Journal of the Operational Research Society (2009) 60, 1322 --1334 © 2009 Operational Research Society Ltd.

ty Ltd. All rights reserved. 0160-5682/09

www.palgrave-journals.com/jors/

Understanding consumer adoption of broadband:

an extension of the technology acceptance model
Z Irani1∗ , YK Dwivedi2 and MD Williams2
1Brunel University, Uxbridge, UK; and 2University of Wales Swansea, Swansea, UK
Broadband offers several benefits to consumers over its preceding technology ‘narrowband’. Despite it offering
such benefits, many countries are still experiencing low levels of adoption of broadband technology by
consumers. This study presents an extended technology acceptance model (TAM) that integrates perceived
resources, self-efficacy and social influence into the TAM in order to investigate factors determining consumer
adoption of broadband. The model was empirically tested employing data collected from a survey of broadband
consumers in the United Kingdom. A regression analysis was conducted to evaluate the influence of predictive
constructs on behavioural intention to adopt broadband and actual adoption behaviour. Findings of the study
indicated that all variables significantly affected consumers’ behavioural intention to adopt broadband. The
outcomes of the paper will be useful for the stakeholders such as internet service providers and governments
interested in encouraging the adoption of broadband. The implications of this work to both researchers and
practitioners is discussed.
Journal of the Operational Research Society (2009) 60, 1322 – 1334. doi:10.1057/jors.2008.100
Published online 8 October 2008

Keywords: adoption; behaviour; broadband; information systems; technology acceptance model

Introduction objectives (Choudrie and Lee, 2004); hence, it has made a

commitment to making the UK the most competitive and
Broadband connectivity offers several advantages to both
extensive broadband market in the G7. Similarly, governments
public and private sectors in terms of cost savings, efficiency
of a number of countries including South Korea, Japan, Hong
and competitiveness (Sawyer et al, 2003). It provides house-
Kong, Sweden, Canada and the United States of America
hold consumers with fast, always-on and un-metered access
(USA) have invested heavily in developing broadband infras-
to the Internet and a free phone line while using the Internet
tructures that will deliver high-speed Internet access to end
(Oh et al, 2003). Furthermore, broadband home connectivity
users, including household consumers and small and medium
allows television to become an electronic commerce medium
size enterprises (Oh et al, 2003; Sawyer et al, 2003).
that merges video, voice, and transactional data (Yu et al,
However, despite the provision of broadband access at
2005). However, the shift to broadband requires massive
affordable prices, demand for broadband has not increased
investment in terms of the provision of new networks and
as expected in many countries around the globe. Previous
infrastructures, along with the required development of new
research indicates that provision of broadband is more
content, services, applications and business models. Since
‘demand constrained’ than ‘supply constrained’ (Oh et al,
broadband diffusion is often viewed as a means by which
2003; Stanton, 2004), and thus in order to achieve greater
international competitiveness and economic development
uniformity in rates of adoption and use of broadband (thereby
may be benchmarked, many governments around the world
reducing the digital divide), it is essential to focus on gaining
have set ambitious targets for the deployment of broad-
an understanding of the factors influencing adoption deci-
band services (Langdale, 1997; Oh et al, 2003; Sawyer
sions of household consumers (Oh et al, 2003; Stanton,
et al, 2003). This is because a high penetration rate of broad-
2004; Howick and Whalley, 2008). Howick and Whalley’s
band is perceived to have a corresponding positive impact
(2008) study mentioned that although broadband is available
on the growth and development of the Internet, electronic
to 99.9% of households, around 36% of households across
commerce and the information economy (Lee et al, 2003;
the UK are broadband households. This key role of the
Sawyer et al, 2003). The United Kingdom (UK) govern-
demand perspective of broadband adoption is unsurprising,
ment believes that rapid rollout and adoption of broadband
given that it has been emphasized in previous investigations
across the nation is important to both its social and economic
into the adoption of various forms of technology by residen-
∗ Correspondence: Z Irani, Brunel Business School, Brunel University, tial consumers—see for instance the work of Venkatesh and
Uxbridge U38 3PH, UK. Brown (2001) which examines issues relating to household
E-mail: zahir.irani@brunel.ac.uk adoption of personal computers (PCs).

