Radio Frequency Identification Essay examples -- Technology, Communica

I. INTRODUCTION RADIO frequency identification (RFID) technology is gaining attention both from academicians and from practitioners. RFID has the potential to serve as a fundamental technology for ubiquitous services where both objects and people can be identified automatically via attached RFID tags [35]. However, with the promise of RFID technology come issues that need to be addressed for its widespread acceptance by consumers. For example, the use of RFID technology by retailers and government agencies raises questions about potential violation of personal information privacy [35], and potential security threats to personal information [40]. Motivated by such issues, this study proposes and validates a theoretical model of consumer acceptance of RFID technology. The proposed model is developed based on the extant literature and provides a theoretical framework of the critical factors that determine the consumer’s acceptance of RFID technology. A contribution of this paper involves reviewing the technology acceptance model (TAM) Manuscript received September 1, 2006; revised June 27, 2007. Review of this manuscript was arranged by Department Editor A. Chakrabarti. The authors are with the Information Technology and Decision Sciences Department, College of Business Administration, University of North Texas, Denton, TX 76201 USA (e-mail: hossainm@unt.edu; prybutok@unt.edu). Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TEM.2008.919728 and contextualizing it to the RFID technology. This contextualization is done with the intent of extending the TAM to the acceptance of a specific technology—RFID technology. This study is the first in the RFID literature to utilize and contextualize the TAM for explaining consumer a... ...chnology. Perceived usefulness is defined as the extent that individuals believe their job performance is enhanced by using a particular technology. Perceived ease of use is defined as the extent to which an individual believes that using a particular system is free of effort. TAM also postulates that perceived ease of use is a predictor of perceived usefulness. Researchers have utilized and validated TAM for use with numerous types of technology [51]. Some studies suggest that TAMsuccessfully predicts an individual’s acceptance of various corporate information technologies [1], [8], [12], [39]. According to Straub et al. [42], TAM may hold across technologies, people, settings, and times. Recently, TAM has its footprints in e-commerce [50], [51], and mobile service [46]. This study expands TAMto the study of consumer acceptance of the RFID technology.