Investigating the Intention to Adopt Telecommuting during COVID-19 Outbreak: An Integration of TAM and TPB with Risk Perception

The COVID-19 outbreak has spawned a wave of telecommuting all over the world. Based on Technology Acceptance Mode (TAM) and Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB), this paper investigates how the external technical factors (perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use) and internal personal factors (risk perception, including perceived severity and perceived susceptibility) influence telecommuting using intention in the context of COVID-19 outbreak. Our findings suggest that perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use strongly affect user's favorable attitude towards telecommuting. The results also support previous research in the TPB field, as attitude, normative influence, and perceived behavioral control all have a significant positive impact on the adoption of telecommuting. In addition, the hypotheses that perceived severity positively relates to attitude and normative influence are supported. However, perceived susceptibility has a positive impact on normative influence, but has no significant effect on attitude. Finally, the pivotal role of normative influence in the formation of telecommuting using intention is verified, as it has a strong positive influence on both attitude and perceived behavioral control. On this basis, the implications of telecommuting business management and pandemic risk management are discussed.