Determinants of mobile commerce adoption among university students in Malaysia

Mobile commerce has an increasing importance and development in offering a new platform to sell products effectively and efficiently. Despite numerous studies in the area of technology adoption, little is known about mobile commerce adoption in Malaysia and appropriate models that could explain the behaviours of young generations on the use of mobile commerce. This study attempts to propose a conceptual model for mobile commerce adoption by adapting the integrated TAM3 model and using Individual-Collectivism at Individual Level (ICAIL) as the moderating variable in the context of mobile commerce in Malaysia. In addition, this research also identifies factors that affect the perceived usefulness (i.e. subjective norm, image, output quality, result demonstrability), and perceived ease of use (selfefficacy, anxiety, perception of external control, playfulness) in the context of mobile commerce adoption among university students in Malaysia. A sample of 550 students from four universities in Malaysia was surveyed through a self-administrated questionnaire. The findings of this study found eight direct significant relationships between the tested variables, while nine hypotheses were not accepted. Firstly, in terms of perceived usefulness variable, image showed a significant relationship, whereas subjective norm, output quality and result demonstrability showed vice versa. Secondly, for perceived ease of use variable, factors of self-efficacy, perception of external control and playfulness showed significant relationships, while anxiety was found to be insignificant. Thirdly, while subjective norm had significant relationship with image, perceived usefulness indicated insignificant relationship with behavioural intention. Fourthly, perceived ease of use had significant relationships with perceived usefulness and behavioural intention. Finally, the perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, subjective norm and behavioural intention showed insignificant relationship with the moderating variable, ICAIL. As a conclusion, the results from this study are important to the advancement of knowledge to the mobile commerce companies, services provider, financial services and government.