Title of Dissertation FACTORS AFFECTING INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY ACCEPTANCE IN CHINESE RETAIL PHARMACY SECTOR: A CASE STUDY FROM HUAIAN CITY, CHINA. This study first investigated the UTAUT (Unified Theory Acceptance and Use of Technology) to study the Chinese retail pharmacy sector's IT adoption in new mandatory context.
GENERALITIES OF THE STUDY
- Research Background
- Research Question
- Aims and Significance of the Research
- Research Aims
- Research Significance
- Definition of Terms
- Chinese Retail Pharmacy
- Information Technology (IT)
- Adoption
- Organizational Setting
- Research Progress and Chapter Arrangement
IT in the organizational environment refers to organizational IT used by employees in their work. This study started from the research topic "Factors Affecting IT Adoption in Chinese Retail Pharmacy" and focused on four research questions.
LITERATURE REVIEW AND MODEL DEVELOPMENT
IT Adoption Models and Theories
- Technology Acceptance Model (TAM)
- Extension Technology Acceptance Model (TAM2)
- Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT)
Perceived Usefulness (TAM) “The extent to which a person believes that using a particular system would improve his or her job performance.” Relative advantage (IDT) “The extent to which the use of an innovation is perceived as better than the use of its predecessor.” (Moore and Benbasat, 1991).
Empirical Research based on UTAUT
Among the 662 papers are 30 studies in the field of medical informatics, which are closely related to this study. There are 11 researches studied in the context of non-organization (e.g. the old, mobile health, Hoque . & Sorwar of them are in organizational context (e.g. Thailand community health center, Kijsanayotin et al., 2009).
Formulation of the Research Model Pharmacy-UTAUT
Second, internationally there is still a lack of empirical research on IT adoption in retail pharmacies. Based on UTAUT, this study constructed Pharmacy-UTAUT for empirical research on IT adoption in Chinese retail pharmacy.
Variables Definition and Research Hypotheses
- Core Variables
- Performance Expectancy
- Effort Expectancy
- Attitude
- Social Influence
- Facilitating Conditions
- Habit 36
- Moderators
Supported by many IT adoption studies, performance expectancy in the business context is an important predictor of behavioral intention (Davis et al.). Effort Expectancy is defined as the degree of ease associated with using the system (Venkatesh et al. 2003). Attitude is defined as an individual's overall affective response to using a system (Venkatesh et al. 2003).
In UTAUT, Venkatesh et al. 2003) suggested that a spurious relationship between attitude and intention would reduce the effect of performance expectancy and effort expectancy on intention.
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
- Variables Operationalization
- Respondents and Sampling Procedures
- Research Location
- Sample Size
- Sampling Method
- Designing and Testing of the Questionnaire
- Questionnaire Design
- Testing the Reliability and Validity of the Questionnaire
- Statistical Treatment of Data
Measuring the actual use of pharmacies' IT is an indispensable process in subsequent empirical research. Finally, after repeated examination of the questionnaire questions and revision, a final questionnaire was formed (Appendix A). In this study, the validity of the questionnaire was tested by the Factor Analysis Module of SPSS.
It should be noted that the Face Validity (a.k.a. Logical Validity) of the questionnaire was tested by the subjective evaluation in the questionnaire design section (section 3.3.1).
RESULTS AND DISSCUSSION
Questionnaire Recovery and Date Cleaning
As planned, the questionnaires were distributed in Qingjiangpu District, Huai'an District and Hongze District, Huai'an City, Jiangsu Province of China. No questionnaires with blanks were received when the data was entered, as the questionnaires were actually sent on site by survey assistants. A total of 377 questionnaires were retrieved and the completed data entry was cleaned in the way of “cleaning within the effective scope”, “cleaning of logical consistency” and “random test on the data quality” (Feng, 2013).
Finally, 5% of the 377 questionnaires were randomly selected, resulting in a total of 19 questionnaires for the “random data quality test”.
Descriptive Statistics Analysis
- Description of Basic Information
- Description of Model Latent Variables
The overall mean of the habit is 6.24 whose mean value of the three measurement items to the item "I am addicted (higher than the degree of habit) using retail pharmacy IT at work" in HA2 is 5.85 . The overall mean of the facilitating conditions is 6.17, and the mean value of the four measurement items for the item "I have mastered the necessary knowledge to use retail pharmacy IT" in FC2 is only 5.75. The overall mean of social influence is 6.03, and the mean value of the four measurement items corresponding to the item that "local health administrative agencies have helped me use retail pharmacy IT" in SI3 is only 5.52.
This suggests that the respondents believed that the use of retail pharmacy IT can make their work more interesting.
Validity and Reliability Test of Questionnaire
- Validity Test
- Reliability Test
Therefore, in this study, the alpha coefficient was used to test the internal consistency reliability of the questionnaire. As shown in Table 4.4 and Table 4.5, the reliability coefficient of the questionnaire for this study is 0.926. Although the reliability coefficients of social influence subscale (0.751) and enabling conditions (0.686) are lower, the reliability coefficients of the subscales of other latent variables are greater than 0.755.
