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

QUALITATIVE INVESTIGATION OF TAM

Chapter 1: Introduction

This research investigates the technology acceptance model (TAM) in the U.S.

Cooperative Extension Service (CES) regarding the implementation and adoption of customer

relationship management (CRM) systems to improve communications, outreach, and

engagement efforts of the CES. The CES is a network of land-grant universities in the United

States and U.S. territories that provide research-based educational programming to the public and

communities of all sizes. Its funding comes through the Smith-Lever Act, which aligns both

federal funding from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) — National Institute of Food

and Agriculture (NIFA) with state funding efforts directed toward land-grant universities. CES

programming is largely focused on agriculture topics but includes areas of life sciences that

agriculture impacts, such as health and nutrition, youth development, mental health, and more.

CRM is a philosophy for managing lifecycle contact data and examining interactions between a

client and the organization. CRM systems or technologies are used to sort, filter, and analyze that

data in a structured way that provides insights to an organization on how to potentially engage

with its audiences.

The general background of this research is that many CES organizations are still

evaluating the potential use of CRM systems to enhance their outreach and engagement mission

or are not considering the adoption of CRM technologies. There are potential missed

opportunities for the CES in its outreach and engagement mission by not adopting CRM

technologies or by not using CRM to its full potential. According to Judd (2019), approximately

40% of land-grant universities in the United States are currently using CRM technologies,

another 40% have stated that CRM technologies are under evaluation for potential usage, and the