Due to the inevitable switch from analogue to digital television broadcasting the demand for the equipment necessary to perceive this new way of television signal broadcasting will evidently rise. 22The global market for digital converter boxes is expected to hit 226 million in 2015, most of the growth in this market will be in the Asia-Pacific, Latin America and Eastern European regions, the digital converter box market for China will grow at nearly 10% a year between 2010 and 2015 (Broadcasting & Cable magazine).
Latin America's digital converter box market is expected to reach 18mn units sold in 2015 compared to 10.8mn in 2010, (ABI Research senior analyst Sam Rosen, BNamericas). Of the amount sold in 2015, 62% will correspond to terrestrial digital TV STBs, most of which will belong to the Japanese ISDB-T standard that has been selected by Brazil, Chile, Argentina, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Paraguay, Costa Rica and Venezuela.
23The Dominican Republic, Honduras, El Salvador and Mexico picked the US standard ATSC. Currently some 50% of STBs sold are in Mexico, but Brazil is due to take over as the biggest STB market, seeing a 38.5% CAGR from 2010-15. While Brazil has already been perceived as the clear target for all digital converter box manufacturers the Bolivian market has been overlooked. Although the size of this market cannot compare to that of Brazil the potential for great economic gain still remains, as long as manufacturers act quickly and obtain a first mover advantage. If a large enough manufacturer, capable of covering the needs of the Bolivian citizens, entered into agreements with Bolivian government it could easily secure this market. As of the moment no such agreement has been initiated. In order for both manufacturers and the government itself to feel more secure about the current situation and future potential of this market it is necessary to conduct an analysis of the public‟s acceptance of digital television but more importantly of digital TV converters. The following paragraphs offer a
22 Barker, Dennis. (2008). Digital TV set-top box sales break 100M barrier, says Strategy Analytics. EE Times news & analysis.
23 Dasari S. Jayant. (2009). Set-Top Boxes: Outlook, Parks Associates.
21
brief explanation of the model used to determine the acceptance of this new technology and how they will be applied to this specific case.
Technology Acceptance Model (TAM)
In order to determine the intended usage and perceived usefulness of a new technology from the user‟s perspective, several researchers have utilized the technology acceptance model. It is considered to be the most influential and commonly employed theory for describing an individual‟s acceptance of information systems. The TAM model was originally proposed by Davis 1986, it evolved from the Theory of Reasoned Action introduced by Ajzen and Fishbein in 1980, which presented a crucial weakness which was the use of abstract concepts such as “belief” and “evaluation” as factors influencing attitude. The TAM on the other hand proved to be a more powerful and robust model for predicting and explaining user behavior. Although this model presented a superior and more complete option than the Theory of Reasoned Action, it still lacked the inclusion of social factors that play an important role in an individual‟s attitude.
For this reason the TAM was modified by researchers such as 24Venkatesh and Davis who proposed the TAM2. This new form of TAM included subjective norm, voluntariness, and image, as well as cognitive instrumental processes. It was discovered that social influence and cognitive instrumental processes influenced user acceptance significantly.
Social influence is a relevant factor when analyzing a technological upgrade that will affect the society as whole, regardless of the social-economical level of the individual user, as is the transition from analogue to digital television broadcasting. This revised form of the traditional TAM receives the name of the “Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT)”. The importance of social influence in the Bolivian society has made of this theory the basis of this study. Social influence and in particular identification with fellow citizens and the subsequent internalization of this concept is how Bolivians seem to accept change. The reason for this is the long tradition of populist leaders who single handedly influence a sizeable size of the population. Their seems to be a group pressure on the group itself, therefore if the technology switch is not
24 Viswanath Venkatesh, Fred D. Davis. (2000). A Theoretical Extension of the Technology Acceptance Model: Four Longitudinal Field Studies.
22
collectively accepted it can easily be rejected, although there may be sectors that agree with it, they will simply follow the rest. This is not a phenomenon exclusive of Bolivia but of most Latin American nations. The second reason why this is a proper tool for the current research is that subsequent validation of UTAUT in a longitudinal study found it to account for 70% of the variance in BI and about 50% in actual use. For these reasons this model will be used to determine the perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness of this new technology in the Bolivian society.
The 25TAM2 (UTAUT) assumes that an individual‟s acceptance is determined by two major variables:
Perceived Usefulness (PU)
Perceived Ease of Use (PEOU).
This model also accepts several external concepts which include:
Voluntariness the degree to which use of the innovation is perceived as being voluntary, or of free will (Moore and Benbasat, 1991).
Relative Advantage The degree to which an innovation is perceived as being better than its precursor (Rogers 1983).
Complexity The degree to which an innovation is perceived as being difficult to use (Rogers 1983).
Observability The degree to which the results of an innovation are observable to others (Rogers 1983).
Trialability The degree to which an innovation may be experimented with before adoption (Rogers 1983).
Image The degree to which use of an innovation is perceived to enhance one‟s image or status in one‟s social system (Rogers 1983).
Self efficacy The belief that one has the capability to perform a particular behavior (Bandura 1977).
25 Venkatesh, V.; Morris; Davis; Davis (2003), "User Acceptance of Information Technology: Toward a Unified View", MIS Quarterly, 27, pp. 425–478.
23
End User Support A high level of support that promotes more favorable beliefs about the system among users as well as MIS staffs (Igbaria et al.
1995).
Objective Usability A construct that allows for a comparison of systems on the actual level of effect regarding to complete specific tasks (Card et al.1980).
Personal Innovativeness An individual trait reflecting a willingness to try out any new technology (Agarwal and Karahanna 2000).
