Nysveen et al., 2005). The effect of social norm on behavioral intention has been validated in many previous studies based on TRA and TPB model (Ajzen, 1991; Ajzen and Fishbein, 1980; Nysveen et al., 2005; Amin et al., 2007; Kleijnen et al., 2004). Amin et al. (2007) and Nysveen et al. (2005) noted that social norm to be important construct that explains the usage of mobile banking in Malaysia. TRA & TPB has been successfully applied in online consumer behavior, technology acceptance and system use (see Fishbein and Ajzen, 1975; Ajzen and Fishbein, 1980; Pavlou, 2003), social norm is proposed as a direct antecedent of behavioral intention in this study. Furthermore, Wadie, (2011) and Wadie and Lanouar, (2012) found that the social norm as essential elements in the development of people intention to use internet banking Tunisian s. Thus the following hypothesis is proposed: Hypothesis 6. Social norm has a positive effect on consumer acceptance of online banking. Snoop (SNO) COPY RIGHT 2012 Institute of Interdisciplinary Business Research 952

6 Facebook provides a formatted web page into which each user can enter personal information, including contact information, personal information like gender, birthday, hometown, political and religious views, and physical addresses, relationship status,, and school concentration, information regarding interests in movies, music, clubs, books, relationship status and partner, and political affiliation. After completing their profile, users are prompted to identify others with whom they have a relationship, either by searching for registered users of Facebook or by requesting their contacts to join Facebook (usually by ). Users can in fact choose to fill in any of this information and update their information at any time. It is possible to snoop on Facebook and get information from profiles and postings. This capability attracts millions of users around the globe to use Facebook. Based on the description above hypothesis as follows: Hypothesis 7. Snoop will have a positive effect on the perceived usefulness of Facebook. News (NEW) Facebook allows users to receive public updates from other users without becoming friends with them. To keep users updated about their social circles, Facebook has two features: News Feed, which appears on the homepage of each user, and Mini-Feed, which appears in each individual s profile. The News Feed updates a personalized list of news stories throughout the day generated by the activity of friends. The Mini-Feed is similar, except that it centers around one individual. Each person s Mini-Feed shows what has changed recently in their profile and what content or modules ( applications ) they have added. Based on the description above hypothesis as follows: Hypothesis 8. News will have a positive effect on the perceived usefulness of Facebook. Perceived enjoyment Prior studies of the World Wide Web and electronic commerce have empirically added PE to the TAM to predict user acceptance and adoption of a specific source, and found this construct has a positive effect on attitude towards using a specified system (Dabholkar, 1996; Bruner and Kumar, 2005; Moon and Kim, 2001). Prior studies also suggest that perceived enjoyment has a significant influence on behavioral intention to use blogs/hedonic systems (Hsu and Lu, 2007; Van der Heijden, 2003; Van der Heijden, 2004). Perceived enjoyment (PE) is defined as the extent to which the activity of using a specific system is perceived to be enjoyable in it s own right, aside from any performance consequences resulting from system use (Davis et al, 1992). In this study, we define perceived enjoyment as the degree to which a person believes that use of Fcaebook services will be interesting and associates it with enjoyment. If one person has to feel that using Facebook can be enjoyed for them, this will encourage person to have an acceptance attitude of Facebook. Based on the description above hypothesis as follows: Hypothesis 9. Perceived enjoyment will have a positive effect perceived usefulness of Facebook. Information receiving (IR) Users receive a variety of information from other users. It has become an important source of information. Based on the description above hypothesis as follows: COPY RIGHT 2012 Institute of Interdisciplinary Business Research 953

