Extending Intention to Use Electronic Services Based on the Human-Technology Interaction Approach and Social Cognition Theory: Emerging Market Case

After several years of providing extensive e-banking services, customers' acceptance and use of e-banking systems are major competitive advantages for banks and other IT-based institutions. Reports are indicated, a wide range of people is reluctant to use e-banking services effectively. Accordingly, this research aims to improve users' attitudes and intentions to use e-banking in a transition economy. To achieve this aim, the social cognition theory is employed within the framework of human-technology interaction as a novel approach to extend the technology acceptance model. To this effect, partial-least-squares structural equation modeling is applied to study survey data of five Iranian banks. The results show that users' innovativeness, compatibility, vicarious experience, and flexibility in electronic learning significantly influenced their attitude, but technophobia inversely influenced the intention to use e-banking. Regarding technology aspects, quality of functional structure was the sole factor that significantly influenced intention to use e-banking while the influence of online interactive structure, innovative structure, and security structure on users' intention was not confirmed. We conclude that banks in most transition economies that have similar socioeconomic conditions could influence users' attitudes and intentions toward e-banking by drawing from the insights of this study, thus enabling the banks to make more informed choices about investing in Internet banking.