The influence of perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness on trust and intention to use mobile social software

Abstract

Owing to the recent rapid developments of communication technology and wireless network technologies, mobile technology has become more sophisticated and many people now use mobile devices, such as  smartphones, to support their personal and professional functions. Furthermore, following, the rampant mushrooming of numerous social media platform witnessed in the past years, mobile phone-based-social-software has been on the increase. However, little attention has been given to the empirical investigation of the antecedents of mobile social software adoption and use among the virtual community in South Africa. Therefore, the principal objective of this study is to fill this gap by examining the influence of users’ perceived mobile social software usefulness, ease of use on their trust in the mobile social software and eventual use. Using a sample data set of 150 and Smart PLS software to analyse the data, five posited hypotheses were empirically tested. The results supported all the five hypotheses in a significant way. Managerial implications of the findings are discussed and limitations and future research directions are indicated.

Keywords: Mobile social software, perceived usefulness, perceived ease-of-use, trust, intention to use, South Africa.