Dr Joseph Kwame Adjei
email: jadjei@gimpa.edu.gh

Mercy Kwofie
email: mercy.kwofie@st.gimpa.edu.gh

UNDERSTANDING THE FACTORS INFLUENCING MOBILE COMMERCE ADOPTION BY TRADERS IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES: EVIDENCE FROM GHANA

Keywords: UTAUT2, micro trading, m-commerce, adoption, gender

The proliferation of wireless communication networks and relative reduction in cost of mobile devices have contributed to exponential growth in mobile device usage, and mobile commerce (m-commerce). Increasingly, mobile devices are being used in various ways by traders .This study analysed the factors that influence m-commerce adoption by traders and the role of Gender in mobile device adoption. The work extends the User Acceptance and Use of Information Technology (UTAUT2) model by highlighting the role of Trust. This study took place in one of the biggest markets in Ghana which is a hub for sale and distribution of agricultural and farm produce. The study analysed responses to a survey of two hundred and fifteen (215) traders using regression analysis. It was discovered that gender has moderating effect on Performance Expectancy, Facilitating Conditions, Habit, Price Value, and Trust and therefore, confirming the need for extension of the UTAUT2 model in relation to the study of adoption and use of m-commerce.

Introduction

The proliferation of wireless communication technology coupled with the increasing number of mobile devices, are contributing to the increasing use of mobile devices for many human endeavor and emergence of mobile mediated commercial activities. A recent study revealed a worldwide mobile penetration rate of 68% with 5.135 billion unique mobile users (Kemp, 2018). The same study showed that, unique mobile user penetration rate in Ghana is about 67% (Kemp, 2018). The popularity of smart mobile devices, and mobile operating systems like android and Apple IOS are major factors accounting for growth in m-commerce [START_REF] Chang | Mobile Commerce[END_REF]. Such demand for mobile applications for business transactions and other social interactions are projected to grow (Chang, Williams & Hurlbert, 2014).

It has been observed that the inherent characteristics of mobile technology, including; personalization, flexibility, mobility offers greater potential for businesses harness emerging market opportunities efficiently (Alfahl, Sanzogni & Hurlbert, 2012;[START_REF] Boateng | Preliminary insights into the influence of mobile phones in micro-trading activities of market women in Nigeria[END_REF]. Mcommerce has therefore, emerged as a major enabler of many commercial transactions [START_REF] Laudon | E-Commerce: business[END_REF]. Yoo (2010) observed that mobile technologies and wireless connectivity are unavoidable and irresistible in many commercial transactions. Notwithstanding the enormous potentials that m-commerce brings, developing countries like Ghana have not been able to fully realise such potentials [START_REF] Okolo | Boosting Small and Medium Enterprises Performance in Nigeria through Mobile Commerce[END_REF][START_REF] Sey | We use it different , different ": Making sense of trends in mobile phone use in Ghana[END_REF]. According to [START_REF] Laudon | E-Commerce: business[END_REF], mcommerce adoption is an evolving issue hence, needs constant updates to the knowledge and the needed skills of the researchers to study and assist businesses or organizations and individuals to take advantage of the potentials it brings to them.

It is however important to investigate the factors that influence adoption of m-commerce from a developing country perspective. We adopt the UTAUT2 model by combining the effects of trust as an additional construct and the effects of Gender serving as a moderating variable. The use of a quantitative techniques to identify the key factors that influences intention to adopt mcommerce for trading activities is a major methodological contribution. The study also contributes theoretically by providing a model that extends the existing technology acceptance models with new construct. Finally, the study will also help m-commerce service providers to clearly appreciate the key factors that influence the m-commerce adoption

Overview of Mobile Commerce Adoption

Many researchers have observed an increasing number of micro trading enterprises in many developing giving the limited options of income generation in the formal sector ( [START_REF] Abor | Issues in SME Development in Ghana and South Africa[END_REF], Dzogbede ( 2014)). Micro trading activities are witnessed as engine of growth and poverty reduction [START_REF] Anwar | Mobile Phones and the Livelihoods of Indonesian Micro-Entrepreneurs: Evidence of Capability Expansion[END_REF][START_REF] Boateng | Preliminary insights into the influence of mobile phones in micro-trading activities of market women in Nigeria[END_REF]. Previous studies have shown that adoption of Information Technology (IT) by micro enterprises usually contribute to faster growth [START_REF] Good | Investigating the Effects of Micro-enterprise Access and Use of ICTs through a Capability Lens: Implications for Global Development[END_REF]Packalén, 2010;[START_REF] Anwar | Mobile Phones and the Livelihoods of Indonesian Micro-Entrepreneurs: Evidence of Capability Expansion[END_REF]. M-commerce adoption has the potential to lower transaction cost in terms of communication challenges among parties involved in trading activities [START_REF] Laudon | E-Commerce: business[END_REF]. M-commerce involves the use of mobile devices including mobile phones, mobile computers and tablets [START_REF] Dwivedi | Adoption of M-commerce: examining factors affecting intention and behaviour of Indian consumers[END_REF][START_REF] Yang | Exploring factors affecting the adoption of mobile commerce in Singapore[END_REF]. [START_REF] Högler | Exploring the Critical Success Factors for Mobile Commerce[END_REF] observed that the concept of mobility makes m-commerce a medium for reaching and serving the needs of many potential customers. For the purpose of this study, m-commerce is seen as the adoption of mobile devices connected through telecommunication network for trading activities.

A research work conducted by [START_REF] Donner | Research Approaches to Mobile Use in the Developing World: A Review of the Literature1[END_REF] depicted an increase in profit in the usage of mobile phones for trading activities by micro traders. [START_REF] Boateng | Preliminary insights into the influence of mobile phones in micro-trading activities of market women in Nigeria[END_REF] researched into the impact of using mobile phones by farmers and fishermen on the trading activities and discovered that m-commerce assisted in cost reduction for fishermen and farmers and has improved the relationship between the business partners. The usage of mobile devices for micro trading activities was discovered to have increased contact between customers and clients better than any other type of communication which was clearly shown in a research survey conducted by (Esselaar, Stork, Ndiwalana & Deen-Swarray, 2007). Mobile phones are being transformed from a single voice communication device to robust communication device which can provide text messages, voice and video messaging, entertainment functions, financial instrument for trading and others, as a result of m-commerce. Its usage in the banking sector enables users to transfer money between Bank accounts and payment of bills [START_REF] Tobbin | Towards a model of adoption in mobile banking by the unbanked : a qualitative study[END_REF]. Even in our electoral politics, mobile technologies can be used to monitor and capture incidences before, during and after election. Mobile devices together with the advancement of telecommunication are new technologies which would create new opportunities for businesses. And this would help create more jobs and this computerisation would proceed to bring down the cost of goods and service in production and to cut down cost while increase revenue. Technological advancement is improving which make businesses to strive with no due time to market for products and services which can bring about keen competition with its accompanying advantages. Many argue that advances in communication technology play a vital role in promoting transparency, liquidity, and efficiency in capital markets [START_REF] Boadi | Preliminary Insights into Mcommerce Adoption in Ghana[END_REF]. With the increasing use of mobile devices, a lot of businesses in Ghana today are using mobile phones to transact businesses. This has given them a new way of thinking by embracing technology in the world of business.

