Technology use and performance: A field study of broker workstations

Organizations invest in technology with the expectation that it will contribute to performance, and members of the organization must use technology for it to make a contribution. For this reason, it is important for managers and designers to understand and predict system use. This paper develops a model of workstation use in a field setting where the use of the system is an integral part of the user's job. The model is based on the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), which we extended to include social norms, user performance, and two control variables. Brokers and sales assistants in the private-client group of a major investment bank provided data to test our extended model. The core perception variables in TAM do not predict use in this study. Social norms and one's job requirements are more important in predicting use than workers' perceptions about ease of use and usefulness. The paper discusses the implications of these findings and suggests directions for future research.