7 Hypothesis 10. Information receiving will have a positive effect on the perceived usefulness of Facebook. Computer self-efficacy Computer self efficacy has also been repeatedly cited in the IS literature as an important factor in in understanding individual response to information technology (Amin, 2007; Chan & Lu, 2004; Compeau & Higgins, 1995). Perceived computer self-efficacy is defined as an individual s self- confidence in his or her ability to perform tasks across multiple computer application domains (Monsuwe et al., 2004). Davis et al. (1989) and Wang et al. (2003), find that computer self-efficacy and perceived ease of use are related. Others studies have examined the relationship between self-efficacy with respect to computer use (e.g. Wang et al., 2003; Eastin, 2002; Bandura, 1977; Monsuwe et al., 2004; Wang and Newlin, 2002). There also exists empirical evidence of a causal link between self-efficacy and perceived ease of use (e.g., Agarwal et al., 2000; Igbaria & Iivari, 1995; Venkatesh, 2000; Venkatesh and Davis, 1996). On the basis of these findings, the following hypothesis is proposed: Hypothesis 11. Perceived self-efficacy will have a positive effect on the perceived ease of use of Facebook. COPY RIGHT 2012 Institute of Interdisciplinary Business Research 954

8 Snoop H 7 News H 8 Percevied usefulness H 1 H 9 Percevied enjoyment H 10 H 2 Information receiving H 4 Self efficacy H 11 Percevied ease of use H 3 Attitude H 5 Intention to use H 6 Social norm Figure 1: The proposed research model with hypothesis 4. Methodology Data collection Subjects were drawn from a convenience sample of 300 users of Facebook. Of these, 250 were retained for analysis, providing a usable response rate of 75%. Of these respondents, there were 38 percent female and 62 percent male. The questionnaire is divided in 59 questions directly related to use of Facebook and 10 general questions related to gender; age; level of education; social and personal questions; questions directly related to using internet and general questions related to internet and banking services. The questionnaire was administered by meeting the respondents on a one-to-one and were asked to circle the response which best described their level of agreement with the statements. For, perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, perceived enjoyment, self efficacy, social norm, attitude and intention to use Facebook the respondents require to rate their level of agreement with statements using fivepoint scales ranging from strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (5). For, snoop, news and COPY RIGHT 2012 Institute of Interdisciplinary Business Research 955

9 information receiving the respondents require to rate their level of agreement with statements using five-point scales ranging from to never use (1) to very often (5). The English version of questionnaire was translated to French language to facilitate the survey (see Appendix). The questionnaire was completed by students on courses of Higher Institute of Management of Gabes in April and May of academic year 20011/2012. Measurement of Constructs The measurement of all the variables in the current study was largely based on previous studies (see Appendix). Items for perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, attitude, and intent to use were measured using items adapted from Cheng et al, (2006) and Lai and Li, (2005), containing four items for perceived usefulness and attitude and three items for perceived ease of use and intention to use. The computer self efficacy construct was measured using items adapted from Compeau and Higgins (1995) study containing ten items. Subjective norm were adapted from the measurements defined by Wu and Chen (2005), containing three items. Perceived enjoyment was derived from containing three items. Snoop, News and information receiving were adopted from the measurements defined by Watanyoo and Wornchanok, (2011) containing three items for the first construct and two items for the second and third construct. The demographics characteristics were measured in terms of gender, age, education, possession of Facebook account, frequencies of check account Facebook and purpose to use Facebook were adapted from (Robly et al, 2010). A total of 300 people were sampled, 240 responses were received and 207 questionnaires were useable for analysis. The gender distribution of the survey respondents is 87.2 per cent females and per cent males. The results also indicated that the samples have age predominantly between 20 and 22 years, which is 87.2 per cent. COPY RIGHT 2012 Institute of Interdisciplinary Business Research 956

10 More than per cent of the respondents had a personal computer. Survey results indicated that large majority of students have Facebook account. Of 207 respondents, 207 (95.7%) claimed to have Facebook accounts, while only 39 (4.7%) did not. The most frequent indication for users was checking Facebook once times per day, and a quarter of users also checked their accounts 2-5 times per day. COPY RIGHT 2012 Institute of Interdisciplinary Business Research 957

11 The reasons why students join Facebook that we explore in our survey fall into eight broad categories, to get a relationship, to communicate, to find friends, for enjoyment, to be known, to cultivate, to learn more, and to meet other people. The most students joined Facebook, to communicate, to get a relationship and to find friends. Our results suggest that those surveyed were well aware of how Facebook could be used and some of the advantages of using it. These users probably view Facebook like a social network and enhanced directory tool to aid in various social connecting. 5. Data analysis and results Measurement model The test of the measurement model includes the estimation of internal consistency and the convergent and discriminant validity of the instrument items. Convergent validity is demonstrated when items load highly (loading> 0.50) on their associated factors. Convergent validity also is adequate when constructs have an Average Variance Extracted (AVE) of at least 0.50 [25]. Table 1 shows that all AVE were well above the recommended value level of For satisfactory discriminant validity, the AVE from the construct should be greater than the COPY RIGHT 2012 Institute of Interdisciplinary Business Research 958