As users globally accept mobile technology in its varied states, m-commerce transactions are estimated to flourish based on mobile devices which serve as the best medium for customers to receive immediate feedback in the form of short messages tailored to user's needs [START_REF] Bigne | the Impact of Internet User Shopping Patterns and Demographics on Consumer Mobile Buying Behaviour[END_REF]. The penetration of these technologies in the developed countries has affected every sphere of their daily lives positively [START_REF] Boateng | Preliminary insights into the influence of mobile phones in micro-trading activities of market women in Nigeria[END_REF]. This rapid growth in mcommerce application is significant for both enterprises and consumers [START_REF] Wu | what drives mobile commerce[END_REF]. Based on theoretical framework used, a lot of researchers have recommended to include individual characteristics into a research model either as dependent variable or independent variable to the study of the affective, cognitive or Behavioural Intensions of individuals to adopt a technology. Emerging literature from developing countries provide several examples of innovative application of ICTs to support micro trading enterprises. For instance, farmers in Bangladesh have been using mobile phones to monitor market prices of vegetables, rice and other farm produce [START_REF] Kshetri | Determinants of the global diffusion of B2B e-commerce[END_REF]. The authors also reported that farmers in remote areas of Cote d'lvoire use mobile phones to track the hourly fluctuations in cocoa and coffee prices. These examples and many others provide the opportunity to assess the extent of mobile commerce adoption in Ghana. M-commerce is seen as a means of conducting business transactions through mobile telecommunication network by using a communication, information and mobile devices such as Personal Digital Assistant (PDA), mobile phones, android phones to mention by a few [START_REF] Chong | Predicting consumer decisions to adopt mobile commerce : Cross country empirical examination between China and Malaysia[END_REF]. [START_REF] Kalakota | M-Business: The Race to Mobility[END_REF] posit that the success of mcommerce depends on mobile infrastructure and devices, applications and experiences, and relationships and supply chain which run in a wireless environment. Because of the ubiquitous features of the various mobile devices, m-commerce offers consumers the opportunity to access information 24/7 and this is as the result of the continuous growth of mobile devices. [START_REF] Boateng | Preliminary insights into the influence of mobile phones in micro-trading activities of market women in Nigeria[END_REF] view m-commerce as the combination of time, location and personalization. However, other researchers group the above features as currency, immediacy, instant connectivity and identification but all could be equated into time, location and personalization [START_REF] Boateng | Preliminary insights into the influence of mobile phones in micro-trading activities of market women in Nigeria[END_REF]).

In other words, commerce is not only a transaction, but also involves the provision of services and information. Mobile devices possess varied characteristics through which different applications, purposes and services are secured as m-commerce is seen as an evolving arena which deals with applications, portable devices, and other functionalities. While most of the initial e-commerce applications could be adapted to run in wireless environment, m-commerce also deals with a lot of current applications which is enabled by wireless infrastructure [START_REF] Laudon | E-Commerce: business[END_REF]. It is seen as an effective tool for rendering e-commerce to end-users irrespective of the time and location. In striving for competitive advantage, most companies offer m-commerce alongside e-commerce [START_REF] Alfahl | Mobile Commerce Adoption in Organizations :A Literature Review and Future Research Directions[END_REF].

Theoretical Background

There has been numerous Technology acceptance and use research (Dwivedi et al. 2011;[START_REF] Williams | Contemporary trends and issues in IT adoption and diffusion research[END_REF]) and so, [START_REF] Goodhue | Consumer acceptance and use of information technology: Adding consumption theory to UTAUT2[END_REF] opine that these research have reached the maturity stage hence must be moved outside its confines and should pay attention to current growing need of businesses. Consequently, by increasing the explanatory power of UTAUT model, a lot of researchers have amended the model based on the research work in question (Dwivedi et al. 2017ab;[START_REF] Goodhue | Consumer acceptance and use of information technology: Adding consumption theory to UTAUT2[END_REF][START_REF] Rana | Adoption of online public grievance redressal system in India: Toward developing a unified view[END_REF]2017;[START_REF] Williams | The unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT): a literature review[END_REF]. [START_REF] Venkatesh | Consumer Acceptance and Use of Information Technology: Extending the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology[END_REF] [START_REF] Venkatesh | Consumer Acceptance and Use of Information Technology: Extending the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology[END_REF]. In other words, the Behavioural Intent to adopt a technology to ascertain individuals' actual usage of a technology. Age, gender, and experience are moderating factors that influence these constructs on Behavioural Intent and the use of a technology [START_REF] Venkatesh | Consumer Acceptance and Use of Information Technology: Extending the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology[END_REF]. [START_REF] Venkatesh | Consumer Acceptance and Use of Information Technology: Extending the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology[END_REF] defined Hedonic Motivation as an enjoyment or fun resultant from using a technology which is key in the determination of technology acceptance and use behaviour. Hedonic motivation captured as Perceived Playfulness [START_REF] Tamilmani | The battle of Brain vs. Heart: A literature review and meta-analysis of "hedonic motivation" use in UTAUT2[END_REF]) as an additional construct to UTAUT of the study conducted by [START_REF] Alwahaishi | Consumers ' Acceptance and Use of Information and Communications Technology : A UTAUT and Flow Based Theoretical Model[END_REF], it came out that Facilitating Conditions, Perceived Value, Performance Expectancy, Effort Expectancy, Social Influence among other variables are the factors affecting end-users adoption of Information and Communication Technology (ICT).

Habit is defined by [START_REF] Limayem | How Habit Limits the Predictive Power of Intention: The Case Study of Information Systems Continuance1[END_REF] as the degree to which people tend to perform behaviour spontaneously through learning and [START_REF] Kim | A Longitudinal Model of Continued IS Use: An Integrative View of Four Mechanisms Underlying Postadoption Phenomena[END_REF] explain Habit as initial behaviour. The above explanations differentiate habits in two distinct ways: that is, an initial behaviour and as an automatic behaviour. [START_REF] Celik | Online Shopping Anxiety within the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use Technology (UTAUT) Framework Hakan Celik Department of Marketing[END_REF] integrated Habit into UTAUT to increase the explanatory power of the model and it was noticed that Habit affects Behavioural Intention to use a technology. However, [START_REF] Ajzen | The Influence of Attitudes on Behavior[END_REF], posit that response from earlier experiences will affect numerous beliefs and also affect forthcoming bahavioural performance. A detailed discussion on use of habit construct has been provided by Tamilmani et al. (2018a).

Price Value according to [START_REF] Venkatesh | Consumer Acceptance and Use of Information Technology: Extending the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology[END_REF] is a distinction between the organizational use context and consumer use context because the users normally incur the cost of a technology. Unlike in an organization, employees do not have to bear the cost of a technology. The authors also opine that the commitment of using a technology coupled with financial commitment have significant impact on ones' technology use. Price Value in this research work means traders' perception of the gains to be derived in adopting m-commerce and financial commitment born by the trader (Dodds & Monroe, 1991;[START_REF] Tamilmani | Exploring the role of 'Price Value'for understanding consumer adoption of technology: a review and metaanalysis of UTAUT2 based empirical studies[END_REF][START_REF] Venkatesh | Consumer Acceptance and Use of Information Technology: Extending the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology[END_REF]. When a trader anticipates that the gains are more than the financial commitments of using a technology, the Price Value is positive or else it is negative. The results of research work of Alkhunaizan & Love (2012) stated that Cost, Trust and Performance Expectancy significantly predict users' intention to use a technology.

Besides the addition of three constructs to UTAUT, there is a change of the Facilitating Condition direct relationship with technology use to Behavioural Intention because in a consumer context, facilitations available to each consumer depend on applications, mobile devices and others of which the difference can be very significant among the individual consumers while in the organizational context, the Facilitating Conditions such as training, are made available by the organization but not the individual employees [START_REF] Venkatesh | Consumer Acceptance and Use of Information Technology: Extending the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology[END_REF]. Facilitating Condition is moderated by age, gender and experience. Moreover, voluntariness is not included into the UTAUT2 based on the fact that individual consumers are not under any institutional directive to adopt a technology [START_REF] Venkatesh | Consumer Acceptance and Use of Information Technology: Extending the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology[END_REF]. Based on the above discourse, UTAUT2 is qualified as a technology acceptance model needed to investigate the factors that affect the traders' intention to adopt m-commerce and to analyse whether Gender moderates those factors. Hence, this study adopted it as a base of the conceptual framework of the study.