Table 1 Studies focusing upon intergrating new constructs with tam for examining technology adoption
Construct Studies
Self-efficacy Igbaria and Iivari (1995), Wang (2003), Wang
et al (2003), McFarland and Hamilton (2006)
and Luarn and Lin (2005)
Social influences Hsu and Lu (2004), Lu et al (2005), Yu et al
(2005) and Pavlou and Fygenson (2006)
Perceived resources Mathieson et al (2001), Oh et al (2003),
Wu and Wang (2005), Luarn and Lin (2005)
An analysis of relevant literature suggests that research into
broadband adoption at the micro-level is minimal (Oh et al,
2003; Stanton, 2004; Howick and Whalley, 2008). Indeed,
Stanton’s (2004) investigation into USA-based consumers
and the digital divide voices an urgent need for greater
understanding of the demographic and other characteristics
of broadband adopters and non-adopters in order to facilitate
increased broadband acceptance, thereby reducing the digital
divide. Similarly, Howick and Whalley (2008) argued that ‘If
the socio-economic benefits of broadband are to be realised,
such as access to educational services or markets located
elsewhere, then adoption needs to be both understood and
encouraged’. Thus, there is a clear and documented need for
additional rigorous research into the factors affecting broad-
band diffusion from the household consumer perspective
as there have been relatively few efforts made to examine
the phenomenon to date, with existing material focusing
primarily upon supply side stakeholders and issues such as
competition (Angelou and Economides, 2008).
Moreover, at this stage of broadband implementation,
supply side factors are not considered to be a major problem
in a number of countries—including the UK where our study
took place. However, growth in the UK is constrained by
the demand side, as a substantial proportion of consumers
appear to be reluctant to subscribe to broadband tech-
nology. A comparison of the different subscription packages
offered by the various UK providers suggests that their
marketing efforts focus upon issues such as speed, down-
load limit, duration of contract, and monthly cost as means
of attracting customers (see for instance www.compare-uk-
broadband.com). By doing so, internet service providers
(ISPs) are clearly focusing their attentions upon price reduc-
tion in comparison with competitors. Although this may
prove to be a successful strategy in attracting customers in
the short term, it may be argued that as the market reaches
saturation point across many parts of Europe (Best, 2006),
ISPs require a more sustainable business model including a
Z Irani et al—Understanding consumer adoption of broadband 1323
Description
These studies integrated the self-efficacy construct with
TAM to examine user adoption of technology within an
organizational context. Findings of these studies suggest a
significant effect of computer self-efficacy on behavioural
intention and system use.
These studies integrated the social influence construct with
TAM to examine user adoption of technology mainly
within an organizational context. Findings of these studies
demonstrated strong causal relationships between social
influences and usefulness, which in turn impact upon adop-
tion intention.
These studies integrated a perceived resources construct with
TAM to examine perceptions of adequate resources that can
facilitate or inhibit adoption behaviour. Findings of these
studies illustrated the significant effect of perceived resources
on behavioural intention and system use.
detailed understanding of adoption factors beyond those that
are primarily financially orientated.
The aim of this paper is to contribute to the limited body
of work in this area by presenting the results of an empirical
investigation into the factors influencing broadband adoption
choices of household consumers. We develop and employ an
extended version of the much studied Technology Acceptance
Model (TAM) in order to produce insights into the factors
affecting broadband adoption behaviour.
The structure of the remainder of the paper is as follows.
First, we review TAM and its variants, and present theoretical
justification of an extended TAM and associated hypotheses.
Second we present our research methodology and the results
obtained from our empirical investigation. We then proceed
to discuss our findings and the implications for policy and
practice. Finally, conclusions and limitations of the study are
outlined and discussed.
Development of the theoretical model
The TAM is one of the most studied and influential exten-
sions of Ajzen and Fishbein’s (1980) Theory of Reasoned
Action (TRA). TAM employs two technology acceptance
measures to predict systems usage: perceived usefulness and
perceived ease of use (Davis, 1989). Both perceived useful-
ness and perceived ease of use of technology are perceived
to influence attitudes towards that technology, which in turn
influences the behavioral intention to use the technology. The
information systems literature contains many examples of
studies employing extended and modified versions of TAM
to examine technology adoption in various contexts. Table 1
presents a summary of studies that have extended TAM by
incorporating self-efficacy, perceived resources and social
influence as additional constructs.
The proposed extended TAM of broadband adoption
We posit that the three constructs of self-efficacy, perceived
resources and social influence employed in various contexts
1324 Journal of the Operational Research Society Vol. 60, No. 10
in the studies referred to in Table 1 are also influential in
affecting the adoption intentions of household consumers
towards broadband. Therefore, our research model (illus-
trated in Figure 1) postulates that the behavioural intentions
(BI) to adopt broadband are determined by the following
constructs: perceived usefulness (or utilitarian outcomes),
self-efficacy, social influence and perceived resources. The
following section provides an overview of the proposed
model and formulates the hypotheses (Figure 1).
Our model exhibits a number of additional changes to the
original TAM as follows. First, in accordance with numerous
previous studies (see for instance Adams et al, 1992; Lu
and Gustafson, 1994; Chau, 1996; Brown et al, 2002), we
have, eliminated the original attitude construct of TAM to
simplify the model. Second, we should note that perceived
usefulness was recently renamed using the term utilitarian
outcomes when examining the usefulness of technology in
the context of household utility (Venkatesh and Brown, 2001;
Bruner and Kumar, 2005). Since our study examines useful-
ness of broadband in household contexts, we also use the
term ‘utilitarian outcomes’ hereafter to replace ‘usefulness’.
Third, perceived ease of use in this context is replaced by
self-efficacy, which allows the measurement of consumers
perceived skill to operate computer and internet. These two
terms are used interchangeably for measuring similar concepts
in various studies as Table 1 indicates that a number of studies
utilized self-efficacy rather than perceived ease of use. This is
because assessment of perceived ease of use is more relevant
for studying systems and users, in contrast to consumers and
technology which is the subject of this study. Since the focus
of this study is to examine consumer adoption of technology
it was considered more appropriate to use the self-efficacy
term than perceived ease of use as authors are more inter-
ested in knowing if consumers are confident in using a partic-
ular technology in question. Finally, we have integrated the
constructs of perceived resources (Mathieson et al, 2001; Oh
et al, 2003; Luarn and Lin, 2005; Wu and Wang, 2005) and
social influence (Lu and Gustafson, 1994; Hsu and Lu, 2004)
with utilitarian outcomes and self-efficacy to examine their
direct effect on behavioural intention. Therefore, in summary,
these predictor variables are expected to determine the BI
to adopt broadband, which in turn is expected to predict the
actual broadband adoption behaviour (BAB). The following
subsections provide descriptions of each construct along with
the theoretical justification for including them in the concep-
tual model and the associated hypotheses.
(1) Utilitarian outcomes: The original TAM and almost all
follow-up studies have found usefulness to be an important
predictor of behavioural intention to adopt technology in
a workplace setting. The utilitarian outcomes construct is
defined as the extent to which using a technology enhances
the effectiveness of routine household activities, such as shop-
ping, information seeking, budgeting, homework and work
(Venkatesh and Brown, 2001). It has been suggested that
Resources
H5
Utilitarian H4
Outcomes H1
Behavioural H6 Broadband
Social H2
Intentions Adoption
Influence
H3
Self-Efficacy
Figure 1 Theoretical model for examining broadband adoption.
broadband can offer a more flexible and convenient lifestyle,
along with a number of other advantages to household
consumers (Oh et al, 2003; Sawyer et al, 2003; Choudrie and
Lee, 2004). For instance, many people subscribe to broadband
in order to be able to work at home instead of travelling to
the office; broadband can assist children with their homework
(in facilitating research and fact-finding activities), and many
more household activities can be performed conveniently
using the faster access to the Internet offered via broadband.
Therefore, it is expected that the greater the perception of
broadband’s usefulness for work or household-related activ-
ities, the more likely that the broadband technology will be
adopted in the home. Thus, the hypothesis is
H1: Utilitarian outcomes will have a positive influence on
behavioural intentions to adopt broadband.
(2) Social Influences: In terms of consumer-oriented
service, relevant references such as the adopter’s friends,
family and colleagues/peers may all influence the adoption
decision (Tan and Teo, 2000). Rice et al (1990) defined
such influence as social influences where members of a
social network influence others’ behaviour. The findings
of Venkatesh and Brown (2001) suggest that social influ-
ences are an important determinant of purchasing behaviour
towards PCs. Similarly, it is to be expected that households
with broadband connections are likely to influence their rela-
tives and friends by informing them of, and demonstrating
to them the benefits and convenience offered by broadband.
Taking into consideration the findings of numerous previous
studies (Rogers, 1995; Taylor and Todd, 1995; Venkatesh
and Brown, 2001; Hsu and Lu, 2004; Lu et al, 2005; Yu et
al, 2005; Pavlou and Fygenson, 2006), this research assumes
that if broadband adopters are influenced by their social
networks with positive messages, they are more likely to have
a strong behavioural intention to adopt broadband. Thus, the
hypothesis is
H2: Social influences will have a positive influence on the
perceived behavioural intentions to adopt broadband.
(3) Self-efficacy: Findings from previous studies (Igbaria
and Iivari, 1995; Wang, 2003; Wang et al, 2003; Luarn and

