An Internet of Things (IoT) Acceptance Model. Assessing Consumer’s Behavior toward IoT Products and Applications

Abstract

A common managerial and theoretical concern is to know how individuals perceive Internet of Things (IoT) products and applications and how to accelerate adoption of them. The purpose of the current study is to answer, “What are the factors that define behavioral intention to adopt IoT products and applications among individuals?” An IoT adoption model was developed and tested, incorporating pull factors from two different information impact sources: technical and psychological. This study employs statistical structural equation modeling (SEM) in order to examine the conceptual IoT acceptance model. It is demonstrated that facilitated appropriation, perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use, as mediators, significantly influence consumers’ attitude and behavioral intention towards IoT products and applications. User character, cyber resilience, cognitive instrumentals, social influence and trust, all with different significance rates, exhibited an indirect effect, through the three mediators. The IoT acceptance model (IoTAM) upgrades current knowledge on consumers’ behavioral intention and equips practitioners with the knowledge needed to create successful integrated marketing tactics and communication strategies. It provides a solid base for examining multirooted models for the acceptance of newly formed technologies, as it bridges the discontinuity in migrating from information and communication technologies (ICTs) to IoT adoption studies, causing distortions to societies’ abilities to make informed decisions about IoT adoption and use.