Factors influencing the adoption of mobile phones among the farmers in Bangladesh: Theories and practices

Abstract

This paper investigates the factors influencing the adoption of mobile phone technology among farmers in Bangladesh. Electronic services are one important measure for rural development and mobile phones is the dominating cellular technology; hence understanding the adoption of this technology is important to development. The paper uses interpretive philosophy based on the grounded research approach investigating adoption factors by means of survey data, participant observation and related studies on rural Bangladesh and technology acceptance. Based on a number of acceptance models from the literature, a conceptual Rural Technology Acceptance Model (RUTAM) was developed to analyze the arguments pertinent to a rural developing country context. The most salient modification, compared to earlier models, is that social influence plays a bigger role than technology at early stages of adoption. ‘Tech-service promotion’ and ‘tech-service attributes’ are introduced as external factors which affect the behavioral intentions of an individual by means of perceived usefulness (PU) and perceived ease of use (PEU).