Lin, 2005; McFarland and Hamilton, 2006) have confirmed
the importance of appropriate levels of perceived self-efficacy
in technology adoption decisions. Given that the use of broad-
band is likely to involve the use of a PC and the Internet, the
perceived ease or difficulty of use and requisite knowledge
of PCs and the Internet are also expected to have an impact
upon broadband adoption. Indeed, broadband promotion poli-
cies employed by the South Korean Government based on
providing PC and Internet skills suggest this may be the
case, as 4.1 million new online users, including one million
housewives, occurred as a result of such initiatives (Choudrie
and Lee, 2004). Correspondingly, our research assumes that
household users with higher levels of perceived self-efficacy
(ie possessing the requisite PC and Internet skills) are more
likely to adopt broadband than those who perceive themselves
to be lacking in such skills. Hence, the hypothesis is
H3: Self-efficacy will have a positive influence on the
behavioural intentions to adopt broadband.
(4) Perceived resources: According to Choudrie and Lee
(2004), an affordable monthly cost for broadband was one
of the most important factors that led to high rates of adop-
tion in South Korea. Correspondingly, it can be argued that
if the perceived cost of obtaining broadband is high, then
adoption rates will be low. Furthermore, broadband tech-
nology is not compatible with specifications of older PCs and
necessitates either an upgrade to an appropriate level or the
purchase of a new PC. However, PCs are not easily replaceable
items for medium and lower income households, and there-
fore economic barriers toward household broadband adoption
exist. A number of previous studies (Mathieson et al, 2001;
Oh et al, 2003; Luarn and Lin, 2005; Wu and Wang, 2005)
have evaluated the usefulness of this construct for explaining
the behavioural intentions of users to adopt different forms of
technology.
Apart from behavioural intention, previous studies have
also employed perceived resources as a direct predictor
of actual behaviour (Ajzen, 1991; Venkatesh and Brown,
2001). Findings from a number of technology adoption and
use studies within the information systems field emphasize
perceived resources (Ajzen, 1991; Taylor and Todd, 1995) as
being good predictors of actual adoption or usage behaviour.
Therefore, our hypotheses are
H4: Perceived resources will have a positive influence on the
behavioural intentions to adopt broadband.
H5: Perceived resources will have a positive influence on the
adoption of broadband.
(5) Behavioural intention and broadband adoption behaviour:
The original TAM considered one mediating variable, namely
behavioural intention and a dependent variable which is
behaviour in question. The majority of subsequent tech-
nology adoption research has utilized these variables to
Z Irani et al—Understanding consumer adoption of broadband 1325
predict technology adoption and use, the finding suggesting
that behavioural intention is a mediating variable between
the predictors and actual behaviour. Therefore, behavioural
intention is considered to have a direct influence on adoption
or use (Ajzen, 1991). Consistent with previous studies and the
guiding theory, our study considered behavioural intention to
be a mediating dependent variable, and adoption behaviour to
be an ultimate dependent variable. The following hypothesis
illustrates the relationship between these variables.
H6: Behavioural intention will influence the adoption of
broadband.
Research methodology
The research methodology employed in the study is illus-
trated in Figure 2. The authors evaluated a variety of research
approaches (Galliers and Land, 1987; Mingers, 2001) before
electing to employ a cross-sectional survey to examine the
hypotheses and validate the extended TAM model discussed
in the previous section.
A number of limitations of the survey approach were iden-
tified before starting the field survey. The foremost limitation
was the lack of valid measures for collecting the data to
examine the constructs of the extended TAM model. Although
measures for these constructs were available (from previous
studies), they were developed and validated in the examina-
tion of different technologies and in a different context. Straub
et al (2004) argue that if the adapted measures need to be
modified, then it is important to apply appropriate relia-
bility and validity measures before undertaking final data
collection. With this in mind, the strategy employed in this
study was first to develop and validate a research instru-
ment, and then undertake data collection. Since development
and validation of measures forms a highly important aspect
of the survey approach, our study validated the measures
using three different stages and techniques. In other words,
development and validation of the survey measures illus-
trates ‘Triangulation’ in stages and techniques (see Figure 2).
Non-response bias is another challenge when conducting
a postal survey. In testing the bias that may be associated
with non-responses, a non-response bias test was conducted.
The following paragraphs briefly discuss the research instru-
ment, its development and validation, data collection and
non-response bias test.
Research instrument
The empirical data presented were collected employing a
self-administered questionnaire. The following features were
the reasons for selecting a questionnaire in comparison to
other data collection tools: it would address the issue of relia-
bility of information by reducing and eliminating differences
in the way by which the questions are asked (Cornford and
Smithson, 1996); the cost of administration would be rela-
tively low; it could be accomplished with minimal facilities;
1326 Journal of the Operational Research Society Vol. 60, No. 10

Building Conceptual Model

Conduct Literature Review On • Identify and Integrate Relevant
Start • TAM Literature Constructs with TAM
• Broadband Adoption • Formulate Research Hypothesis

