Perceived IT Ambiguity: Development of a Measurement Instrument.

Information technologies (IT) have reached such degrees of functional richness that forming a complete, coherent, and stable understanding of a given IT product may be challenging for some users. The need to theorize this phenomena and to measure its effect on IT adoption empirically is rife. This paper introduces the construct of perceived IT ambiguity (PITA), which captures the extent to which a user has difficulties making sense of an IT artifact. A multi-item measurement scale is developed and its validity and reliability pre-tested on a pilot sample. The effect of the focal variable on technology adoption is tested using covariance-based SEM. Preliminary results indicate that ambiguity is a double-edged sword that simultaneously boosts and impede IT adoption.