DIVERSITY OF LITERATURE REVIEW APPROACHES:

ILLUSTRATION WITH TAM SECONDARY STUDIES

Saïd Assar, Telecom Ecole de Management, Institut Mines-Telecom, 9, rue C. Fourier, 91011
Evry, France, said.assar@telecom-em.eu
Since its introduction in 1989, the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) is widely used to predict use
and adoption of all sorts of IT artefacts; it is considered as a cornerstone in the theoretical knowledge
base for MIS research (Benbasat & Barki, 2007). Moreover, recent bibliometric analysis tends to show
that it is the most commonly employed theory (Moody et al., 2010). Consequently, there is a relatively
high number of literature reviews on TAM studies. These reviews seek to better understand TAM
usage, the proposed extensions and the extent to which the validity of its constructs can be empirically
confirmed. However, there is no well established approach for conducting a literature review (Webster
& Watson 2004; Okoli & Schabram, 2010), and complaints have been issued lately concerning a low
level of rigor in literature reviews in MIS research (Brocke et al., 2009). To explore this question, this
paper synthesizes literature reviews on TAM in order to discuss methodological issues in relation with
the literature review conduction process. We seek to understand similarities and differences in the
manner these studies were conducted and its possible influence on obtained results.

Study Goal Selection Size Main results and comments

process
Narrative approach
(Sharp, 2006)  Examine the development, extension,  Discuss rational behind TAM evolution
and application of TAM * 16  Ease of use (EU) effect not homogenous
 Identify gaps and future research areas  Quid mandatory use of IT
(Van Ittersum  Study the effects of IT, user and  Develop a qualitative extended model of
*** 289
et al., 2006) organization characteristics IT acceptance
(Yousafzai et  Elicit guidelines for applying TAM  Discuss 70 external variables and 4
al., 2007a)  Investigate impact of methodological * 145 moderators
characteristics on findings
Domain oriented
(Han & Jin,  Explore new model and new  Extended by specific factors, e.g. online
- -
2009) perspectives of TAM in e-commerce shopping experiences, trust, etc.
(Holden &  Critical review in health IT context and  Predominance of EU effect
*** 22
Karsh, 2010) judge the efficacy of TAM  Large variation in applied models
Meta-analysis
(Legris et al.,  Highlight convergence or divergence in  Homogenous findings, except one
** 22
2003) results
(Lee et al.,  Investigate TAM findings  Perceived Usefulness (PU) strong effect
* 101
2003)  Self-reported use instead of actual use
(Ma & Liu,  Investigate cumulative TAM validity  Relationship PU→ Attitude (TA) strong
* 26
2004)  Relationship EU→ TA weak
(Deng et al.,  Verify structural invariance among  Inconsistent structural weights
* 21
2005) TAM variables
(King & He,  Search for moderator variables effect  Identify two moderators: type of user
** 88
2006) and type of usage
(Schepers &  Test effect of subjective norm, student  Original TAM relationships confirmed
Wetzels, 2007) sample use and technology type ** 51  Using student samples seriously affected
the relationships
(Yousafzai et  Determine overall effect size on TAM  Actual usage rarely measured
al., 2007b) relationships * 95  Explicit inclusion of task characteristics
 Explore methodological issues
Systematic review
(Turner et al.,  Assess whether TAM is an accurate  TAM is a much stronger predictor of
2010) predictor of Actual Usage (AU); and, Behavioral Intention (BI) to use than AU
**** 68
 the effect of AU type of measure  Type of measure does have an effect
 Does any other factor influence results
Thirteen literature reviews on TAM model are briefly synthesized in the above table. They were
obtained through keyword based search on Google Scholar and by following backward citations;
included studies were selected according to quality criteria’s. We have grouped the literature reviews
into four groups according to insights from Webster & Watson (2004) and Okoli & Schabram (2010):
• Narrative: Reviews in this group discuss the literature sequentially along a certain number of topics
and/or concepts. The added value highly depends on the relevance of these topics in relation with
the goal of the study. The elicitation of these topics is a complex, iterative conceptualization
process which relies heavily on reviewer capacity in synthesizing, abstracting and linking together
different pieces of knowledge.
• Domain oriented: these reviews are generally narrative; however, they differ in the focus on
domain oriented research questions. This specific orientation can ease the conceptualization
process because of a narrower range of knowledge, and the potential help of existing domain
structured knowledge such as domain frameworks and ontologies.
• Meta-analysis: this purely quantitative approach to literature review consists in statistical analysis
of a collection of analysis from individual studies for the purpose of integrating the findings. Thus,
and contrarily to previous approaches, it can be applied only to review a collection of quantitative
studies. The difficulty lies in mastering complex and sophisticated statistical computations, and in
selecting a set of studies that have similar characteristics and make these computations relevant.
• Systematic review: this approach, inspired from medical research, advocates the idea that a
literature review, like any other empirical experiment or study, to a certain extent, should be
replicable. This goal translates into a rigorous method supported by a large set of guidelines related
to the definition of precise research questions and the full documentation of the selection process.

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