ANTECEDENTS AND OUTCOMES OF UNIVERSITY STUDENTS' IT PURCHASE INTENTION: EXPLORING EWOM ADOPTION ON E-LEARNING

摘要

This study aims to examine how university students' attitudes toward information technology (IT) purchase intention is influenced by the antecedent variables of electronic word of mouth (eWOM), and how eWOM directly influences IT purchase intentions. This study employed Smart PLS to adopt the partial least squares (PLS) product indicator approach to test the research model. The results indicate that, by promoting IT sales to university students in an e-learning environment, eWOM can directly increase students' confidence in using IT which enables them to overcome other barriers regarding the adoption of IT, and assists them in making decisions to purchase IT for their e-learning needs. Several important implications are provided for managers at IT manufacturing and social networking sites, such as creating a win-win strategy that pays close attention to how students communicate through social networking sites and how such communication may affect their IT purchase intentions.