In order to make the UTAUT2 more appropriate for this study, an external factor (Trust) was introduced to the constructs of the UTAUT2 model. Previous researchers had acknowledged the importance of Trust in m-commerce adoption [START_REF] Chong | Predicting consumer decisions to adopt mobile commerce : Cross country empirical examination between China and Malaysia[END_REF][START_REF] Slade | Extending UTAUT2 To Explore Consumer Adoption of mobile payments[END_REF]Slade et al. 2015ab;[START_REF] Wei | What drives Malaysian m-commerce adoption? An empirical analysis[END_REF]. For example, Trust was among other variables to influence consumers in Malaysia and China to adopt m-commerce. [START_REF] Venkatesh | Consumer Acceptance and Use of Information Technology: Extending the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology[END_REF] suggested that future work should examine other major factors vital to different research context. A number of constructs used within the context of m-commerce can be corresponded with UTAUT2's constructs. Since m-commerce is in the infancy stage in development countries like Ghana, Trust would play a key role to affect consumers' Behavioural Intention to adopt m-commerce [START_REF] Chong | Predicting consumer decisions to adopt mobile commerce : Cross country empirical examination between China and Malaysia[END_REF].

Source: Author's construct

It is very vital to emphasise the definition of constructs which depict how they are measured through empirical studies. This is because the constructs from the conceptual framework were adopted from initial studies to suit the context of this study (m-commerce adoption). Table1 above exhibits the definition of the constructs as used in this research with its related references to the reviewed literature.

Performance Expectancy

Effort Expectancy is one of the important factors proven in initial studies on the technology adoption, Perceived usefulness of a technology such as mobile credit card was found to have a positive effect on Bahavioural Intentions to use mobile credit card [START_REF] Tan | NFC mobile credit card: The next frontier of mobile payment?[END_REF]. Also, Performance Expectancy was proven to have considerable effect on the consumers' intent in the use of m-commerce [START_REF] Chong | Predicting consumer decisions to adopt mobile commerce : Cross country empirical examination between China and Malaysia[END_REF][START_REF] Wei | What drives Malaysian m-commerce adoption? An empirical analysis[END_REF], mobile internet [START_REF] Venkatesh | Consumer Acceptance and Use of Information Technology: Extending the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology[END_REF], mobile payment system [START_REF] Slade | Extending UTAUT2 To Explore Consumer Adoption of mobile payments[END_REF]) to mention but a few. Therefore, it is believed that PE will impact users' intent to adopt m-commerce. Thus, the ensuing hypothesis is proposed:

H1: Performance Expectancy significantly influence Behavioural Intention to adopt mobile commerce in Ghana.

Effort Expectancy

Earlier research supports that latent variables linked to EE was significant in determining a person's desire to adopt a new technology [START_REF] Venkatesh | Consumer Acceptance and Use of Information Technology: Extending the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology[END_REF][START_REF] Wei | What drives Malaysian m-commerce adoption? An empirical analysis[END_REF]. Mcommerce presents users with various opportunities such as not being limited to a particular physical locations. Mobile devices are portable and easy to use when compared to handling a notebook for the various micro trading activities. Effort Expectancy is one of the vital factors in prior studies on the technology adoption, where Perceived Ease of Use in adopting a technology influence significantly the Behavioural Intention of several technologies such as: mobile credit card [START_REF] Tan | NFC mobile credit card: The next frontier of mobile payment?[END_REF] ; mobile commerce [START_REF] Chong | Predicting consumer decisions to adopt mobile commerce : Cross country empirical examination between China and Malaysia[END_REF] ; mobile payment [START_REF] Slade | Extending UTAUT2 To Explore Consumer Adoption of mobile payments[END_REF]2015ab) and others. Thus, the ensuing hypothesis is proposed:

H2: Effort Expectancy has significant influence on Behavioural Intention to adopt m-commerce in Ghana.

Social Influence

M-commerce is a technology which is not compulsory, because the users have the free option to adopt it or not. SI was significant in affecting the Behavioural Intention to adopt m-commerce in the study of [START_REF] Chong | Predicting consumer decisions to adopt mobile commerce : Cross country empirical examination between China and Malaysia[END_REF]. The authors also found out that SI was among the salient factors that affect users' intent to use m-commerce in Malaysia. In the research work of Aradat & Rababaa (2013), the results showed that users adoption of mobile commerce services could be anticipated from the individuals' desire in its usage which were propelled by Performance Expectancy, Effort Expectancy and Social Influence. The research further depicted that among fore-mentioned factors, Social Influence was the highest predictor that directly influenced the users' decision to adopt m-commerce services. Thus, the ensuing hypothesis is proposed:

H3: Social Influence has significant influence on Behavioural Intention to adopt m-commerce in Ghana.

Facilitating Conditions

Shao & Siponen (2011) posit that, Facilitating Condition in Information System studies principally refers to education, direction, structures, and practical support needed to operate a system, and when these facilities are not considered, it can either improve or impede IT use. The submission is well supported by [START_REF] Pahnila | Integrating Habit into UTAUT : The Chinese eBay Case[END_REF][START_REF] Venkatesh | User acceptance of information technology: Toward a unified view[END_REF] that, Facilitating Conditions have direct influence on Behavioural Intention to use a technology. Practical verification showed that when individuals who adopt a technology are given assistance in varied ways, they would be motivated to use a system [START_REF] Alwahaishi | Consumers ' Acceptance and Use of Information and Communications Technology : A UTAUT and Flow Based Theoretical Model[END_REF]. Thus, the ensuing hypothesis is proposed:

H4: Facilitating Condition significantly affect Behavioural Intention to adopt m-commerce in Ghana.

Hedonic Motivation

Venkatesh et al. ( 2012) explained in the context of their study that Hedonic Motivation has direct effect against Behavioural Intention. Furthermore, if the users are entertained through the adoption of a technology, they adore it, which affect their Behavioural Intention to continue to adopt an information system [START_REF] Venkatesh | Consumer Acceptance and Use of Information Technology: Extending the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology[END_REF]. A lot of studies have confirmed that in a consumer perspective, Hedonic Motivation is a good predictor in technology acceptance and use [START_REF] Raman | Preservice teachers' acceptance of learning management software: An application of the UTAUT2 model[END_REF]Harsono & Suryana, 2014). Thus, the ensuing hypothesis is proposed:

H6: Hedonic Motivation significantly affect Behavioural Intention to adopt m-commerce in Ghana.

Price Value

According to [START_REF] Wei | What drives Malaysian m-commerce adoption? An empirical analysis[END_REF], cost could be a basis for users to accept or reject the adoption of a technology. The authors opine that cost of the device, internet, and other applications constitute the costs normally born by individuals who adopt m-commerce. [START_REF] Venkatesh | Consumer Acceptance and Use of Information Technology: Extending the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology[END_REF] also posit that the financial commitment and other charges associated with the usage of a technology can affect users' technology adoption decisions. Therefore, if the gains in adopting a technology is more than the financial commitment, then consumers are likely to use that particular technology else it may hinder them to successfully adopt it. Thus, the ensuing hypothesis is proposed H6: Price Value significantly affect Behavioural Intention to adopt m-commerce in Ghana.

Habit

According to [START_REF] Venkatesh | Consumer Acceptance and Use of Information Technology: Extending the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology[END_REF], when experience gained in adopting a particular technology increases, the individuals begin to yearn to use the technology automatically. When actions n carried out in the past frequently, the subsequent behaviour becomes habitual which helps to forecast future behaviour of an individual. For example, the results of the research done by [START_REF] Venkatesh | Consumer Acceptance and Use of Information Technology: Extending the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology[END_REF] and [START_REF] Pahnila | Integrating Habit into UTAUT : The Chinese eBay Case[END_REF], depicted that Habit had considerable effect on Behavioural Intention to use a technology. Therefore, once the users adopt m-commerce, it becomes a habitual which influences their adoption decisions. Thus, the ensuing hypothesis is proposed:

H7: Habit significantly affect Behavioural Intention to adopt m-commerce in Ghana.

