In spite of the recent activity in understanding and applying TAM, this line of research has not yet been extended beyond the boundaries of North America. Given the ongoing rapid globalization of business and systems, there is a pressing need to learn how widely TAM applies in other cultures around the world. Cultural differences that exist between different countries may affect a multinational organization's ability to adopt and utilize IT.
In the movement toward globalization of markets and corporate multinationalism, the value of more cross-cultural research is clear [3]. In a large survey of information systems executives conducted by Ives and Jarvenpaa, for example, more than half of the respondents felt that global IT issues were key to their firms' future success [17]. As firms grow their operations in the international arena, there is a need to exploit the power of information technology (IT) to communicate among these widespread locations and to coordinate activities both within and across countries. Hence, it is important for the managers of these firms to learn as much as they can about the cross-cultural adoption and use of IT [6, 21]. Such knowledge can make the difference between success and failure in implementing IT. .
The purpose of this research was to compare the TAM model across three different countries: Switzerland, Japan, and the United States. The paper represents an extension of Straub's [35] work in two ways. First, unlike his work, which examined the TAM constructs through bivariate relationships, this study employs multivariate statistics to test the TAM model, as articulated by Davis. Second, Straub examined two cultures, whereas the study reported here examines an additional culture in Europe. .
2. Theoretical Background and Support for TAM.
As originally articulated, TAM explains the behavior of computer usage. Derived from the theory of reasoned action (TRA) [2, 13], Davis' model describes the relationship between the independent variables of perceived usefulness and perceived ease-of-use and the dependent variables of user attitudes, intentions, and computer usage behavior.