ABSTRACT
Information technology adoption in the construction industry is a crucial issue that has been studied by numerous researchers. This chapter describes an experiment dedicated to assess the usefulness, the ease-of-use and the intent of use of a project management tool dedicated to the Small and Medium sized Enterprises. The Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) model aims to predict the degree of acceptation of technologies by users. It relies on two key concepts: perceived usefulness and perceived ease-of-use. The TAM model has been largely used in the context of the adoption of new information and communication technologies, such as the web, the intranet, or the cellular phone. Perceived usefulness depends on perceived ease-of-use and on external variables that may refer, for instance, to individual characteristics, the features of the task to be done, or the organisation. The interviews also confirm that external variables might play a decisive role in the perception of usefulness and ease-of-use.
