Digital marketing adoption of microenterprises in a technology acceptance approach

Abstract

External knowledge sources such as professional social media accounts represent an understudied domain in the digital media adoption literature of small enterprises. This article extends the Technology Acceptance Model with two additional factors – external knowledge source and trust in digital marketing professionals – to better understand the digital marketing adoption of microenterprises. We collected and analyzed data from 181 microenterprises using online survey and structural equation modeling methodology. Results indicate that participation in events and following professional Facebook groups are positively related to perceived ease of use, while following professional Facebook groups, blogs, and vlogs, and meeting consultants are positively related to perceived usefulness. Besides, trust in marketing professionals has a significant effect on both perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness. By applying the technology-in-practice literature to digital marketing adoption, the article highlights that marketing professionals can be a bridge between academia and small business managers by contextualizing and translating formal knowledge to practical easy-to-understand knowledge.