Technology Acceptance and Use in a Knowledge Management Support System

Over the past five to seven years, the United States Air Force has begun to employ online Communities of Practice (CoP) as a means to collaborate virtually. During this time, there have been several studies of these online communities in hopes to better understand their use, as well as lack of use. The primary goal of this research is to apply the theories of Davis' (1989) technology acceptance model to identify the factors that affect the acceptance and use of CoPs. These findings would then be used to provide suggestions on how to improve the acceptance and use of CoPs to CoP administrators and ultimately to Air Force Knowledge Now (AFKN), the managerial owners of all CoPs. 4. ABSTRACT This research used a mixed method strategy to collect data, which incorporated data from a previous research study on AFKN CoPs, a pre-interview survey, and an interview that included both open and closed ended questions.