Survey Identified as
Suitable Research
Identify Research
Approach
Methodology; Research Research Design
Approach; Research Methods

Develop and 1. Exploratory

Validate Research Survey- Create
Instrument Item Pools

Triangulation
in Instrument Data Collection
Validation
2. Content
3. Pilot Test
Validation

Surveying Non-
respondents
Conduct
Data Analysis Confirmatory
Reliability Test, Factor Survey Data Analysis
Analysis & Regression
Analysis Code and Input Data in SPSS

Hypothesis Test Extrapolate Lessons

Model Performance Learnt/Conclusions
Synthesise Data Generated with
Normative Literature

End

Figure 2 Research methodology.

it would provide access to widely dispersed samples;
respondents would have time to give thoughtful answers;
it would assist in asking questions that contained long or
complex response categories; it could ask similarly phrased
questions, and also the respondents would not have to share
answers with interviewers (Fowler, 2002).
Development and validation of the research instrument
The development survey instrument comprised three stages:
the exploratory stage, content validity and instrument testing
(ie pilot test). The exploratory stage included surveying known
existing instruments, selecting appropriate items, creating
new items as required and determining whether selected items
were appropriate to measure perceptions of adopters and
non-adopters. Items generated from the exploratory stage
were used as input into the content validity stage. The content
validity stage involved the collation of items obtained from
the exploratory stage, creation of new items for each construct
and validation of their representativeness utilizing a quantita-
tive approach. In order to achieve representativeness of items,
12 experts working on broadband-related issues evaluated the
items. This led to the calculation of a content validity ratio
that formed the basis of the inclusion or exclusion of items.
Prior to dissemination of the final questionnaire, a pilot
study was conducted in order to reveal if the format of the
questionnaire and questions was suitable. The time required
to complete the questionnaire was also established. The pilot

questionnaire was delivered by surface mail to 200 randomly
selected participants from UK-Info Disk V11 in December
2004. A total of 40 replies were obtained from the respon-
dents within a specified period. The majority of respondents
reported that the questionnaire was easily understandable and
required between 10 and 15 min to complete. The majority
of respondents validated the content of the questionnaires,
although minor changes to the design of the questionnaire
were carried out based upon the feedback received, and a
final questionnaire produced. Findings obtained from the pilot
test demonstrated an acceptable level of reliability for all
constructs.
Final research instrument
The questionnaire used in this research contained two types
of questions. Multiple-choice questions addressed socio-
economic characteristics such as age, gender, education,
occupation and income, while Likert scale type (1–7) ques-
tions addressed issues relating to the key constructs expected
to determine broadband adoption (see the Appendix).
Confirmatory study: sample size and questionnaire
administration
Fowler (2002) suggests that a prerequisite for determining
a sample size should be an analysis plan. The analysis for
this study required principal component analysis (PCA) and
regression analysis to be performed. It has been suggested
that in order to perform the aforementioned statistical analysis
with rigour, the sample size should be above 300 (Stevens,
1996). Therefore, keeping the statistical analysis plan in mind,
it was decided that the total sample size should be large
enough to obtain a minimum of 300 responses. By using a
pilot response rate as the basis of the final survey, a total
sample size of 1500 was estimated to achieve 300 responses.
To compensate for any shortfalls in the 300 responses that may
occur due to undelivered and partially completed responses,
the sample size was further increased from 1500 to 1600.
Therefore, a total sample size of 1600 was considered for this
study.
Data on the adoption of broadband were randomly collected
from citizens of the UK. The UK-Info Disk V11 that contained
31 million Electoral Register records, that is, addresses of
UK citizens, was considered to be a sample frame of this
research, from which the names of 1600 respondents were
randomly drawn. The final questionnaires were sent using
the postal service. A covering letter and a self-addressed,
prepaid return envelope were administered to a total of 1600
household consumers in the UK during the period between
January and March 2005.
Response rate and non-response bias
Of the 1600 questionnaires distributed, 358 respondents
completed the entire questionnaire and returned usable
responses within the specified periods from January 2005
Z Irani et al—Understanding consumer adoption of broadband 1327
Table 2 Non-response bias
Variables t d.f. P
Age 0.766 355 0.444
Gender 0.557 353 0.578
Type of connection −1.609 306 0.109
BI −0.547 356 0.585
PU −0.996 356 0.320
SI −2.271 356 0.024
PS 0.072 356 0.942
PR −1.079 356 0.281
Legend: t-value—Value from the t-distribution (the t-value will be positive
if the first mean is larger than the second and negative if it is smaller);
d.f.—degrees of freedom; P—probability of occurrence at 0.05 level.
to March 2005, which helped us to obtain a response rate
of about 22.4%. This was after excluding 25 responses that
were unusable due to incomplete responses and undelivered
due to a change of address.
To test whether the characteristics of the respondents from
the original responses are similar to the non-respondents,
a t-test was conducted for the demographics (ie age and
gender), the type of Internet connection at home and all
key constructs. The findings are illustrated in Table 2.
The t-test on demographics and all key constructs except
the social influence of the study showed no significant
differences between the respondents and non-respondents
(Table 2). There is a significant difference between the orig-
inal responses and responses from the non-respondents for
the social influence construct. Since, the majority of variables
produced non-significant results in terms of non-response
bias; this suggests that it is less likely that the findings were
affected due to non-response bias.
Data analysis
Analysis of data was carried out using SPSS version 11.5.
A reliability test was carried out to examine the internal
consistency of the survey instrument, and factor analysis was
used to examine construct validity. In order to investigate the
relationship between the independent and dependent vari-
ables, linear regression analysis was used as it is a commonly
used technique when the nature of both the independent and
dependent variables is ordinal or scale (Brace et al, 2003;
Davis et al, 1989; Oh et al, 2003; Stevens, 1996). However,
when performing regression analysis, a cause for concern
is the existence of multicollinearity among independent
variables. Multicollinearity is likely to exist when the indepen-
dent variables included in the analysis are not truly indepen-
dent, and therefore may be measuring redundant information
(Myers, 1990). Multicollinearity has a negative effect on the
predictive ability of the regression model (Myers, 1990) and
causes problems when attempting to draw inferences about the
relative contribution of each predictor variable to the success
of a model (Brace et al, 2003). Therefore, it was important
to assess the data for multicollinearity. The results of our
analysis activities are presented in the following section.
1328 Journal of the Operational Research Society Vol. 60, No. 10

