Nonlinearities Between Attitude and Subjective Norms in Information Technology Acceptance: A Negative Synergy?

Empirical results both from information technology acceptance research as well as from other fields suggest that attitude and subjective norms may have a nonlinear relationship. Based on the economic theory of complementarities, the present paper hypothesizes a substitution relationship or negative synergy between attitude and subjective norms in organizational IT use contexts. Employing two methods for modeling and measuring nonlinear effects of latent constructs, as well as two approaches for visualizing and interpreting interaction and quadratic terms, structural equation modeling analysis of data collected from 258 users of a variety of IT applications in 14 organizations provides support for the hypothesis that attitude and subjective norms were substitutes in predicting intention to use.