Quo vadis TAM

Quo vadis, TAM?
Izak Benbasat
Sauder School of Business
University of British Columbia [e-mail] Henri Barki
HEC Montréal [e-mail] The Technology Acceptance model (TAM) is one of the most influential theories in Information Systems. However, despite the model 's significant contributions, the intense focus on TAM has diverted researchers’ attention away from other important research issues and has created an illusion of progress in knowledge accumulation. Furthermore, the independent attempts by several researchers to expand TAM in order to adapt it to the constantly changing IT environments has lead to a state of theoretical chaos and confusion in which it is not clear which version of the many iterations of TAM is the commonly accepted one. The present commentary discusses these concerns, speculates on the possible contributions to the current state of affairs, and makes several suggestions to alleviate the problems associated with TAM and to advance IT adoption research to the next stage.

Volume 8, Issue 4, Article 3, pp. 211-218, April 2007

Volume 8

Issue 4

Article 3

Quo vadis, TAM?

1. Introduction
The Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) is generally referred to as the most influential and commonly employed theory in information systems (Lee et al. 2003). Some also consider it to be the only well-recognized theory in IS (having dethroned
Nolan’s stage model that had this distinction earlier). The objective of the present commentary is to draw researchers’ attention to the necessity of reorienting IT adoption and acceptance research toward potentially more fruitful avenues and away from “TAM++ research” that adds little knowledge to TAM or its many different versions.
The origins of TAM can be traced to the Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA) (Fishbein and Ajzen 1975). TRA requires that salient beliefs about one’s attitude toward a particular behavior (e.g., buying on the web) be elicited in order to be

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