Results include excellent reliability (0.90 and above), high reliability

(0.70–0.90), moderate reliability (0.50–0.70) and low relia-
Respondents’ profiles
bility (0.50 and below). Our results (illustrated in Table 3)
Of the 358 responses received, 26.1% were in the 25–34- suggest that two of the constructs demonstrate excellent relia-
year-old age group, which formed the largest response cate- bility, with the remaining three demonstrating high reliability,
gory. The 35–44-year-old age group was the next largest and therefore the measures of the instrument are viewed as
(21.6%). The least responsive category was the 65 years being internally consistent.
and older with 3.9%. In terms of gender, data were roughly
equally divided (m = 51%, f = 49%). The majority of respon- Factor analysis
dents possessed educational qualifications, with 34.6% having In order to assess construct validity (convergent and discrim-
an undergraduate degree and 29.3% educated to postgrad- inant validity), factor analysis was conducted utilizing PCA
uate level. The least responsive educational category was with Varimax as an extraction method and Kaiser normaliza-
the GNVQ/diploma with an 8.8% response rate. 11.7% of tion as a rotation method. The results of the PCA are illus-
the respondents possessed GCSE-level education and 15.5% trated in Tables 4 and 5.
possessed ‘A’-level education. The rotated component matrix presented in Table 4 shows
According to the frequently employed approach to cate- the factor loadings for all four constructs. All items loaded
gorizing persons into socio-economic groups much used in above 0.40, which is the minimum recommended value in
the marketing literature (Rice, 1997; Gilligan and Wilson, IS research (Straub et al, 2004), while cross loading of
2003), the category with the highest amount of respon- the items was below 0.40. All nine items of the utilitarian
dents in our data was ‘E’ (housewives, retired individuals, outcomes construct loaded on component 1. Therefore, the
students and unemployed citizens), with 37.1%, followed first component represents the underlying construct of util-
by ‘B’ (managers, teachers and other professionals at inter- itarian outcomes. All four items of the perceived resources
mediate level) with 28.4%. The C1 category (supervisory,
clerical, junior administrative or professional) accounted for
19.7% of the returns, followed by ‘A’ (professionals at senior
level) with 11.0%. Groups with the lowest responses were Table 4 Rotated component matrix
‘D’ (unskilled manual workers) and ‘C2’ (skilled manual Component
workers) with response rates of 1.7 and 2.0%, respectively.
1 2 3 4
Responses for household income varied between 17.9%
for the £20.29 k category and 7.2% for the £50.59 k cate- PU6 0.806 0.175
gory. The group with the lowest income (  £10 K) was repre- PU1 0.772
PU5 0.754 0.110
sented by 9.5% of the response, while the largest income PU2 0.747
group (  £70 K) was represented with by 10.4%. Of the 358 PU8 0.729 0.128
respondents, 308 (86%) had Internet access at home and 50 PU3 0.728 0.128 0.225 0.145
(14%) did not. Of the 308 respondents who did have Internet PU4 0.722 0.181 0.118
access at home, 101 (32.8%) had a narrowband connection PU9 0.647 0.241 0.240 0.274
PU7 0.646 0.208
and the remaining 207 (67.2%) respondents had a broadband PR3 0.150 0.817 0.111
connection. PR1 0.121 0.794 0.268
PR4 0.759 0.236
Reliability and validity of the research instrument PR2 0.220 0.694
PS2 0.125 0.136 0.895
The research instrument was tested for reliability (internal PS3 0.200 0.193 0.888
consistency) and construct validity. Internal consistency was PS1 0.193 0.167 0.849
examined using Cronbach’s alpha to confirm the adequacy SI1 0.139 0.917
of the measures for testing research hypotheses. Hinton SI2 0.123 0.901
SI3 0.273 0.265 0.715
et al (2004) suggest four cut-off points for reliability, which

Table 3 Reliability of measurements (N = 358)

Constructs Number of items Cronbach’s alpha () Type
Behavioural intention (BI) 2 0.89 High reliability
Utilitarian outcomes (UO) 9 0.91 Excellent reliability
Social influence (SI) 3 0.85 High reliability
Perceived resources (PR) 4 0.81 High reliability
Self-efficacy (SE) 3 0.90 Excellent reliability
 Z Irani et al—Understanding consumer adoption of broadband 1329

Table 5 Total variance explained

Compound Initial eigenvalues Extraction sums of squared loading Rotation sums of squared loadings
Total % of variance Cumulative % Total % of variance Cumulative % Total % of variance Cumulative %
1 6.889 36.258 36.258 6.889 36.258 36.258 5.089 26.786 26.786
2 2.397 12.617 48.876 2.397 12.617 48.876 2.687 14.144 40.930
3 1.957 10.299 59.175 1.957 10.299 59.175 2.638 13.884 54.814
4 1.520 8.001 67.176 1.520 8.001 67.176 2.349 12.362 67.176

Table 6 Regression analysis: model summary

Model R R2 Adjusted R 2 Std. error of the estate
Regression analysis I: Predictors—(Constant), PR, SI, SE, UO, dependent variable—BI
1 0.628(a) 0.394 0.387 1.14899
Regression analysis II: Predictors—(Constant), PR, BI, dependent variable—BA
2 0.546(a) 0.298 0.294 0.415

