INTERNET ACCEPTANCE BY REAL ESTATE ORGANISATIONS IN SINGAPORE

Abstract

Despite the wide publicity of Internet, little data on its acceptance among organisations are known. This is true especially in the real estate industry. An attempt was made in this study to investigate the effect of external factors and the internal beliefs on Internet acceptance among real estate organisations. A modified version of the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) is introduced. The framework explicitly incorporates six external factors that influence the two internal beliefs of users. These six factors are: relative advantages, technical compatibility, intensity of information, intensity of competition, innovativeness, attitude of top management and IT knowledge of top management. The study also looks at how the two internal beliefs i.e. perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use, affect the attitude of users. A survey of 40 real estate organisations in Singapore found sufficient support for the preliminary layout. In accordance with TAM, the external factors exert considerable effect on the two internal beliefs. While the two internal beliefs also have some effects on the attitude of users.