Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic has changed people’s lifestyles and catalysed digital platform adoption, including within the context of the food delivery business. During the COVID-19 pandemic, food delivery mobile applications gained numerous new users, with the industry being one of the few domains to have leveraged the pandemic’s outbreak. This study investigates the factors that have influenced the adoption of food delivery mobile application technology during the pandemic in Thailand. The research model was adopted from the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) model, integrating perceived fear of COVID-19. Empirical research was conducted using data from 223 food delivery mobile application users in Thailand, with Structural Equation Modelling used to validate the model and analyse the hypotheses. The results indicate that the intention to use food delivery applications was significantly influenced by social influence, performance expectancy, effort expectancy, and perceived fear. Facilitating conditions significantly impacted actual usage behaviour, with moderating results revealing a stronger influence on behaviour intention of perceived fear of COVID-19 among females than males and among younger respondents than older respondents. The variance explained by the modified UTAUT model for intention to adopt food delivery mobile application technology was found to be 59.4%. This research makes a significant contribution to the literature in terms of validating a theory-driven framework that emphasizes the factors which impact the adoption of food delivery mobile application technology in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Doi: 10.28991/esj-2021-SPER-08 Full Text: PDF
Highlights
The COVID-19 pandemic has drastically changed people’s lives, with one measurable impact being an upsurge in the adoption of food delivery mobile applications
This paper is amongst the first attempts to explain adoption of food delivery mobile applications during the COVID-19 pandemic, contributing to the existing literature on food delivery mobile applications by integrating the UTAUT model with Perceived Fear (PF) of COVID-19, with results highlighting the need to integrate PF into the original UTAUT model to expand understanding of the main determinants of food delivery mobile application adoption intention and usage
The results suggest that constructs such as Performance Expectancy (PE), EE, Social Influence (SI), and PF have strongly impacted behavioral intention (BI) to adopt food delivery mobile application technology during the COVID-19 pandemic
Summary
The COVID-19 pandemic has drastically changed people’s lives, with one measurable impact being an upsurge in the adoption of food delivery mobile applications. Ezzaouia and Bulchand-Gidumal (2021) predicted users’ intentions to adopt COVID-19 contact-tracing apps, applying four additional specific drivers to the UTAUT model: perceived privacy, perceived value, safety, and accuracy [11]. Their results recognized that performance expectations most strongly influence the intention to use contact-tracing applications. Lee et al (2019) explored predictors of continuing to use food delivery applications by extending the UTAUT model to include four additional constructs: information quality, hedonic motivation, price value, and habit [12] Their results demonstrated that habit most strongly impacted a continuous use intention, followed by performance expectations and social influence. Sections five and six present discussion and conclusions, including the study’s limitations and avenues for future research
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