construct loaded on component 2. The second component thus
represents the underlying construct of perceived resources.
All three items of the self-efficacy loaded on component 3,
hence the third component represents the underlying construct
of self-efficacy. Finally, the three items related to the social
influence construct all loaded on the fourth component. Thus,
the fourth component represents the social influence construct
(Table 4).
Our results suggest that items loaded on each factor as
expected. Our factor analysis results satisfied the criteria of
construct validity including both the discriminant validity
(loading of at least 0.40, no cross-loading of items above
0.40) and convergent validity (eigenvalues of 1, loading of
at least 0.40, items that load on posited constructs) (Straub
et al, 2004, p 410). This confirms the construct validity (both
discriminant validity and convergent validity) of the instru-
ment measures used for data collection, and correspondingly
the validity of the resulting data and findings.
According to a general rule of thumb, only factors with
eigenvalues greater than 1 should be considered important for
analysis purposes (Hinton et al, 2004; Straub et al, 2004).
Results presented in Table 5 illustrate that all four constructs
possess eigenvalues greater than 1. Table 5 also summarises
the total variance for the extracted components. The combi-
nation of constructs accounted for a total of 67.17% variance
in data. The largest variance (26.78%) was explained by the
utilitarian outcomes construct, while the smallest amount of
variation (12.36%) was accounted for by social influence.
Results from both the reliability test and factor analysis
suggest that it is appropriate to create aggregated measures
by averaging the means of all items of each construct.
Regression analysis I: influence of utilitarian outcomes,
perceived resources, self-efficacy and social influence on
behavioural intentions A regression analysis was performed
with behavioural intentions as the dependent variable, and
utilitarian outcomes, perceived resources, self-efficacy and
social influence as predictor variables. A total of 358 cases
were analysed. From the analysis, a significant model
emerged (F(4, 358) = 57.372, p < 0.001) (Table 7). The
adjusted R 2 was 0.387 (Table 6). All four predictor vari-
ables included in the analysis were found to be significant
(Table 8). As illustrated in Table 8, the size of  suggests that
the utilitarian outcomes construct has the largest impact on
the explanation of variations of BI, followed by self-efficacy
and then social influence. The perceived resources construct
contributed the fourth and least variance of BI. This suggests
that although the original TAM construct has the largest
impact on explaining variance of BI, the integrated new
constructs are also vital for understanding the behavioural
intentions to adopt broadband.
Regression analysis II: influence of perceived resources and
behavioural intentions on broadband adoption Second
regression analysis was performed with adoption behaviour
as the dependent variable and behavioural intentions and
perceived resources as the predictor variables. A total of 358
cases were analysed. From the analysis, a significant model
emerged (F(2, 358) = 75.508, P < 0.001) (Table 7). The
adjusted R 2 was 0.294 (Table 6). Both the predictor vari-
ables included in the analysis were found to be significant
(Table 8). In terms of the size of  behavioural intention
has more impact on variations of adoption behaviour than
perceived resources.
Testing multicollinearity
SPSS provides two options to estimate the tolerance and vari-
ance inflation factor (VIF) to examine if data suffer from the
problem of multicollinearity (Myers, 1990; Brace et al, 2003).
According to Myers (1990), if the VIF value for any
constructs surpasses 10, then there is a possibility of multi-
collinearity among constructs. If detected, in order to over-
come this problem, a variable with a VIF value more than 10
1330 Journal of the Operational Research Society Vol. 60, No. 10

Table 7 Regression analysis: ANOVA

Sum of squares d.f. Mean of square F Sig.
Regression analysis I: Predictors—(Constant), PR, SI, SE, UO, dependent variable—BI
Regression 302.966 4 75.741 57.372 0.000(a)
Regression analysis II: Predictors—(Constant), PR, SI, dependent variable—BA
Regression 26.057 2 13.028 75.508 0.000(a)

Table 8 Regression analysis: Coefficients

Predictor variables Unstandardized coefficients Standardized coefficients t Sig. Collinearity statistics
Beta
B Std. error Tolerance VIF
Regression analysis I: Dependent variable—Behavioural intentions (BI)
(Constant) 0.182 0.399 0.455 0.649
UO 0.330 0.067 0.244 4.926 0.000 0.698 1.433
SI 0.212 0.046 0.212 4.663 0.000 0.830 1.205
SE 0.279 0.058 0.224 4.821 0.000 0.797 1.255
PR 0.221 0.051 0.208 4.376 0.000 0.758 1.319
Regression analysis II: Dependent variable—BA
(Constant) 0.351 0.103 3.422 0.001
BI 0.133 0.017 0.395 7.941 0.000 0.797 1.255
PR 0.085 0.018 0.239 4.792 0.000 0.797 1.255

Legend: R 2 —Coefficient of determination (the R 2 value is an indicator of how well the model fits the data); P—the P-value is a probability, with a
value ranging from zero to one; F—significance test for overall model fit.

needs to be deleted (Myers, 1990). An alternative to this
approach is an estimation of the tolerance value. The toler-
ance values are a measure of the correlation between the
predictor variables that vary between 0 and 1. The closer to
zero the tolerance value is for a variable, the stronger the
relationship between this and the other predictor variables. It
is a matter for concern if a predictor variable in a model has a
tolerance of less than 0.0001 (Brace et al, 2003). Both options
were applied in this research and findings are presented in
the next section. In order to test for multicollinearity, both
the VIF and tolerance that were estimated are shown in
Table 8. Values obtained for both VIF and tolerance indicate
that there is no problem of multicollinearity in this research.
Table 8 illustrates that the VIF for all three regression anal-
yses varied between 1.205 and 1.43, which are much lower
than the maximum recommended level of 10 (Myers, 1990;
Brace et al, 2003). Table 8 also illustrates that all the predic-
tors have a high tolerance of more than 0.698. Therefore, both
the VIF and tolerance values suggest that the independent
variables included in this study do not suffer unduly from
multicollinearity; and therefore reported variance explained
by these variables are likely to be a reflection of the true
situation.
Research synthesis
Hypothesis test
A total of six research hypotheses (see the second section)
were tested to examine if the independent variables
significantly explained the dependent variables. All six
research hypotheses were supported by the data, which
suggests that all independent variables significantly explained
the dependent variables (ie behavioural intentions (BI) and
broadband adoption) (Table 9).
Performance of the validated research model of
broadband adoption
Figure 3 illustrates the validated model for broadband adop-
tion originally proposed in the second section. Figure 3 depicts
the paths from utilitarian outcomes, self-efficacy, perceived
resources and social influence towards the behavioural inten-
tions to adopt broadband as being significant. Finally, both
BI and perceived resources were significant determinants of
the actual behaviour of adopting broadband.
It is not possible to compare the predictability of the broad-
band adoption model with the only other available study of
this nature by Oh et al (2003), as the Oh et al (2003) study
examined different independent and dependent constructs.
For instance, this study employed BI and actual behaviour
as dependent constructs whereas Oh et al (2003) employ
attitude as the ultimate dependent construct. However, the
predictive ability of the broadband adoption model can be
compared to guiding models such as the TAM, the theory
of planned behaviour (TPB) and the decomposed theory of
planned behaviour (DTPB). This is because constructs such as
BI, and behaviour and structure of this extended TAM model
of broadband adoption are similar to the original TAM, TPB
and DTPB.
 Z Irani et al—Understanding consumer adoption of broadband 1331

