Mobile Payment Innovations in Ambiguously Enforced Use Contexts: A Study Amid the COVID-19 Pandemic in Brazil

In this study, the authors discuss whether the innovation characteristics of mobile payment (m-payment) explain user attitudes and intentions in a psychologically conflictual context regarding the locus of control of use decisions. The authors present the development of an instrument that fully integrates innovation diffusion theory with the technology acceptance model and analyze data collected with it from Brazilian m-payment users during the COVID-19 pandemic. With path analysis, the authors found that the innovation factors of perceived observability and perceived relative advantage respectively explain the attitudes and the intentions toward m-payment. None of the other innovation factors had explanatory power. Moreover, two expected relationships in voluntary use settings for the formation of attitudes were not supported, leading the authors to conclude that the locus of control in use decisions was ambiguous to the user. The findings contribute to research on innovation diffusion, technology acceptance, consumer studies, usage patterns, behavioral change, and on the debate about the voluntariness or mandatoriness of technology use.