Exploring Factors Affecting Users' Behavioral Intention to Adopt Digital Technologies: The Mediating Effect of Social Influence

The use of mobile phone apps for digital transactions has increased by leaps and bounds due to the proliferation of smart phones at affordable prices and rapidly growing ease of access to quality internet services. This study uses the technology acceptance model and unified theory of acceptance and use of technology as lenses to explore: 1) the impact of mobile apps' security features, integrity (trust & privacy), transparency and utilities (facilities & usefulness) on the behavioral intention to use mobile apps and 2) the mediating influence of social influence on the relationship between the aforementioned variables. The results of exploratory factor analysis and multiple linear regression highlight significant positive relationships between security, integrity and utilities, and the intention to use mobile payment apps for digital transactions. Social influence partially mediates the relationship between security and users' intention but completely mediates the relationship in the case of integrity and utilities. Thus, in the era of digital transformation, service providers should focus on improving security and integrity features along with making payment apps more user-friendly.