Trust

Trust has to do with one's decision to agree on those who provide m-commerce services, vendours' condition or services. However, an option is normally considered after adopting the varied features of providers which include security confidence in the service delivery (Chong et al., 2014). [START_REF] Chong | Computers in Human Bahavior: An empirical analysis of the determinants of 3G adoption in China[END_REF] modified the TAM model to study about m-commerce adoption in China. Among the other factors, Trust was the highest predictor of m-commerce adoption behaviour. When risk is considered as a major factor in taking a decision, Trust is seen as an important indicator of users' adoption behaviour.

Telecommunication networks have its own challenges such as limitation in bandwidth, inconsistent networks assurance functionality and vulnerability in data transmission over the network [START_REF] Laudon | E-Commerce: business[END_REF]. It should be noted that, Trust is a vital issue in m-commerce adoption during the elementary stages of technology acceptance and use. When there is disappointing performances of the wireless communication system, users doubt the ability to deliver on promises. Personalized handling of goods, services and money, face-to-face interactions are missing in m-commerce.

In the context of m-commerce, because it is still in its infancy stage in most of the developing countries like Ghana, there are numerous means of payment systems, formalities in regulating policies, rules and procedures and global acceptable standards that are supposed to be streamlined because Trust is one of the principal factors for user acceptance and vital to achieve success in m-commerce adoption. [START_REF] Siau | Building customer trust in mobile commerce[END_REF] posit that Trust should be one of the cardinal variables to be considered during m-commerce studies especially in m-commerce service delivery. Therefore, the researcher proposed that:

H8: Trust significantly affect Behavioural Intention to adopt m-commerce in Ghana.

One moderating variable (Gender) was introduced to the eight factors of the conceptual framework to answer the second research question (Are the effects of these adoption factors on the intention of traders to adopt m-commerce moderated by Gender?). This moderating factor contributed in assessing the strength of the relationships between the independent and the dependent variables according to the inherent features of the users [START_REF] Baron | The Moderator-Mediator Variable Distinction in Social The Moderator-Mediator Variable Distinction in Social Psychological Research: Conceptual, Strategic, and Statistical Considerations[END_REF]. [START_REF] Venkatesh | Consumer Acceptance and Use of Information Technology: Extending the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology[END_REF] hypothesised that when Gender is considered as a moderating variable, it plays a vital part to establish the relationship between the inner factors of the UTAUT2 framework. Thus, Gender has a moderating effect on the relationship between the constructs of the UTAUT2 model. Furtherance to the numerous researches which echoed that Gender has significant impact where a technology is used and implemented in the business perspective.

Especially it was revealed in the study of [START_REF] Boateng | Preliminary insights into the influence of mobile phones in micro-trading activities of market women in Nigeria[END_REF] that, there was increasing influx of women into the field of micro trading activities in developing countries and it was clear that women were dominating in the field of micro trading activities despite the numerous challenges hindering their growth. [START_REF] Wei | What drives Malaysian m-commerce adoption? An empirical analysis[END_REF] established that demographic features of users should be considered in forecasting users' adoption behaviour.

The effect of Performance Expectancy was skewed in favour of men [START_REF] Venkatesh | A Longitudinal Field Investigation of Gender Differences in Individual Technology Adoption Decision-Making Processes[END_REF], whilst Effort Expectancy and Social Influence were also skewed in favour of women in technology acceptance and use [START_REF] Cheng | Adoption of Internet Banking: An Empirical Study in Hong Kong[END_REF]. It could be envisaged that performance is a major concern to males when it comes to technology acceptance and use.

On the other hand, females consider ease of use and recommendations made by peers and other people they perceive to be important to them. It was seen in the research of [START_REF] He | Are men more technology-oriented than women? The role of gender on the development of general computer self-efficacy of college students[END_REF] that men show more enthusiasm in exploring technology features and feel more comfortable with technology. In other words, different Gender gives a different impact on the use of any information system either being compelled by policies or having chosen the technology willingly. It was further explained that Gender difference in computer anxiety will be reduced as time goes on because of ubiquitous computing of our daily life. Following the assertion made by [START_REF] Tan | Factors Influencing the Adoption of Internet Banking[END_REF] that most of the studies also revealed inconclusive results in using Gender as a moderator and so the moderating effect of Gender requires further investigation.

The hypotheses associated to the mediating effects of Gender are as follows: The model adopted for the study is exhibited in figure 1 below.

Methodology

The significance of this section to the entire study is to describe the methodology used in conducting the study by critically looking at the objectives set. This stage is very important because it is the pivot of the study and if not carried out assiduously, else the whole study might not be justifiable [START_REF] Heinz | A Set of Principles for Conducting and Evaluating Interpretive Fied STudies in Iinformation Systems 1[END_REF]. The approach adopted is highly dependent on the objectives set. That is, there is no single approach to the entire work. This study was handled by bringing all the main components of the study together in a comprehensive manner to address the issues under investigation.

This research population is limited to traders in the Techiman market in the Bono East Region of Ghana. This market is amongst the largest markets in Ghana. The market is not only serving as a converging point for interest groups from other countries like Burkina Faso, Togo, Mali, Ivory Coast or Niger but also attract farm produce from most nearby farming jurisdictions in the country. The market activities in Ghana tend to resonate to other nearby countries connected to Ghana through trade. Taken a closer look at other countries, the researchers envisaged the effect of m-commerce adoption on the small scale enterprises in Ghana would have likely larger influence.

According to a book written by [START_REF] Alreck | The survey research handbook[END_REF], it was indicated that sample size of about 200 to 1000 respondents is appropriate for a population of 10,000 or more. This informed this study by selecting a sample size of 215 which the above submission strongly supports based on the fact that the sample frame as already indicated could not be ascertained. The researchers went to the area of interest which was the Techiman Market.

Data collection method adopted was based on the exiting literature to ensure validity of research instrument. The development of the instrument was also based on the guidelines suggested by Information Systems literature (e.g [START_REF] Gao | A Study on Users †TM Acceptance Behavior to Mobile E-books Application Based on UTAUT Model[END_REF]. Most measurement issues were picked from existing measures and modified to fit the current circumstances of the study.

A questionnaire was structured to reflect the framework presented in figure 1. It was designed to be clear and simple to complete. The interviewees of this research were asked to specify their observations of the modified UTAUT2 framework which involved the following constructs: Effort Expectancy, Effort Expectancy, Facilitating condition, Social Influence, Price Value, Hedonic Motivation, Habit and Trust to adopt mobile commerce for their micro trading activities which were obtained by adapting a five point likert scale from 1 to 5 continuum with its associated weights as: 1=Strongly Disagree, 2=Disagree, 3=Neutral, 4=Agree and 5=Strongly agree. The researchers seek results that can strengthen the validity of the theoretical framework (Figure 1). The questionnaire was used to solicit the survey participants' opinions on the focal constructs of the research to help meet the purpose and objectives of the research, and also to come out with the research issues in the study.

The data gathered were coded and analysed by the use of Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS). In line with other studies, related items were grouped together to ensure reliability and validity of the model [START_REF] Tan | NFC mobile credit card: The next frontier of mobile payment?[END_REF][START_REF] Venkatesh | Consumer Acceptance and Use of Information Technology: Extending the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology[END_REF]. Descriptive analysis used frequency and percentage to examine the profile of the respondents. Also, any discrepancies of assumptions underlying the chosen statistical technique were addressed. Multiple regressions was then done in order to validate the hypotheses that were established in the previous section [START_REF] Foon | Internet Banking Adoption in Kuala Lumpur: An Application of UTAUT Model[END_REF]. This was done to answer the two research questions. Firstly, the regression was done to identify factors that influenced the intention to adopt m-commerce. Secondly, regression was done on the factors and the moderating factor (Gender) to determine their significance. The margin of error for this study was 0.05. Thus, the confidence level was 95%. The traders were assured by the researchers of the confidentiality of the information they gave because the study was for academic purpose.