If this is removed, the alpha coefficient of the social influence subscale can increase to 0.917, the same as for both the social influence subscale and the general questionnaire, which can increase to 0.874 and 0.928, respectively.
Testing and Modifying of the Research Model
- Normality Test of Model Variables
- Common Method Variance and Multicollinearity Test
- Confirmatory Factor Analysis
- Test of Goodness for Fit
- Reliability Test
- Convergence Validity Test
- Discriminant Validity Test
- Initial Model Correction
- Initial Correction
- Second Correction
- Third Correction
This means that removing or reducing the measurement index variables SI3 and FC2 can effectively improve the intrinsic reliability of the dimension. This indicates that the construct validity of the dimension to which they belong can be effectively improved by the removed measurement index variables SI3 and FC2. There are significant differences in the latent traits reflected by the index variables of the factor construct and the latent construct.
The correlation coefficient between the AVE square root of the latent construct and the latent construct was compared.
Hypothesis Testing
Moderation Effects Analysis
- Moderation Effect of Gender
- Moderation Effect of Age
- Moderation Effect of Pharmacy Type
- Moderation Effect of Pharmacy Professional Level
This indicated that between the male and female groups, the path coefficient from effort expectancy to performance expectancy changed significantly, implying that gender played a moderating role in the effect of effort expectancy on performance expectancy. It is evident that the effect of expected effort on expected performance is significant in the male group, but not significant in the female group. Among the ten constrained models, the difference in chi-square value was statistically significant (P<0.05) after comparing only the PE→A model to the unconstrained model, indicating that between the older and younger groups, the path coefficient from expected performance to changed the attitude significantly, which means that age played a moderating role in the influence of expected performance on the attitude.
The effect of Performance Expectancy and Effort Expectancy are not significant in the high pharmacy professional level group, but significant in the lower degree group.
Model Comparison
Based on the result, it can be assumed that the degree of fit between the three models and the sample data is acceptable, with little difference in terms of the Goodness of Fit index. The standardized path relationship between the TAM and the UTAUT is shown in Figure 4.7 and Figure 4.8, respectively. The effect of the core variables of three models on behavioral intention is summarized in Table 4.22.
In addition, the new path of significant influence is expanded and the ability of the model to explain the relevant data on IT usage intention and its influencing factors in Chinese retail pharmacies is improved due to attitude repositioning ( although the direct effect of Performance Expectancy and Effort Expectancy decreased) and because social influence is divided into Government Policy and Industry Support.
Discussion of Results
- Analysis of Core Influencing Factors
- Analysis of Moderators
- Comparative Analysis of Pharmacy-UTAUT's Explanatory Power . 101
Based on the final Pharmacy UTAUT: (1) The test results of the theoretical hypothesis show that performance expectation, effort expectation, attitude and social influence (industry support and government policy) are the core factors influencing the intention of IT use in Chinese pharmacies ; (2) The results of the moderation effect analysis show that age, gender, type of pharmacy, and professional level of the pharmacy are the moderators that affect the relationship between some variables in the pharmacy UTAUT; (3) The model comparison results show that the Pharmacy-UTAUT is superior to the original TAM and the UTAUT in explaining the intention of IT use in Chinese pharmacies. The test results of the theoretical hypothesis show that social influence is the most important influencing factor for IT usage intention in Chinese retail pharmacy. There is no doubt that this attitude is the most important explanatory factor for the intention of IT use in Chinese retail pharmacy.
Having a moderating effect on part of theoretical paths, gender, age, pharmacy type and pharmacist professional level are significant moderators of IT usage intention in Chinese retail pharmacies.
CONCLUSIONS AND PROSPECTS
Research Conclusion
Attitude ranks first in the core influencing factors of behavioral intention, which directly affects the intention to use IT. In other words, the higher the degree of pleasure IT makes people feel (attitude), the stronger the intention to use IT in Chinese retail pharmacies. In other words, the easier it is to use IT (effort expectancy), the stronger the intention to use IT in Chinese retail pharmacies.
In other words, the more the industry emphasizes the use of IT (industry support) and the more local health administrative agencies emphasize the use of IT promotion policies (government policies), the stronger the intention to use IT in Chinese retail trade. pharmacies.
Limitations of the Research
By elucidating the important factors influencing the intention to use IT in retail pharmacies, it is useful to actively promote IT strategy in retail pharmacies. By clarifying the important regulatory factors of IT usage intention, it is useful to choose promotional strategies based on different characteristics of retail pharmacies. The external validity of the research conclusions should be tested and improved by adding sample size.
It is necessary to test and improve the external validity of the research conclusion by expanding the categories of the respondents.
Future Research Directions
Understanding factors influencing mHealth adoption by older adults: An extension of the UTAUT model. Understanding physicians' acceptance of the Medline system for practicing evidence-based medicine: a decomposed TPB model. People in the industry who are important to me think I should use pharmacy IT.
Chinese retail pharmacy IT users have a degree of professional support (Appendix B), so their Attitude towards IT use may be one of the important predictor variables for IT adoption.