Table 9 Summary of research hypothesis

HN Research Hypotheses Results
H1 Utilitarian outcomes will have a positive influence on the BI to adopt broadband Supported
H2 Social influences will have a positive influence on the BI to adopt broadband Supported
H3 Self-efficacy will have a positive influence on the BI to adopt broadband Supported
H4 Perceived resources will have a positive influence on BI Supported
H5 Perceived resources will positively influence the adoption of broadband Supported
H6 BI will have an influence on the adoption of broadband Supported
Legend: BI—Behavioural intentions.

Perceived broadband. This finding extends the body of knowledge

Resources
Utilitarian
Outcomes Behavioural Broadband
Intentions
2 Adoption
(R =0.387) 2
Social
(R =0.294)
Influence
Self-efficacy *p < 0.001
Figure 3 Validated model of broadband adoption.
The comparison of previous studies for the adjusted R 2
obtained for both behavioural intentions and actual behaviour
suggests that this extended model of broadband adoption
performed equally as well as the previous studies. With regard
to the behavioural intentions value of the adjusted R 2 varied
between 0.20 (Gefen and Straub, 2000) and 0.57 (Taylor and
Todd, 1995); the adjusted R 2 for this study is found to be
0.387, which suggests the appropriate and acceptable level
of explained variance. This suggests that the independent
variables considered in this study are important for under-
standing a consumer’s behavioural intentions to adopt broad-
band. Since the adjusted R 2 value for this study revealed the
variance in behaviour to be 0.294, it falls within the acceptable
range. Therefore, similar to behavioural intentions, behaviour
also sufficiently explains the variance in broadband adop-
tion by household consumers. In brief, all variables identified
and examined in this study are important for understanding a
consumer adoption of broadband.
Key findings and implications to industry and policy
The analysis of the empirical data derived from the survey
of broadband consumers revealed many lessons that will be
helpful to ISPs or broadband service providers and policy
makers seeking to encourage consumer adoption of broad-
band. These lessons, implications and also contributions to
theory are summarized below:
• Empirical data have suggested that utilitarian outcomes,
social influence, perceived resources and self-efficacy
comprise factors that affect the consumer adoption of
in the area of consumer adoption of broadband, as afore-
mentioned factors were not examined as important factors
in the literature to explain adoption of subscription-based
technologies such as broadband. Therefore, the theoretical
contribution of this research is that it integrates the appro-
priate IS literature in order to enhance the knowledge of
technology adoption from the consumer perspectives. That
is, it assimilates previous research findings to develop a
coherent and comprehensive picture of the technology
adoption research conducted in the IS field. By doing so,
this research introduces an extended model that integrates
factors from different technology adoption models so as
to study home technology adoption from a consumer’s
perspective.
• A further theoretical contribution is the development and
validation of survey measures for the factors examined in
this study. In a situation where theory is advanced, but prior
instrumentation is not developed and validated, it is essen-
tial to involve the creation and validation of new measures,
and such efforts are considered an important contribution
to scientific practice in the IS field (Straub et al, 2004).
Although the constructs utilized in this research have been
taken from established theories and models such as TAM
and TPB, prior instrumentation to study broadband adop-
tion was not developed and validated in existing studies.
Therefore it was considered essential to create and vali-
date a new research instrument for constructs included in
the extended conceptual model. Since this study satisfied
the criteria quoted above (Straub et al, 2004), it makes a
substantial contribution towards the household technology
adoption research. The research instrument developed and
validated in this research can be utilized to examine various
emerging technologies within the context of households.
• The findings of this research generate a number of issues
that may assist both policy makers and ISPs for under-
standing consumer adoption of broadband. For example,
it was found that the utilitarian outcomes construct was
the most important in terms of influencing the BI when
adopting broadband in UK households. Since the utili-
tarian outcomes construct is the most important factor
for explaining behavioural intentions, it is important to
integrate more content and applications for the purpose of
1332 Journal of the Operational Research Society Vol. 60, No. 10
household and entertainment utility. South Korean broad-
band and content providers successfully utilized online
games as a killer application/content for promoting broad-
band adoption (Lee et al, 2003). Similar strategies were,
unsuccessfully, attempted in the UK. Cultural differences
and dissimilarities in lifestyle between different coun-
tries require different strategies and content to promote
broadband adoption. This necessitates the adoption of
different strategies to those employed in South Korea. In
the UK, it might be helpful if broadband providers and
content providers develop a system for delivering real-time
sport events (ie football) and on-demand video/music to
consumers with broadband connection. Perceived resources
construct is also an important factor in terms of influ-
encing BI to adopt broadband. This has implications for
both ISPs and policy makers. For instance, ISPs have to
think about more consumer centric services and alternative
price plans so that all consumers who want to subscribe
to broadband would be able to do so. Policy makers have
to provide alternative places for broadband access where
lower income groups or those who cannot afford it can
use it. It may help to increase behavioural intentions to
adopt broadband and therefore encourage overall adoption
of broadband in the UK household.
• The social influence construct was also found to be
significant in explaining BI to adopt broadband. This has
important implications for policy makers. For instance,
all schools should be equipped with broadband and chil-
dren should be encouraged to submit homework using
the Internet. In such situations, children will influence
parents to subscribe to broadband. Such a strategy was
successfully utilized in South Korea. Choudrie and Lee
(2004) reported that in South Korea one of the important
factors that determined the fast and high penetration of
broadband was the influence of children on parents to
subscribe to broadband, as it was essential for them to
submit their homework electronically using the Internet.
Since social influence is an important factor, ISPs should
encourage existing consumers to influence their family and
relatives who still do not have broadband subscription. For
this, ISPs should motivate existing consumers by offering
cash back or gift vouchers on successful referral of new
customers. As illustrated in Figure 3, self-efficacy is also
an important factor that influences behavioural intentions
to adopt broadband, which brings mainly policy-related
issues. This suggests that there is a need to equip citizens
with the skills to use computers and the Internet. When it
comes to the government’s role in equipping citizens, it
is important to take a segmental approach to identify and
provide relevant skill-oriented courses to those citizens
who do not have normal opportunities to learn and use the
computer, Internet and other related emerging technologies
and applications such as e-government and e-commerce.
In the UK, the government provides free Internet access in
libraries; however, not all people—particularly those in the
older age categories—regularly visit the library so it may
not prove very useful for motivating and encouraging such
a segment of the population to learn and use the computer
and Internet. An alternative strategy that may prove useful
is providing Internet access in public places such as pubs
and in old people’s homes. It would also require choosing
and equipping one or two people with essential ICT
skills who regularly visit pubs as a change agent who
may then easily motivate others to learn and use such
technologies.
Conclusions
This paper has examined consumer adoption of broadband in
UK households. Broadband technology has been considered
critical to the growth and adoption of business-to-consumers
electronic commerce and emerging e-government services.
Furthermore, broadband also offers significant benefits
to small and medium size enterprises in integrating their
customer and supply chain. Since broadband forms a vital
infrastructure for the emerging information society, it is also
considered an important measure for international compet-
itiveness and economic growth. Broadband has emerged to
provide significant benefits (such as fast, always on and un-
metered access to the Internet and a free phone line) while
using the Internet to consumers over its preceding technology
‘narrowband’.
In line with the aim and objectives of the paper, the most
important and interesting conclusions that have emerged from
the analysis presented in this study are as follows:
• ISPs require a sustainable business model based on detailed
understanding of adoption factors beyond those that are
primarily financially orientated.
• A number of factors (such as utilitarian outcomes,
perceived resources, social influence, self-efficacy and
behavioural intentions) identified and considered important
for understanding adoption decisions.
• All four constructs (namely utilitarian outcomes, self-
efficacy, perceived resources and social influence) signif-
icantly influenced the BI of consumers of broadband.
This clearly suggests that the subscription price is not the
only factor that is important for attracting and sustaining
broadband consumers.
• In terms of the size of the effect of the four aforementioned
constructs that contributed significantly to the behavioural
intentions, utilitarian outcomes exhibited the largest, and
perceived resources demonstrated the least variance to the
BI. Self-efficacy explained the second largest variance,
which was followed by social influence. This clearly high-
lights the importance of content with broadband package
over subscription price factor. So the winner of the future
broadband market will be those organizations that success-
fully bundle and deliver innovative and entertaining content
to consumers/end users.