12 variance shared between the construct and other constructs in the model. The remaining items and their standardized loadings are shown in Table 1. All items have large and significant loadings on their corresponding factors. The composite reliabilities of the different measures included in the model ranged from to Further, the average variance extracted (AVE) statistics ranged from to 0.928, and the shared variance was less than the amount of variance extracted by the indicators measuring the constructs. Thus, convergent and discriminant validity were met. Taken together, the evidence indicates the scales' had adequate psychometric quality for use in the next stage of analysis. Table 1. Construct reliability and convergent validity Constructs Self efficacity Snoops News items Factor laoding t-value SE SE SE SNO SNO SNO NEW NEW Average variance extracted Cronbach alpha KMO Perceveid enjoyment Information Receiving Perceived ease of use Percevied usefulness Attitude Social norm Intention to use IB PE PE PE INFR INFR PEOU PEOU PEOU PEOU PU PU PU ATT ATT ATT SN SN INT INT INT COPY RIGHT 2012 Institute of Interdisciplinary Business Research 959

13 Structural model The test of structural model was performed using the LISREL8.3 procedure, a software package designed to perform structural equations model approach to path analysis. Seven common model-fit measures were used to assess the model s overall goodness-of-fit: the ratio of χ2 to degrees-of-freedom (df); Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA);Goodness of- Fit Index (GFI); Adjusted Goodness-of-Fit Index (AGFI); Normalized Fit Index (NFI); Non- Normalized Fit Index (NNFI); Comparative Fit Index (CFI); and Root Mean Square Residual (RMSR). The table 2 shows that the confirmatory factor analysis model responds to the major acceptable criteria (Hair et al., 1998). Incremental indices CFI, NFI, RFI, and the IFI are superior to 0.90 and the RMSEA is inferior to 0.09, so the model could be considered as significant. In addition absolute indices and parsimonies indices have clearly exceeded the minimum recommended values suggested for a good model fit. Table (2) : Results of Goodness of Fit Fit Indices Suggested Obtained Absolute Indices Scaled 2 ( 2 /df) > 1 and < Goodness of Fit Index (GFI) > Root Mean Square Error of Approximation < 0.08 (RMSEA) Incrementals Indices Comparative Fit Index CFI > Normed Fit Index NFI > Relative Fit Index RFI > Incremental Fit Index (IFI) > Parcimonie Indices AIC The lower by comparaison a CAIC The lower by comparaison b Expected Cross-Validation Index ECVI The lower by comparaison 3.81 c a AIC for independent and saturated models are equal to and respectively. b CAIC for independent and saturated models are equal to and respectively. c EVCI for independent and saturated models are equal to and 3.94 respectively. The structural model shows the relationships between the constructs and specifies the constructs that are related to each other (Hair et al., 1998). Figure 2 shows each construct in the model with the standardized path coefficients at significant levels. The results of this study showed that perceived usefulness was not a significant factor in determining the intention to use Facebook (β = 0.14, p <.01). Attitude has the strongest effect on intention to use Facebook (β = 0.87, p <.01), followed in order by social norm (β = 0.53, p <.01). Perceived ease of use has significant effect on attitude towards using Facebook (β = 0.56, p <.01). Perceived ease of use has significant effect perceived usefulness towards using Facebook (β = 0.56, p <.01). Snoop, News, information receiving and perceived enjoyment have significant effect on perceived usefulness (β = 0.41, p <.01; β = 0.46, p <.01; β = 0.63, p <.01 and β = 0.49, p <.01). Finally, self efficacy was not a significant effect on perceived ease of use of Facebook. COPY RIGHT 2012 Institute of Interdisciplinary Business Research 960

