Once Built <i>Well<i/>, They Might Come: An Empirical Study of Mobile E-Mail

Abstract

In this exploratory study, we seek to help explain and predict the success of mobile information systems based on a research model that joins key elements of the theory of task-technology fit and the technology acceptance model. To account for idiosyncrasies of the mobile technology artifact, as exemplified by mobile e-mail, we include user mobility and user-perceived technology maturity in our research model. Using structural equation modeling with PLS and content analysis, we analyze 55 responses that we collected from employees at a Fortune 100 firm. For non-users of mobile e-mail, we find a significant association between task-technology fit and expected usefulness of the technology that corroborates a previously suggested link between the technology acceptance model and the theory of task-technology fit. For users of mobile e-mail, however, we find technology maturity to be a dominant explanatory factor that exhibits strong associations with extent of use of mobile e-mail and with actual user-perceived usefulness and related performance impacts. We further identify a need to advance the measurement of user mobility. Our findings complement the suggestion to apply a technology-to-performance chain in order to understand the success of information technology. Our results indicate that user-perceived technology maturity may play an important role to explain use and performance impacts of information technology, in particular during the early stages of technology development. Our study has theoretical implications for the application of earlier information system theories to mobile technology innovations, and practical implications for the understanding about the requirements of mobile technology to adequately support a mobile workforce.