Findings

Respondents' profile and characteristics

Two hundred and fifteen (215) valid questionnaires were completed by the traders. Twenty three (23%) of respondents were males while the remaining (77%) constitute females. (18.50%) of the respondents were within the ages of 18-26. The sample quota allocation made room for various age category however, most were skewed towards 38-48 years. Majority (48%) of the respondents interviewed were Junior High School graduates, Tertiary graduates constitute (14%) and (14%) of the respondents never attended school.

Table 2: Average income of respondents per day

The table above shows that, out of the (215) respondents that were included in the sample, (73.0%) of them made an average income less than GhȻ50.00, (20.9%) were within GhȻ50.00-GhȻ100.00 and the remaining (6.1%) made above GhȻ100.00 daily.

Table 3: Adoption Experience of Respondents

The table above shows that, out of the of the (215) respondents that were included in the sample, (31.6%) of respondents indicated that they had adopted m-commerce within 3-6 months, (34.4%) indicated 7-12months, (20.5%) indicated 2-3years and the remaining (13.5%) indicated above 3years. Majority of the respondents in the survey had adopted m-commerce within one year, The table above shows that, out of the of the (215) respondents that were included in the sample, (93.02%) of respondents indicated that they were residence in Ghana, (3.72%) indicated Burkina Faso, (1.86%) indicated Togo, (0.86%) indicated Ivory Coast and the remaining (0.47%) indicated Niger.

Inferential Analysis

According to Cresswel, (2009), reliability refers to as the consistency and stability of results. In order to achieve a solid reliability, this study is based on a well-discussed theory (modified UTAUT2). Cronbach's alpha was used in this study to evaluate the internal consistency of the scale measurement and the research variables. The results presented in Table 5 suggested that all the measures in this study ranged from 0.602 to 0.845 were reliable as recommended by [START_REF] Hair | Essentials of Business Research Methods[END_REF].

The results as shown below reveals a relatively high Cronbach alpha which indicate that the selected factors are consistent in explaining the adoption of mobile commerce for micro trading activities by traders in Ghana. The individual variables showed a Cronbach alpha greater than 0.6 with an overall Cronbach alpha of 0.887. Multicollinearity has to do with highly correlated independent variables in a multiple framework and it emerges where the coefficients between the independent variables are moderate or too high [START_REF] Pallant | An introduction to the Rasch measurement model: An example using the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS)[END_REF]. By subjecting this study into multicollinearity, it is evident that it does not suffer from Multicollinearity because the independent variables were less than 0.7 [START_REF] Pallant | An introduction to the Rasch measurement model: An example using the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS)[END_REF]. Pearson Correlation Analysis was performed to check for the presence of linear relationship between the independent and the dependent variable. It is a measure of the association between two variables, where one (1) indicates direct positive association, zero (0) indicates no association, and -1 exhibits negative association between the variables under consideration.

The results as presented in the table below revealed that the Pearson Correlation Coefficient Analysis for all of the independent variables have a relationship with the dependent variable, as the value of the correlation is greater than 0. The results therefore reveal the existence of linear relationship between the dependent and the independent variables and permits the use of multiple linear regression analysis. Again, the positive coefficient in all the cases depict a positive relationship between the independent variables and the dependent variable.

Accepted

H9

Performance Expectancy significantly affect Behavioural Intention to adopt m-commerce is moderated by Gender.

Accepted

Accepted

Discussions

Effort Expectancy

Effort Expectancy was found to be statistically significant to Intention to Use, implying that the traders' decision to accept m-commerce is affected by EE. This finding is consistent with previous technology adoption studies (Chong, 2013;[START_REF] Venkatesh | Consumer Acceptance and Use of Information Technology: Extending the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology[END_REF]Davis et al., 1989). It should however be noted that the analysis of this study revealed a contrary disposition of the work done by [START_REF] Wei | What drives Malaysian m-commerce adoption? An empirical analysis[END_REF], which discovered that there is no significant relationship between the Perceived Ease of Use of m-commerce and consumer intention to use m-commerce. Also, Effort Expectancy was not found to have a significant influence on undergraduate students' intention to use mobile learning through the discovery of the research work of [START_REF] Yang | Understanding Undergraduate Students' Adoption of Mobile Learning Model[END_REF].

Based on the results of this study, the features and the functions of the various mobile devices should be easier to use by the traders so as to encourage them to adopt m-commerce for their micro trading activities.

Social Influence

The analysis of this research revealed that Social Influence does not affect the Behavioural Intention of the traders to adopt m-commerce. Surprisingly, Social Influence has been discovered in prior research as vital and influential indicator of technology adoption. The findings from the study indicates that social ties might not influence BI of the traders either to use or not to use mcommerce. Also, m-commerce adoption is not well embraced in developing countries and so, most people the traders perceive important, might not be using m-commerce hence, the users would not be able to be influenced significantly by them. The above assertion is not in supportive of the study conducted by [START_REF] Chong | Predicting consumer decisions to adopt mobile commerce : Cross country empirical examination between China and Malaysia[END_REF] which depicted that SI plays an important role in predicting m-commerce adoption in China and Malaysia. The authors further suggested that consumers are more likely to be influenced by trends, social media, and peers when it comes to adopting m-commerce.

Facilitating Condition

A growing number of studies suggest that FC plays an essential role in the actual usage behaviour of technology [START_REF] Venkatesh | User acceptance of information technology: Toward a unified view[END_REF] and the discovery of this study confirms the aforementioned analysis in the context of m-commerce adoption. Facilitating condition has largely affected the behavioural intention of the traders to accept m-commerce. This follows that the traders' see FC as vital to have the reasonable support whilst adopting m-commerce. This means that the more they get the support, the more they will be willing and able to adopt mcommerce.

Hedonic Motivation

The analysis of this research reveals that Hedonic Motivation does not influence the Behavioural Intention of the traders to adopt m-commerce. This is consistent with the study done by (Harsono & Suryana, 2014). This revelation is not in line with prior research work conducted by [START_REF] Xu | Understanding Users' Continued Use of Online Games : An Application of UTAUT2 in Social Network Games[END_REF][START_REF] Venkatesh | Consumer Acceptance and Use of Information Technology: Extending the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology[END_REF]. However from the analysis of this research, it could be deduced that the traders do not depend on how entertaining and enjoyable the features and the functions of m-commerce are before they adopt m-commerce.

Price Value

Price Value has been indicated to have a stronger effect on Behavioural Intention to adopt mcommerce. This is in conformity with the work done by [START_REF] Venkatesh | Consumer Acceptance and Use of Information Technology: Extending the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology[END_REF] and Alkhunaizan & Love (2012). [START_REF] Wei | What drives Malaysian m-commerce adoption? An empirical analysis[END_REF] also posit that cost is one of the cardinal challenges that influence m-commerce adoption in Malaysia which is the situation in Ghana as well according to the findings of this study. This juxtapose that exorbitant prices would negatively influence one's intention to accept m-commerce services. Majority of the people in the study indicated that they would accept m-commerce if they envisage the price is relatively low and that they could afford it.

Habit

Habit is also seen as a significant factor affecting traders' Behavioural Intention to adopt mcommerce in this study. The analysis of this study revealed that there is direct relationship to the work done by [START_REF] Venkatesh | Consumer Acceptance and Use of Information Technology: Extending the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology[END_REF]. Similar result was ascertained when Hew, Lee, Ooi, & Wei. ( 2015) conducted a study in technology acceptance in the area of mobile applications, and indicated that Habit is one of the most vital variables that influence the intention to adopt mobile services. Also, currently in Ghana, almost everyone uses a mobile device. And it has become important means of communication that can not be done away with. This would make it easy to adopt m-commerce in everyday activities especially in micro trading. It could be suggested that due to the individual's prior adoption of m-commerce because of its importance, one would continue to use the service. When adoption of m-commerce becomes inelastic, it would increase one's interest to continue adopting the technology. [START_REF] Venkatesh | Consumer Acceptance and Use of Information Technology: Extending the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology[END_REF]. In lieu to mobile commerce acceptance, Habit influences Behavioural Intentions to adopt m-commerce.

