QUALITATIVE INVESTIGATION OF TAM
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perceived ease of use and usefulness. Additionally, she believes that costs and resources and
perceived ease of use are criteria for technology adoption. The pre-adoption approaches she
considers critical include strategic organizational planning, user buy-in, training and support, and
evaluations. She foresees several adoption barriers, including data security, data privacy, costs
and resources, perceived ease of use, and employee resistance. Current systems, aside from her
CRM, include various ad hoc systems. Caroline believes that data security and data privacy are
potential risks of implementing CRM technologies. She perceives the CRM to be moderately
easy to use and useful. Caroline reports that strategic marketing and communications from CRM
implementation may have implications for outreach, engagement, and communications.
Findings
This research first uncovered basic information about CRM usage and implementation in
the CES to provide greater context and insights into the applicability of TAM variables on CRM
adoption and implementation. Most participants from the interviews ( n = 24) identified as being
from a university in the northeastern region (42%) of the CES, with the southern region ranked
second, followed by the western region, north central region, 1890 region, and 1994 region.
Interview participants included individuals from various levels, such as leaders or administrators,
communications practitioners, information technology professionals, and other Extension
professions. Participants from the landscape assessment ( n = 32) were distributed across the
regions as follows: north central (28.6%), southern (21.4%), western (21.4%), 1890 (7.1%), and
1994 (7.1%). Among the landscape assessment participants, 34.3% reported current usage of a
CRM system, 44% reported they were evaluating its use, 18.7% have no plans to use it, and
3.1% have discontinued its use. Landscape assessment results also showed participation
primarily from CES leaders or administrators, communications practitioners, and information
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