Exploring Intention toward Using an Electric Scooter: Integrating the Technology Readiness and Acceptance into Norm Activation Model (TRA-NAM)

Abstract

The issues of renewable energy, energy crisis, and carbon reduction have caught people’s attention all over the world, and governments have put forth greater effort to proactively solve these problems. Electric transportation not only benefits the environment, but can also utilize renewable energy to prevent an energy crisis. Based on previous theoretical strands of the literature, this research integrates the technology readiness and acceptance model (TRAM) into the norm activation model (NAM) and proposes an integrated model denoted as TRA-NAM. It takes TRA-NAM as our theoretical foundation and aims to explore the effect of technology readiness and awareness of consequence on the intention toward using an electric scooter (ES). The results display that technology readiness positively influences perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use and further improves consumers’ intention toward adopting ES. In addition, personal norm mediates the relationship between awareness of consequence and intention to adopt ES. This study offers the integrated TRAM-NAM model in order to understand the crucial factors affecting consumers’ intention to adopt electric vehicles (EVs). Overall, this research fills the gap in the field of government policies and transportation and proposes ponderable suggestions, in particular that if they want to encourage or attract consumers to drive an ES, they should not overlook the effect of technology readiness and awareness of consequence.

Keywords

• technology readiness
• awareness of consequence
• personal norm
• electric scooter