The importance of identification for the acceptance of consumer electronics on the example of the Wii

Abstract

Research on information technology has focused mainly on the acceptance of work-related technology. During the last few years, the importance of information technology in private life has tremendously increased and therefore, the fit of models developed especially for working environments is decreasing. This article stresses two main points. First, important key constructs such as technology acceptance are defined, because a clear definition is still absent in literature. Second, a model integration of the Technology Acceptance Model and the need-based approach from user experience research is presented, which focuses on the explanation of technology acceptance of hedonic systems. A first empirical investigation of the integrated model on the example of the Nintendo Wii™ closes this article. The results show that identification adds great explanatory strength to the model in case of hedonic systems and that a differentiation between usage modes is valuable for a better understanding of technology acceptance.

Keywords:

• technology acceptance model
• hedonism
• empirical validation

Acknowledgements

The authors thank the reviewers and our colleagues Karen Lange-Morales, Bettina Abendroth and Holger Rademacher for their valuable comments.