Technology Acceptance and Online Shopping Attitudes among Rural Consumers: Extended TAM (E-TAM) Evidence from Darbhanga District, Bihar, India

Abstract

In this paper, the empirical results of this study investigating the adoption of online shopping among the rural people of Darbhanga District in Bihar, India have been provided. The research is based on Extended Technology Acceptance Model (E-TAM) and primary survey data collected from 600 respondents in rural area and investigates the simultaneous effect of Perceived Usefulness (PU) and Perceived Ease of Use (PEOU) on Attitude toward online shopping. Covariance-based Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) with Maximum Likelihood (ML) estimation is used for testing the two hypothesized focal concepts, PU → ATT and PEOU → ATT. The results indicate that PU has a stronger direct effect on Attitude (β = 0.306, p < 0.001) than PEOU (β = 0.249, p < 0.001), suggesting that the classical TAM pattern (in which functional usefulness is the more proximal driver of attitude) remains valid even for first-generation rural digital consumers. Together, PU and PEOU account for 23.8 per cent of the variance in Attitude (R² = 0.238). The mediation analysis also shows that PEOU has a significant indirect effect on Attitude through PU (indirect β = 0.097) and its total effect on Attitude (β = 0.346) is only slightly higher than that of PU's direct effect on Attitude. This confirms that the two belief constructs have a complementary rather than competitive relationship. Overall the fit of the structural model to the data is acceptable but not strong in all areas (RMSEA = 0.045; CFI = 0.924; CMIN/DF = 2.29), suggesting that the instrument needs to be refined in future versions. The results have significant implications for the design of e-commerce platforms, rural digital-inclusion policies and TAM theory in the developing-country context.