• Both BI and the perceived resources significantly influ-
ence broadband adoption behaviour. In terms of the rela-
tive impact of the two aforementioned constructs that
contributed significantly to the BAB, BI had higher impacts
than the perceived resources construct. This indicates that
both public and private sector stakeholders must continue
to engage in such activities that help consumers to build
their positive intention to subscribe and use broadband at
home.
This research presents one of the initial efforts towards under-
standing the consumer adoption of broadband in UK house-
holds. It therefore enables better decision-making ability to
stakeholders such as ISPs and the government associated with
encouraging the consumers/citizens to adopt broadband. Also
this study is one of only a few studies that address the issue
of consumer adoption of technology by utilizing the TAM
model and that is beyond the boundary of the workplace. This
study extends the body of knowledge in the area of consumer
adoption of subscription-based technologies such as broad-
band, as it extended and validated the TAM for examining
broadband by incorporating constructs such as self-efficacy,
perceived resources and social influence. This study brings
about several theoretical contributions and implications to
practice and policy as discussed in the previous section.
Limitations of research conducted
This study provides a snapshot of adoption of broadband in
the UK households. The findings may change as technology
becomes established and consumers become more experi-
enced in its use. Therefore, the findings would have been
reinforced if the research had been a longitudinal one. A
further advantage for undertaking a longitudinal study is the
reasoning that the elimination of any variables could achieve
anomalies in the obtained results. However, as this research
has a limited completion timeframe, it was not possible to
conduct further data collection in order to observe the effect
of time on adoption.
This study was focused upon utilizing a quantitative
approach that may have limited the ability of this research
when attempting to obtain an in-depth view of household
technology adoption. The questionnaire findings would have
been strengthened if it had been possible to also supplement
them using interviews. However, due to time and resources
there was a constraint such that it was not possible to conduct
both qualitative and quantitative research.
The survey data collected are confined to UK consumers.
Broadband infrastructure development, subscription fees,
consumer characteristics and preferences vary from country
to country. Therefore, with regard to consumer adoption of
broadband in the future, it will be useful to undertake a cross-
cultural approach to examine whether the findings obtained
from this study are specific to UK households or whether the
results would be the same across other countries of the world.
Z Irani et al—Understanding consumer adoption of broadband 1333
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Appendix Survey instrument

Independent variables Survey measures

1. Utilitarian outcomes (UO) Broadband can be useful to find educational materials and accessing library resources
at home
Broadband can be useful for distance learning
Broadband can be helpful to perform work/job-related tasks at home
Broadband will help me communicate better via email, chat, Web cam
Broadband can help in performing personal and household activities, that is,
online shopping
Broadband can help in performing personal and household activities, that is,
information search
Broadband can be helpful to establish and operate a home business
Broadband can help children to do their homework
Subscribing broadband is compatible with most aspects of my everyday life
2. Social influence (SI) My friends think that I should subscribe to (or continue the current subscription)
broadband at home
My colleagues think that I should subscribe to (or continue the current subscription)
broadband
My family members think that I should subscribe to (or continue the current
subscription) to broadband
3. Perceived resources (PR) My annual household income level is enough to afford subscribing to broadband
It is not too costly to purchase a new computer or to upgrade my old computer
It is not too costly for me to subscribe to broadband at its current subscription fee
I would be able to subscribe to broadband if I wanted to
4. Self-efficacy (SE) I would feel comfortable using the Internet on my own
Learning to operate the Internet is easy for me
I clearly understand how to use the Internet
Received December 2007;
accepted July 2008 after one revision