Technology Acceptance Model in U.S. Extension: CRM Adoption

QUALITATIVE INVESTIGATION OF TAM

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resistance. With these findings, it does appear that the TAM principle of perceived ease of use

has implications for the adoption of CRM technologies in the CES.

In the study by Ngangi and Santoso (2019), they found that perceived ease of use had

significant effects on perceived usefulness and intention to use CRM technologies. However, this

research did not draw comparisons to those conclusions. Overwhelmingly, CES professionals

reported seeing high levels of perceived usefulness of CRM technologies within their

organizations, and that seemed to have little impact on the moderately difficult perceptions of

ease of use. However, there are several factors as to why that may be. First, CES organizations

do not appear to have a traditional use of CRM technologies, as one might find in other

professional sectors. The CES use of CRM technologies is also very different from other areas of

universities themselves, such as admissions or development. In general, CES professionals

reported the benefits of CRM technologies to be more about contact and data management, as

well as strategic marketing and communications. Throughout the interviews, participants often

shared that their implementation of CRM technologies was focused on a limited set of features,

including things like email marketing and event management.

Employee Resistance

Regarding employee resistance, Wang and Lien (2018) found that training employees in

statistics or database management is helpful for improving CRM operational skills among

beginning users. Wang and Lien (2018) also highlighted that both perceived ease of use and

perceived usefulness are good predictors of CRM adoption, and other constructs such as system

complexity, compatibility, and trialability serve as mediators in forecasting user intentions.

Overwhelmingly, participants reported training and support as critical barrier to CRM

implementation in their states. They also identified training and support as major factors for

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