Determining Factors Affecting Behavioral Intention to Organize an Online Event during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

An online event, such as an online concert or online graduation, has been widely utilized as one of the solutions to connect people during the COVID-19 pandemic. The purpose of this study was to determine factors affecting behavioral intention to organize an online event during the COVID-19 pandemic by integrating Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB). Overall, 366 sets of data were collected from respondents through a convenience sampling approach from several social media platforms. They were asked to fill the online questionnaire which had 40 questions under 8 segments. Structural equation modeling (SEM) showed that hedonic motivation was found to have the strongest effect on attitude, which subsequently led to behavior intention. In addition, online event promotion and perceived usefulness were also found to have significant effects on attitude, which also subsequently led to behavior intention. This study is one of the first studies that explored the behavioral intention to utilize an online event during the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings would be beneficial mainly for online event organizers, particularly for enhancing the online event performance based on the contributing factors. Additionally, this study could act as a stepping stone to help future researchers understand online event better. Finally, the technology acceptance model and theory of planned behavior in this study can be extended for exploring the acceptance of an online event worldwide.