Acceptans för IoT-lösningar : En studie av svenska SMF inom tillverkningsindustrin

Sammanfattning: Background: The importance of data increases for current and future companies. As a result of prominent research within the field of information and communication technology, the interest in Internet of Things (IoT) and its industrial applications has grown strong from both research and the public sector. Due to advancements in the technological infrastructure, the IoT-solutions are available to the broader market, but despite being accredited with praise and promise of real potential, current IoT-solutions are mostly utilized by large enterprises (LE:s). A fundamental understanding for the cause of the aforementioned unbalance was acquired by revisiting theory and former studies of technology diffusion. It appears that the challenge for IoT-solutions resonates with a recurring phenomenon within diffusion of new technology. As a result from rapid advancements, technology often finds itself in a productivity paradox. This basically means that practitioners perceive them as too expensive and too complicated to use, thusly, they won’t be as productive as required to generate enough economic value. Therefore, new technologies can paradoxically be unproductive. As demanded from research and commercial actors, this study seeks to deepen the understanding for the cause of Small and Medium sized Enterprises (SME:s) Intention to use IoT-solutions, hence bridging the current market unbalance and gap in research. Objective: The purpose of the study is to deepen the understanding for SME:s Intention to use IoT-solutions. Therefore, the study is based on the research question: Which factors can explain SME:s Intention to use IoT- solutions? Methods: To find a proper tool for analysis, the author probed the literature of technology acceptance models related to sociology and psychology. With an explorative research design, an adapted version of the Unified Theory of Acceptance and use of Technology (UTAUT) was developed according to the reaming parts of the literature review. 6 hypotheses were formulated based on the research question and UTAUT. Thereafter, a survey was used to collect quantitative data from 165 SME:s within the Swedish sector of manufacturing. The hypotheses were tested with the support of Explorative Factor Analysis (EFA) and multiple regression analysis in SPSS. Results: The main result shows that Performance expectancy, Facilitating conditions, Social Influence and Price value exerts a significant correlation with the Intention to use IoT- applications. Effort Expectancy and Hindering conditions was to be found insignificant. The factors explained 27,9% of the total variance within the Intention. An additional effect from the survey reveals a low amount of knowledge for IoT- solutions amongst the responding SME:s. Conclusions: In light of the objective, the result provides both practical and theoretical implications. Practically, commercial actors can use the findings from this study to influence the Intention to use IoT-applications within the Swedish manufacturing sector by operationalizing Performance expectancy, Facilitating conditions, Social Influence and Price value. From a theoretical perspective, the extended and validated version of the current technology acceptance models, UTAUT-FP, can be applied for future research.