A contextualized study of the usage of the Internet of things (IoTs) in smart farming in a typical Middle Eastern country within the context of Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology model (UTAUT)

摘要

Smart Farming is the application of modern technologies, tools and gadgets for increasing the agricultural crops quality and quantity. The Internet of Things (IoT) technology has had a prominent role in the establishment of smart farming. However, the application of this technology could be hard and, in some cases, challenging for the Middle Eastern users. Therefore, the research purpose is to identify the influential factors in the adoption and then application of IoT in smart farming by farmers with a contextualized approach in Iran, a typical Middle Eastern country. Thus, the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) has contextually been used as the theoretical model of the research. The results accentuated and proved the positive impacts of performance expectancy (H1), effort expectancy (H2), social influence (H3), individual factors (H4), and facilitating conditions (H5), on the intention to use IoT technology. Ultimately, the results were indicating the significant impact of behavioral intention on the actual usage of IoT technology (H6). One of the implications of the research is for the IT policymakers in the agricultural sector in the Middle East, where water and cultivable land are two valuable but scarce economic resources. Hence, smart farming could not be promoted unless the farmers had fulfilled its prerequisite factors proposed by the research results for using the IoT technology.