Gender and Perceived Privacy Risks in Technology Acceptance: Insights from a Mobile Urban Sensing Survey

Gender has increasingly been considered as moderating variable in studies of technology acceptance, while the results have been inconsistent. We seek to contribute a piece to this puzzle by testing in the context of an urban sensing app a technology acceptance model that includes perceived privacy risks as an antecedent and gender as a moderator. Based on survey data from 210 participants (100 men and 110 women) and using partial least squares multigroup analysis techniques, we find that the strongest determinant of usage intentions is perceived ease of use for men and perceived usefulness for women. In addition, perceived privacy risks are a barrier only for women, while perceived privacy risks also strengthen the influence of ease of use on usage intentions for women. We argue that these results are due to the context of the urban sensing technology and its specific purpose, and derive implications for research and practice.