Abstract:

Learning management systems (LMS) are often bundled with a variety of online courses to provide life-long learning in corporate environments. However, very little is known about what happens to these systems after they are installed. This paper presents a case study that explores the adoption parameters of one such LMS installation in a large multi-national construction company. A survey based on the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) was used to explore key adoption parameters of performance expectation, effort expectancy, social influence and facilitating condition, and their relationship with behavioral intention, and actual usage of the LMS (e.g., number of courses completed). Analysis of data shows, that in cases like these where use of the LMS is voluntary, effort expectancy had the strongest direct causal impact to the actual use of the system. In other words, ease of usage was the primary predictor of whether an employee would choose to take courses on the LMS. The behavioral intention to use the system was also weakly related to actual use, and was in turn, collectively affected by performance expectancy, social influence and effort expectancy. Performance expectancy had the most significant impact on behavioral intention to use the system, followed by social influence, and effort expectancy. This means that while ease of usage actually affected the actual use, the intention to use the system was affected more by if an employee thought that using the system would increase their job performance. Interestingly, in the life-long learning context, facilitating conditions, like availability of infrastructure and technical support, played little or no role in determining the actual use behavior. Differences were also observed with respect what the employees did. For example, employees working in supportive departments (such as IT, Finance, HR, administration) had a higher intention to use the LMS, than employees working in core departments (such as Project Management, Estimation, Commercial, Planning). Finally, nationality and culture also had an impact on use behavior, where employees from Southeast Asia had the highest user behavior as compared with Europeans, South Asians and Middle-Easterners.

Keywords:

Learning Management Systems, Adoption, Life-Long Learning.