Where does voluntariness collide?

The degree to which use of an innovation is perceived as being voluntary, or of one's own free will, rather than required. Moore and Benbasat added voluntariness to Rogers's attributes when they built the Perceived Characteristics of Innovating instrument in 1991, treating it as one of the perceptions an adopter holds about a technology and giving it its own items alongside relative advantage, compatibility, image, and the rest. Here voluntariness is a construct in its own right: a belief that can vary across people facing the same system, scored on a scale and entered as a predictor of adoption, not a switch set by the organization.[1]

Unit

An adopter's perception of how free the choice to use is

Recovery means

Not applicable

Measured by

Voluntariness items on the PCI; rate of adoption as the criterion

The same perceived freedom of choice, but recast as a moderator rather than a predictor. In the technology acceptance model's 2000 extension, Venkatesh and Davis let subjective norm raise intention directly through compliance, and made voluntariness the condition on that path: when use is seen as mandatory the direct norm-to-intention effect operates, and when use is seen as voluntary it fades. Voluntariness does not push intention up or down on its own here; it governs whether social pressure is obeyed, and it was studied by contrasting two voluntary and two mandatory system implementations.[2]

Unit

A user's sense of whether use is required, as a switch on social pressure

Recovery means

Not applicable

Measured by

Voluntariness rating used to gate the subjective-norm effect on intention

The degree to which use is perceived as voluntary, carried into the unified model as one of its four moderators. Venkatesh, Morris, Davis, and Davis pooled subjective norm, social factors, and image into a single social influence construct in 2003, and let voluntariness of use, together with gender, age, and experience, moderate the effect of that construct on intention. As in TAM2, social influence shapes intention chiefly when use is mandatory rather than voluntary, so the construct that began as a perception on the PCI ends as a dial that turns the social path on and off.[3]

Unit

A user's sense of whether use is required, moderating social influence

Recovery means

Not applicable

Measured by

Voluntariness used to moderate the social-influence effect on intention