14 Snoop 0.41*** H 7 H *** News 0.46*** Percevied usefulness H 1 H *** Percevied enjoyment Information receiving H *** 0.52*** H 4 H *** 0.87*** H *** H 5 Self efficacy 0.13*** Percevied ease of use H 3 Attitude Intention to use H *** Social norm *** indicate that the coefficient is significant at the 1% level (p-value <0.01) Means that the coefficient is not significant Figure 2. Results of structural modelling analysis COPY RIGHT 2012 Institute of Interdisciplinary Business Research 961

15 6. Discussion By empirically testing the model, it has been demonstrated that most of the factors in the proposed model have direct or indirect significant influence except perceived usefulness and self efficacy on intention to use Face book. Data in this study also indicated that the proposed model is an adequate fit to the observed variables that influence students to use Facebook. Attitude and social norm strongly affects behavioural intention to use Facebook, supporting this hypothesis. This is consistent with prior studies that found the effect of attitude and social norm on intention to use technology (Wadie and Lanouar, 2011; Chun et al., 2006). Perceived usefulness was not a significant factor in determining the intention to use Facebook. Following Davis et al. (1989) perceived usefulness, is considered to have a direct effect on intention to use innovations. In the present study, this effect was not supported by the data. Perceived use impacts positively on attitude towards use of Facebook. This finding confirms results of different studies stating the importance of individual s perceived added value of technologies as a determinant for adoption (Wadie and Lanouar, 2011). There is also a significant relationship between perceived ease of use and attitude towards using Facebook. Consistent with literature, perceived ease of use refers the extent to which a potential social network user views usage of this platform to be relatively free of effort (Davis et al., 1989). Innovations that are perceived to be easier to use and less complex have a higher likelihood of being accepted and generate a favourable attitude by potential users. This study found also, a significant relationship between perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness of Facebook. These results are consistent with the research results conducted by Davis, et al (1989); Wang, et al (2003), and Wadie and Lanouar, (2011). Wadie and Lanouar (2011), which stated that there is a significant relationship between perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness of using internet banking by Tunisian s consumers. A Significant relationship between snoop, news and information receiving and perceived usefulness. These results are consistent with the research results conducted by Watanyoo and Wornchanok, (2011) which stated that there is a significant relationship between snoop, news, information receiving and adoption of Facebook.com. Perceived enjoyment has significant effect on perceived usefulness towards Facebook, supporting this hypothesis. In fact, the perceived enjoyment is a more significant antecedent of perceived usefulness which argued that perceived usefulness played a critical role in work related environment only (Moon and Kim, 2001). Following Davis et al. (1989) and Wang et al. (2003), self efficacy is considered to have a direct effect on perceived ease of use. In the present study, this effect, although relevant from a theoretical perspective, was not supported by the data. That is, the hypothesis, which maintains that self efficacy will have a direct positive impact on perceived ease of use, was not supported by the data. 7. Conclusion, implications and limitations This study examines the TAM and TAR within the context of Facebook and confirms that this model is useful to explain Facebook adoption. The aim of the study is thus to propose a conceptual framework to help better understand the factor of the adoption of Facebook in Tunisia and to use the study s findings to develop guidelines for SNS providers on how to maximize the rate of adoption. There are ten constructs compiled into a structural model to explain factor of the adoption of Facebook, i.e. snoop, news, perceived enjoyment, information receiving, self efficacy, perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use,, social norm, attitude and adoption to use Facebook. COPY RIGHT 2012 Institute of Interdisciplinary Business Research 962