Trust

This research found out that Trust is a major function in m-commerce acceptance by Ghanaians. The analysis of data exhibit that when the people want high level of security and privacy, Trust is the option to consider. It is observed that the traders in the Techiman market rarely follow an option where physical contact is elusive. The findings are in line with the work conducted by Alkhunaizan & Love (2012) which also views Trust as a salient factor in technology adoption.

According to [START_REF] Chong | Computers in Human Bahavior: An empirical analysis of the determinants of 3G adoption in China[END_REF] who further contributed to the TAM framework in their work in m-commerce acceptance in China, Trust was a major factor that affected the intention to adopt m-commerce with a path coefficient of 0.315 and a p-value of <0.001. This is consistent with suggestions made by [START_REF] Laudon | E-Commerce: business[END_REF] whereby most developing countries hardly take the risk than those in developed countries. M-commerce is not a well-developed technology among the traders in the Techiman market which means more attention is needed to develop their interest in order to adopt the technology. Qingfei, Shaobo & Gang (2008) opine that user acceptance include both acceptance of technology and the acceptance of m-commerce service providers. In view of the above assertion, Trust is seen by [START_REF] Siau | Building customer trust in mobile commerce[END_REF] as: Trust of a technology and Trust of m-commerce service providers. Moreover, m-commerce is not well embraced by the people in developing countries, so systems should be put in place to solidify the Trust of the traders to adopt m-commerce.

Adoption factors with moderating variables

Gender moderated the following adoption factors: Performance Expectancy, Facilitating Condition, Price Value, Habit and Trust. However, it did not have moderating effect on the following adoption factors: Effort Expectancy, Social Influence and Hedonic Motivation. The disparity in the findings could be explained by the environment in which the studies were carried out. Indeed, the study of [START_REF] Venkatesh | Consumer Acceptance and Use of Information Technology: Extending the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology[END_REF] was carried out in the area of Mobile Internet Technology which adopted online internet survey but in the market environment, the situation may be different in terms of the traders' experience with the technology, and the attention that they pay to the opinions of their peers.

Implication for research

In terms of research, this study contributes to the body of knowledge in m-commerce adoption by applying the UTAUT2 model in an African perspective. Thus, this study is one of the forefront studies extending the applicability of UTAUT2 by examining new technologies (mcommerce) in a new context (micro trading activities) in a developing country (Ghana).

Implication for Practice

The study contributes to practice by drawing to the attention of interested parties and other stakeholders to specific factors that either enable or hinder traders' adoption of m-commerce. They can use these findings to develop strategies to align traders' expectations with technology used for their trading activities.

Implication for Policy

In terms of policy, it is understood that creating a conducive ICT environment will positively influence the adoption of m-commerce.

Limitations and Future Research Directions

In addition, this study was limited to only the Techiman market, so future studies should be carried out using more than a single market to provide for comparison and testing of findings. This was to allow for easy access to respondents and data that the researcher needed to gather for the study. Moreover, m-commerce is not a well-developed technology among the traders in the Techiman market (Table 3) which means more attention to develop their interest in order to adopt the technology by making the features of the mobile devices very simple to use.

Conclusion

The purpose of this research was to assess the factors that affect traders to adopt m-commerce in Ghana. The study has shown that PE, EE, FC, PV, HT and T influence the traders' BI to adopt m-commerce for their micro trading activities in Ghana. However, SI and HM did not influence the traders' intention to adopt m-commerce. Interestingly, Gender moderated PE, FC, PV, HT and T but SI, EE and HM did not have a moderating impact on the traders' BI to adopt mcommerce. In all, Performance Expectancy was the strongest determinant among the adoption factors in this study. Trust as an external construct introduced by the researcher to the UTAUT2 model, has been justified to have an impact in determining the traders' Behavioural Intention to adopt m-commerce. Based on the above development, the objectives for this study have been duly achieved.

  H9: Performance Expectancy significantly affect Behavioural Intention to adopt m-commerce is moderated by Gender. H10: Effort Expectancy significantly affect Behavioural Intention to adopt m-commerce is moderated by Gender. H11: Social Influence significantly affect Behavioural Intention to adopt m-commerce is moderated by Gender. H12: Facilitating Condition significantly affect Behavioural Intention to adopt m-commerce is moderated by Gender. H13: Hedonic Motivation significantly affect Behavioural Intention to adopt m-commerce is moderated by Gender H14: Price Value significantly affect Behavioural Intention to adopt m-commerce is moderated by Gender. H15: Habit significantly affect Behavioural Intention to adopt m-commerce is moderated by Gender. H16: Trust significantly affect Behavioural Intention to adopt m-commerce is moderated by Gender.

Figure 1 :

 1 Figure 1: Proposed Research Model (Adapted from Venkatesh et al., 2012)

AcceptedH2:

  Effort expectancy significantly affect the Behavioural Intention to adopt m-commerce in Ghana. Accepted H3: Social influence significantly affect the Behavioural Intention to adopt m-commerce in Ghana. Rejected H4: Facilitating condition significantly affect the behavioural Intention to adopt m-commerce in Ghana. Accepted H5: Hedonic motivation significantly affect the Behavioural Intention to adopt m-commerce in Ghana. Rejected H6: Price value significantly affect the Behavioural Intention to adopt mcommerce in Ghana. Accepted H7: Habit significantly affect the Behavioural Intention to adopt m-commerce in Ghana. Accepted H8: Trust significantly affect the Behavioural Intention to adopt m-commerce in Ghana.

  proposed UTAUT2 by modifying UTAUT to a consumer context. The authors added three new constructs to the UTAUT model and they are: Hedonic Motivation, Price Value and Habit. UTAUT2 maintain the constructs and definition of Performance Expectancy, Effort Expectancy, Social Influence and Facilitating Condition in UTAUT in a consumer use context and so Performance Expectancy, Effort Expectancy, Social Influence, Facilitating Condition, Hedonic Motivation, Price Value, Habit influence the Behavioural Intent to adopt a technology

Table 1 : Definition of Constructs of this Study

 1

	Factors	Type	Factor Measurement		Items References
			Definitions for this Study
	Performance	Independent,	The extent to which a trader		3	Venkatesh et al.
	Expectancy (PE)	5 point-	perceives	that	adopting	m-		(2012)
		Likert scale	commerce will improve his or her		Venkatesh et al.
			performance.				(2003)
	Effort	Independent,	The extent to which a trader		3	Venkatesh et al.
	Expectancy (EE)	5 point-	perceives	that	adopting	m-		(2012)
		Likert scale	commerce is easy.				Venkatesh et al.
								(2003)
	Social Influence	Independent,	The degree to which a trader		3	Venkatesh et al.
	(SI)	5 point-	believes that people who matter to		(2003)
		Likert scale	him or her believes he or she should		Venkatesh et al.
			adopt m-commerce.				(2012)
	Facilitating	Independent,	The degree to which a trader		3	Venkatesh et al.
	Condition (FC)	5 point-	believes that the necessary help and		(2012)
		Likert scale	facilities are available to him or her		Venkatesh et al.
			to adopt m-commerce			(2003)
	Hedonic	Independent,	The extent to which a trader		3	Venkatesh et al.
	Motivation	5 point-	experiences enjoyment and			(2012)
	(HM)	Likert scale	pleasure	from	adopting	m-
			commerce.
	Price Value (PV) Independent,	The degree of a traders' perception	3	Venkatesh et al.
		5 point-	of the benefits to be derived in		(2012)
		Likert scale	adopting m-commerce and the		Dodds et al.
			financial commitment to be borne		(1991)
			by him or her.
	Habit (HT)	Independent,	The extent to which a trader		3	Venkatesh et al.
		5 point-	believes that adopting m-commerce		(2012)
		Likert scale	is automatic.				(Limayem et al.
								2007)
	Trust (T)	Independent,	The extent to which the traders are	3	Venkatesh et al.,
		5 point-	confident and willing to adopt m-		(2012)
		Likert scale	commerce.					(Chong et al.
								2014)
	Behavioural	Dependent,	The extent of a trader's willingness	3	Venkatesh et al.
	Intentions (BI)	5 point-	to use and continue to adopt m-		(2012)
		Likert scale	commerce.

