Technology Acceptance Theories: Review and Classification

Studying the acceptance and usage of technologies has become one of the most significant fields in software engineering domain. In order to explain the individuals' usage behavior towards technologies, many theories and models have been proposed over the years. This research paper focuses on reviewing a group of ten technology acceptance theories and models by studying their structure, evolution stages, and their strengths and weaknesses points. These theories were analyzed and classified into two main types depending on their development method and scientific field which they were developed in. This study reveals that these theories are almost similar in their structure, but different in explaining the behavioral intentions of technology. It considers that the best theory should be comprehensive and less complexity according to the number of the constructs and moderators which represent their structure. This will make the theory more understandable and applicable especially for studying the acceptance behavior for any new technology.