16 This study is one of the first studies in Tunisia which attempts to explain intention to use Facebook. First, this study contributes to the validation of technology acceptance model outside of the Anglo-Saxon context, especially in developing country Secondly, the findings of this study indicate that attitude has the most significant influence on behavioral intention to use Facebook. Thus, social norm is the most important factor after attitude for students in adoption of Facebook. Thirdly, the results of this study will be of importance in explaining the causes leading to the university student's adoption of SNS. Secondly, despite the SNS gaining acceptance in universities around the world, the study on students adoption of SNS is still unexplored fully in Tunisia. The most important benefit they get by being connected relates to social interactions and building new relationships. From a theoretical perspective, this study reinforces the role of perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness beliefs as determinants of a positive attitude towards Facebook adoption. This in turn impacts positively intention to use facebook. Additionally, it was found that perceived ease of use impacts perceived usefulness. Our results also have confirmed that perceived usefulness is not a reliable predictor of behaviour intention as it is attitude towards intention to use Facebook. Moreover, perceived usefulness is influenced by snoop, news and information receiving. From a practical perspective, this study results suggests important implications for companies aiming exploiting the marketing potentialities of Facebook because it is the most popular online social networking site among university students. Many businesses are changing the way they conduct their marketing activities through the use of Facebook as an advertising vehicle, distribution channel, and to foster word-of-mouth referrals Kelly (Moore et al, 2011). This research also has some limitations such. First, the factors selected in this study may not cover all factors that could influence the adoption of Facebook.com in Tunisia. Therefore future studies can consider others factors, which might have an influence in the adoption Facebook.com. The second limitation was that the model was tested only with students. Therefore, other researchers can consider other users of Facebook.com to generalize the results. COPY RIGHT 2012 Institute of Interdisciplinary Business Research 963

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20 Appendix 1. Measurement scales Constructs Perceived usefulness (PU) PU1 PU2 PU3 PU4 Measures Using Facebook, enable me to communicate more quickly with friends Using Facebook, would improve my ob performance Using Facebook, would improve my productivity Using Facebook, would enhance my effectiveness on the job Perceived ease of use (PEOU) PU5 PU6 PEOU1 PEOU2 PEOU3 PEOU4 PEOU5 PEOU6 Using Facebook, would make it easier to do my job I would find Facebook useful in my job Learning to operate Facebook would be easy for me I would find it easy to get Facebook to do what I want to do My interaction with Facebook would clear and understandable I would find Facebook to be flexible to interact with It would be easy for me to become skilful at using Facebook I would find Facebook easy to ease Intention (INT) INT1 I would use the online banking for my banking needs. INT2 Using the online banking for handling my banking transactions is something I would do. INT3 I would see myself using the online banking for handling my banking transactions. Attitude (ATT) ATT1 Using it to connect with others is good idea ATT2 I like using it to connect with others ATT3 Using it is interesting ATT4 Using it to connect with others is attractive Self efficacy SE1 I could complete my communication using Facebook, if there was no one around to tell me what to do. SE2 I could complete my communication using Facebook, if I had never used a package like it before SE3 I could complete my communication using Facebook, if I had only the manuals or online help for reference SE4 I could complete my communication using Facebook, if I had seen someone else using it before trying it myself. SE5 I could complete my communication using Facebook, if I could call someone for help if I got stuck SE6 I could complete my communication using Facebook, if someone had helped me get started SE7 I could complete my communication using Facebook, if I had a lot of time to complete the job. SE8 I could complete my communication using Facebook, if I had built-in help facility for assistance. SE9 I could complete my communication using Facebook, if someone showed me low to do it first SE10 I could complete my communication using Facebook, if I had used similar system before to do the same job. Subjective norm SN1 People who are important to me would think that I should use online banking. SN2 People who influence me would think that I should use online banking. SN3 People whose opinions are valued to me would prefer that I should use online banking. Perceived enjoyment (PE) PE1 I find using the system to be enjoyable. PE2 The actual process of using the system is pleasant PE3 I have fun using the system COPY RIGHT 2012 Institute of Interdisciplinary Business Research 967

21 Constructs Measures Snoop (SNO) SNO1 Frequency of watching other people profiles SNO2 Frequency of watching other people photos SNO3 Frequency of reading other people posted messages News (NEW) NEW1 Frequency of reading their Top News ( Most Resent) NEW2 Frequency of reading News-Feed Information receiving (IR) IR1 Frequency of reading links sent from their friends IR2 Frequency of reading information sent from organizations or people selected as Like IR3 Frequency of reading group messages 1. Are you: Male Female 2. How old are you: years years years More than 29 years 3. Do you have a Facebook account? Yes No 4. On average, how many time each day do you check your account NO/no Facebook account 6 10 times a day Less than once a day times a day 1 5 times a day times a day More than 20 times a day 5. For what purpose(s) di you check you account? (you may choose more than one answer). COPY RIGHT 2012 Institute of Interdisciplinary Business Research 968