Table 4 : Residence of Respondents

 4

	Country	Frequency	Percentages
	Ghana	200	93.02
	Burkina Faso	8	3.72
	Togo	4	1.86
	Ivory Coast	2	0.86
	Niger	1	0.47
	Total	215	100

Table : 5 Regression Coefficients

 : The coefficient table indicates that the independent variables and their influence to the model fitting. Their coefficients and significance are seen in Standard Beta column and Sig respectively in the table discussed. The results show that the major actor is Behavioural Intention with coefficient 0.532 which implies that it has 53% of influence on the use behaviour.

	PExGender	0.106	0.135 0.223	<0.05
	EExGender	0.143	0.302 1.431	>0.05
	SIxGender	0.109	0.112 3.056	>0.05
	FCxGender	0.511	-0.240 -0.169	<0.05
	HMxGender	0.065	0.072 0.046	>0.05
	PVxGender	0.131	-0.261 -0.122	<0.05
	HTxGender	0.104	0.156 1.001	<0.05
	TxGender	0.204	-0.333 -0.442	<0.05
	Dependent variable: Use Behaviour; Sig: 0.05; S.E: Standard Error; B: Beta Coefficient;
	T:Test Statistic
	Variable	S. E	Beta T	P-value
	Performance Expectancy (PE)	0.114	0.432 0.316	<0.05
	Effort Expectancy (EE)	0.102	0.204 1.221	<0.05
	Social Influence (SI)	0.036	0.036 1.421	>0.05
	Facilitating Condition (FC)	0.011	0.256 0.421	<0.05
	Hedonic Motivation (HM)	0.064	0.016 0.336	>0.05
	Price Value (PV)	0.031	0.167 0.256	<0.05
	Habit (HT)	0.204	0.138 1.042	<0.05
	Trust (T)	0.108	0.034 0.368	<0.05

Table 6 : Reliability Test Factors Cronbach's Alpha Items

 6 Convergent validity and discriminant validity are assessed by Pearson correlation analysis.

	Performance Expectancy (PE)	0.794	3
	Effort Expectancy (EE)	0.683	3
	Social Influence (SI)	0.774	3
	Facilitating Condition (FC)	0.845	3
	Behavioral Intentions (BI)	0.740	3
	Hedonic Motivation (HM)	0.765	3
	Price Value (PV)	0.791	3
	Habit (HT)	0.602	3
	Trust (T)	0.641	3

Table 1 : Pearson Correlation Coefficients Analysis Results

 1

	Variable PE	EE	SI	FC	HM	PV	HT	T	BI
	PE	1.000
	EE	.534	1.000
	SI	.432	.433	1.000
	FC	.602	.699	.266	1.000
	HM	.467	.370	.357	.426	1.000
	PV	.107	.456	.107	.566	.458	1.000
	HT	.623	.521	.023	.354	.391	.543	1.000

Table 2 : Summary of Results of Hypotheses Testing

 2

	Hypothesis


Manisha Sharma

Sujeet K Sharma
email: sujeet@iimtrichy.ac.in

Theoretical Framework for Digital Payments in Rural India: Integrating UTAUT and Empowerment Theory

Keywords: Digital payments, UTAUT, Empowerment theory, Rural India

Indian economy is considered as one of the most promising and fast growing among all developing countries in the world. In the current global scenario, India has a number of strengths namely younger population, greater access to mobile phones, increasing technical competence and digital literacy among others. Indian government initiated a number of steps to incorporate information technology (IT) tools in public institutions to increase transparency, remove middlemen, and minimize digital divide. Digital payment is one of the prominent applications of the ICT in the past couple of years due to some of the initiatives of government of India like demonetization, and digital India. However, around 67% of Indian Population still lives in rural areas and thereby it is imperative to understand the behavioral intention to use and its continuous usage of digital payments in rural population of India. This research attempts to develop a theoretical research framework by integrating psychological empowerment theory and the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) to explore and understand perception of rural population towards digital payments in Indian context. Researchers using structural equation modeling or other statistical models may test the proposed research framework. In this research framework, second order of empowerment construct is proposed, which is rarely available in the extant literature. The findings of this research will be useful to government agencies, financial institutions, mobile and telecommunications operators, and researchers. This paper is a working paper and intends to further test the theoretical model proposed as the ongoing work.

Introduction

The Information and Communication Technologies augmented with the rise of the Internet have opened new opportunities for the growth of business worldwide and one of the path breaking technological inventions till date is the technology based transactions. The developments in the field of technological innovations have boosted an inspiring shift towards digital platforms and completely transformed the dynamics of commerce [START_REF] Hromcová | Effects of direct pricing of retail payment methods in Norway[END_REF][START_REF] Beijnen | Size matters: economies of scale in European payments processing[END_REF][START_REF] Bolt | Payment network scale economies, sepa, and cash replacement[END_REF]. The advancements of these payment methods intend to seize the customary mode of transactions as the digitized payment methods not only provide the higher level of security through secured gateways but also create a virtual terminal to its users and 216 thereby offer a win-win situation for the user and the bank as well by enabling the direct transfer of money between the merchant bank's account and the user's bank account.

The worldwide digital payment segment amounts to the total transaction value of US $ 3402,168 million in 2018 and expected to show an annual growth rate of 13.9 percent by 2022 (Statista, 2018). The increasing trend towards digital payments is certainly promising however it is important to note that cash transaction still leads as the most preferred mode of payment (Arango-Arango et al.,2018). Therefore, the challenge lies in not only making the users switch towards digital payments but also retain them as continuous users so that they not only accept the technology of digital payments but also continue to use the same.

The key determinants that influence the acceptance of digital payments have been developed in the extant literature (Patil et al. 2018ab;[START_REF] Economist | The dire consequences of India's demonetisation initiative[END_REF] on the basis of theoretical models such as technology acceptance model (TAM: [START_REF] Davis | Perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and user acceptance of information technology[END_REF], unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT: [START_REF] Venkatesh | User acceptance of information technology: toward a unified view[END_REF]) and some extensions of these well-established models such as TAM2 (Chauhan 2015), UTAUT2 [START_REF] Slade | Modeling consumers' adoption intentions of remote mobile payments in the United Kingdom: extending UTAUT with innovativeness, risk, and trust[END_REF] among others. However, developing a theory for digital payments from electronic participation perspective is rarely available in the existing literature. [START_REF] Venkatesh | Managing citizens' uncertainty in e-government services: The mediating and moderating roles of transparency and trust[END_REF] argued that it is important to integrate other theoretical models to understand better acceptance of information technology phenomenon for greater citizen participation to exploit maximum potential of the technology. [START_REF] Kang | Understanding public engagement: conceptualizing and measuring its influence on supportive behavioral intentions[END_REF] suggested that citizen empowerment is one of the key factors to enhance citizen participation. As a result, the amalgamation of UTAUT with citizen empowerment theory in the proposed research model may provide some useful insights for better understanding of digital payment adoption among rural population in the Indian context.

This study makes mainly three contributions to extend the extant literature of digital payments among rural population in the Indian context. Firstly, this study develops a research model on the basis of UTAUT model and the citizen empowerment theory to understand key determinants of continuous intention to use the digital payments. Secondly, we propose amalgamation of UTAUT with citizen empowerment theory to increase the predictive power of the UTAUT model. Finally, this framework is proposed in the context of Indian economy, which is the one of fastest growing economies in the world.

2

Literature review and development of hypotheses , 2018). This paper therefore attempts to explore the opportunities of digital payments in Rural India and offer a specific model that fits the rural surroundings of India in order to enhance the usage of digital payments in rural India.

