From Personal Trust to Professional Behavior: A Study of the Impact of Trust and Enjoyment on Behavior Intentions in Business Analytics

Abstract

Information technology consumerization represents technology designed for the consumer finding its way into the workplace. This is a phenomenon which is wide spread but has not currently sufficiently understood as technology becomes pervasive throughout the daily lives of most people. The purpose of this dissertation is to further explore this concept by examining the relationship of trust in social media use and social media based business analytics. Social media may be viewed as a hedonic information system implying that the enjoyment of using the system is a key driver of its use and may drive the user’s intentions to use more than its usefulness. We therefore explore the relationships using trust and enjoyment at an individual level. Trust was explored first through a pilot study, of 264 students, showing that trust built through the personal use of social media transfers into trust and perceived relative advantage of social media based business analytics. Trust in social media was divided into three constructs consisting of cognitive trust in algorithms, emotional trust in social media providers, and emotional trust in social media communities. The relationships between trust in social media and trust and relative advantage of social media based business analytics was explored. This dissertation study expanded upon this by adding enjoyment as an additional mediating construct and exploring the relationships of enjoyment, trust and relative advantage of social media based business analytics and behavioral intentions. To make the results more generalizable the study also included participants who were active employees with management experience. The full study consisted of a sample of 224 students and 315 working professionals. The fill study Measurement and Structural models were assessed, and the hypothesized relationships tested, with results suggesting support for the majority of the study hypotheses. Study results indicate that trust transfers from personal technology to trust in data use in the workplace. It also indicates that with increased trust in the personal technology there is also an increase in enjoyment. Further, the study indicates that trust in social media based business analytics and perceived enjoyment have a direct influence on behavioral intentions of using social media based business analytics. Results and implications are discussed, along with limitations to the study’s generalizability and areas for potential future research.