Social Presence The degree to which a medium permits users to experience others as being psychologically present (Fulk et al. 1987).
The TAM2 (UTAT) has been applied to different technologies, under different situations, with different control factors and different subjects. According to the TAM2 (UTAT), if a user perceives a specific technology as useful, she or he will believe in a positive use-performance relationship. Since effort is a finite resource, a user is likely to accept an application when she or he perceives it as easier to use than another. As a consequence, new technology with a high level of PU and PEOU is more likely to induce positive perceptions. The relation between PU and PEOU is that PU mediates the effect of PEOU on attitude and intended use. In other words, while PU has direct impacts on attitude and use, PEOU influences attitude and use indirectly through PU.
According to the basis of this model, in order for a user to accept the new technology it is crucial that he or she beliefs that this new version is superior, easier to use and posses higher benefit when compared to the previous version. In this specific study this comparison will be made between analogue broadcasting and digital broadcasting.
Once the importance of digital TV is confirmed we will proceed to determine the acceptance of the digital converter box. Therefore in order to successfully introduce this product into the Bolivian market it is important to initially determine the degree of importance digital TV has for the typical Bolivian citizen. Acceptance of digital TV will be the independent variable that will influence the dependent variable which is the acceptance of the converter boxes. Besides the external factors already mentioned demographic variables like age, economic level and gender will also influence the intended usage of a new technology.
24 Table 1: Previous research related to the topic
No. Topic Researcher
1. An empirical study on the adoption of information appliances with a focus on interactive DTV.
Jieun Yu, Imsook Ha, Munkee Choi and Jaejeung Rho 2004
2. Extending the TAM for a t-commerce. Hun Choi, Minseok Choi, Jinwoo Kim and Hyoshik Yu (2002)
3. Predictors of audience interest in adopting Digital television.
Atkin, J.A., Neuendorf, K., Jeffers, L.W. & Skalski, P.
(2003).
4. Audience knowledge, perceptions and factors affecting the adoption intent of terrestrial digital television.
Chan-Olmstead, S.M., Chang, B. (2006).
5. Perceived Usefulness, Perceives Ease of Use and User Acceptance of Information Technology.
Davis, F.D. (1989).
6. Analogue to digital switch over: Human aspects of adoption, A scoping study for the Digital Television Project.
Sapio, B., Turk, T.,
Cornacchia, M., Papa, F., Nicolò, E., Livi, S. (2002).
7. Building scenarios of digital television adoption: a pilot study. Submitted to Journal of Technology Analysis & Strategic Management.
Sapio, B., Turk, T., Cornacchia, M., Papa, F., Nicolò, E., Livi, S. (2009).
8. Microsimulating the Adoption of Digital Television and T-Government Services. Proceedings of the Workshop “Digital Television Revisited: Linking analysis. In the case of the first paper the researchers developed a theoretical model of
25
technology adoption specific to interactive TV, a representative example of information appliances, based on prior research regarding general technology acceptance. This is completely congruent with the objective and approach adopted by this thesis. As it has already been previously mentioned, the objective of this thesis is to measure the acceptance of digital TV with specific emphasis as to the use of digital converters to access this type of broadcasting. Following the work of the researchers Jieun Yu, Imsook Ha, Munkee Choi and Jaejeung Rho on technology adoption specific to interactive TV, the present researcher has developed a model for measuring perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness and awareness of digital TV and digital converter boxes amongst the Bolivian society.
The research conducted by the Korean experts has utilized a large-scale online survey to test the validity of their proposed model; this has also been the selected tool to analyze the validity of this thesis‟ model, as will be further explained in the coming chapter. Both the guiding research and the current study shared a common result which was that there are three major factors influencing behavioral intention which were attitude, subjective norm and perceived behavioral control. The second study titled
“Extending the TAM for a t-commerce”, has also influenced the direction and procedure of this research extensively, specifically as to the type of TAM model applied. This second study focuses on explaining the factors that influence potential users' adoption of t-commerce by extending the technology acceptance model through a theoretical and empirical analysis. The study compared factors influencing t-commerce adoption between experienced and inexperienced users. The major contribution of this paper to this thesis was the extension it introduced to the TAM for t-commerce adoption by potential users in the home environment. This same extension was applied to the present study introducing the concept of awareness as part of the factors influencing perceived ease of use and therefore behavioral intention. The researchers Hun Choi, Minseok Choi, Jinwoo Kim and Hyoshik Yu concluded that PU and PEOU are insufficient factors for determining consumers‟ adoption of t-commerce because of the characteristics of this technology. They decided to add trust and entertainment as determinating factors to measure the adoption levels for this product, the reason for this was that television itself conveys a sense of enjoyment and t-commerce requires a
26
monetary transaction. In similarity to this approach the present study has added the already mentioned factor of awareness since it will prove necessary for individuals to have some consciousness towards the shift from analogue to digital TV broadcasting and the required measures to be taken in order to receive this service if we are to obtain clear and concise insight from this research.
The studies mentioned above are related to the adoption of Digital TV in their region however they focus on the interactivity of DTV services and how they can successfully commercialize them. The uniqueness of the present study is that it does not intend to concentrate on the services or the acceptance of Digital TV as such. The intention of this study is to determine the acceptance levels for digital TV converters. The reason why the referenced studies have not considered the acceptance or rejection of the DTV converter boxes is due to the economical situation in the countries where they have been conducted. The concentration of TV‟s with digital signal reception capability is noticeably high when compared to a country such as Bolivia. For Bolivia the large number of analogue only television sets justifies the fact that this study is concerned as to the acceptance of digital TV converter boxes.
27