Difference between Leisure and Work Contexts: The Roles of Perceived Enjoyment and Perceived Usefulness in Predicting Mobile Video Calling Use Acceptance

There is a rapidly growing body of literature on mobile video calling, which is a promising communication technology; however, little research has focused on user acceptance of mobile video calling, especially in different use contexts. This study explored factors (especially perceived enjoyment) influencing the intention of users to employ video calling in different contexts (a work and a leisure context) by applying the technology acceptance model (TAM) combined with the theory of planned behavior. The revised research model differentiated external factors (subjective norms and personal innovativeness) from internal factors (perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use (PEU), perceived enjoyment, and intention to use mobile video calling). In addition, the current study investigated predictors of perceived enjoyment across these two contexts. With the use of a structured questionnaire, participants were divided in two groups and completed self-report measures related to one context; a total of 386 student respondents’ responses were analyzed. The results indicated that users’ intentions were directly predicted by their perceived enjoyment of video calling (β ≥ 0.35) and the call’s perceived usefulness (β ≥ 0.27) and PEU (β = 0.13, only for the leisure context), which jointly explained at least 55.6% of the variance in use intention. In addition to the effects of these predictors on mobile video calling use acceptance, an assessment of the moderating effects of different contexts indicated that perceived enjoyment played a more important role in influencing intention for the leisure context, while perceived usefulness appeared to be more important for the work context. This study’s findings are important in that they provide strong support for the necessity of distinguishing among different types of contexts when predicting users’ intentions to use video calling. Furthermore, the results showed that perceived enjoyment was most significantly influenced by perceived usefulness (β ≥ 0.61), followed by PEU (β ≥ 0.13). In summary, the roles of core TAM variables (especially perceived enjoyment and perceived usefulness) and of external factors (subjective norms and personal innovativeness) differed between the leisure and work contexts. The implications of these findings are discussed.