Gaps in the existing body of knowledge and the consequent theoretical development

The UTAUT model developed by [START_REF] Venkatesh | User acceptance of information technology: toward a unified view[END_REF] has been considered as a theoretical lens in several technology adoptions studies under various settings. The UTAUT model was developed through a rigorous review and empirical validations of eight prominent adoption theories. The UTAUT is the most suitable theoretical model to understand intention of rural population in India as it is developed on the basis of technological and social determinants [START_REF] Zuiderwijk | Acceptance and use predictors of open data technologies: drawing upon the unified theory of a c-227 ceptance and use of technology[END_REF]. However, over the years, a need however a need has constantly been felt over the applicability and generalizability of these models [START_REF] Gregor | The nature of theory in information systems[END_REF][START_REF] Weber | Editor's comments[END_REF]Lee and[START_REF] Lee | Generalizing generalizability in information systems research[END_REF]. [START_REF] Weiyin | A Framework and Guidelines for Context-Specific Theorizing in Information Systems Research[END_REF] further examined the role of context-specific theory development and further provided directions so as to contextualize theories in IS research. Therefore, it necessitated to provide a theoretical model to build constructs of digital payments adoption and continuous usage specific for Indian rural perspective. In this context, the current work has two specific distinctions in order to seek the applicability and suitability for the fit of any model. Firstly, research is based in Rural India and the rural people being ignorant of the benefits of the digital payments, need to be oriented and motivated towards going digital before actually placing the advantages of digital payments in front of them. Through the interactions with rural inhabitants, it was noticed that the rural people carry a certain perception that only those who are literate and have knowledge of computers use things like digital payments, or only those who have enough money can use digital payments. The rural India has its own sets of constraints which are context and geography specific. They being ignorant and uneducated to a large extent show a very slow rate of adoption of 218 the Kisan Credit Card (KCC) system (IndiaStat, 2018; Bista et al., 2012) which was developed for them only and are also not aware of Aadhaar enabled payment system, introduced by government of India as part of digital drive as realized during the interaction with them. Moreover, the role of local shops and traders offer a very strong hindrance in achieving a cashless rural India.

Therefore, it was felt that apart from the conceptualization and implementation of UTAUT theory in order to enhance the functional usage of digital payments in rural India, there is a need to sensitize the rural inhabitants towards the digital payments by associating them with the idea of empowerment with the usage of digital payments so that they not only feel the need to go digital but also necessitates its usage with a sense of being digitally empowered.

This led the researchers to explore the possibilities of developing a construct in the form of Citizen empowerment theory as suggested by [START_REF] Kang | Understanding public engagement: conceptualizing and measuring its influence on supportive behavioral intentions[END_REF], resulted in second order construct, in order to enhance the usage of digital payments in rural India. Moreover, the IS literature lacks studies on IT empowerment which also substantiates the exploration of Citizen empowerment theory in the context of digital payments in rural India.

Secondly, the research attempts to seek the continuous use of the digital payment which is not addressed in the UTAUT and thereby the integration of the citizen empowerment constructs with UTAUT model helps to grasp the continuous use of the digital payment.

Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT)

The UTAUT model has been used to understand the user behavior in various information technology domains such as mobile Internet ( (2003). In this study also, we have adapted four hypotheses from the UTAUT model in the context of digital payments from Indian perspective.

Performance expectancy.

Performance expectancy has been one of the key determinants which influences intention to use a new technology without any effect of settings. We have adapted performance expectancy from Venkatesh et al. (2003) and defined in this study as the degree to which rural population considers that using digital payments is beneficiary or helpful in increasing productivity. [START_REF] Pikkarainen | Consumer acceptance of online banking: an extension of the technology acceptance model[END_REF] believed that consumers easily accept a system if they find it easy to use and learn. Performance expectancy has been identified as a significant indicator in the decision making towardsthe acceptance of a new information system ( [START_REF] Chong | Predicting m-commerce adoption determinants: a neural network approach[END_REF].The rural population of India has been customized of doing cash transactions and due to lack of education not aware with the benefits of making digital payments and it is perceived that if they are educated towards the benefits of digital transactions, it might shift their preference towards digital payments. Therefore, we hypothesize that H1: Performance expectancy positively influences intention to use digital payments.

Effort Expectancy.

Effort expectancy is defined by [START_REF] Venkatesh | User acceptance of information technology: toward a unified view[END_REF] as "the degree of ease associated with the use of a given technology, which influences the use of that technology". Effort expectancy is similar to perceived ease of use in another advanced TAM Model. [START_REF] Leong | Predicting the determinants of the NFC-enabled mobile credit card acceptance: a neural networks approach[END_REF]identified the ease of technology use increases the adoption rate among individuals. In fact, it has consistently been identified as a very significant predictor of behavioral intention towards technology adoption [START_REF] Venkatesh | Consumer acceptance and use of information technology: Extending the unified theory of acceptanceand use of technology[END_REF][START_REF] Thakur | Customer adoption of mobile paymentservices by professionals across two cities in India:An empirical study using modified technology acceptancemodel[END_REF][START_REF] Slade | Modeling consumers' adoption intentions of remote mobile payments in the United Kingdom: extending UTAUT with innovativeness, risk, and trust[END_REF]. [START_REF] Slade | Modeling consumers' adoption intentions of remote mobile payments in the United Kingdom: extending UTAUT with innovativeness, risk, and trust[END_REF] later found that effort expectancy influences the decision to adopt mobile payments. It is believed that rural population would expect the use of digital payment with minimal efforts. In the case of rural India, people who are still in the initial stage of technology acceptance, the comfort of using it might influence their inclination towards the acceptance of new technology and eventually impact their decision of switching towards digital payments and if theyhave some difficulty in the use of digital payments, they might not accept the technology. Hence, we hypothesize that H2: Effort expectancy positively influences intention to use digital payments.

Social Influence.

Social influence is another important factor of UTAUT model which influences decision of users towards intention to use a new information technology. [START_REF] Venkatesh | User acceptance of information technology: toward a unified view[END_REF] defined social influence as "the extent to which an individual perceives that other who are important to him/her, consider that he or she should use the system". 2018) found that social influence is one of the key predictors of the intent to use a new technology. We believe that in the rural settings, social influence would play a significant role in the decision to accept digital payments as rural people in India have very strong social culture and work in small social units and thereby, their chances of getting influenced from social surroundings are invariably high and in the case of accepting new technology of payments, the chances of getting influenced by the surroundings increase as it will ease out their pressure of not being accepted by others while embarking upon a new system of digital payments and give them a sense of acceptance amongst their peers. Therefore, we hypothesize that H3: Social influence positively influences intention to use digital payments.

Facilitating conditions.

Facilitating conditions are defined by [START_REF] Venkatesh | User acceptance of information technology: toward a unified view[END_REF] as "the degree to which the individual perceives the existence of resources and support to use certain technology whenever necessary". Digital payments are supported by digital infrastructure such as desktop, smartphones, electricity in the context of rural India, and Internet service providers among others. [START_REF] Lewis | Faculty use of established and emerging technologies in higher education: a unified theory of acceptance and use of technology perspective[END_REF] opined that individuals seek for assistance while adopting any new technology and might not adopt the same due to insufficient facilitating conditions. [START_REF] Zuiderwijk | Acceptance and use predictors of open data technologies: drawing upon the unified theory of a c-227 ceptance and use of technology[END_REF] found that facilitating conditions are important predictor of intention to use a new information technology or system. Facilitating conditions has been proven to be a very strong predictor in the case of m-commerce and mobile apps adoption [START_REF] Crabbe | An adoption model for mobile banking in Ghana[END_REF][START_REF] Venkatesh | Consumer acceptance and use of information technology: Extending the unified theory of acceptanceand use of technology[END_REF][START_REF] Chong | Predicting m-commerce adoption determinants: a neural network approach[END_REF][START_REF] Hew | What catalyses mobile apps usage intention: an empirical analysis[END_REF][START_REF] Tamilmani | Use of 'Habit' is Not a Habit in Understanding Individual Technology Adoption: A Review of UTAUT2 based Empirical Studies[END_REF]). In the case of Indian rural settings, the rural habitants may seek facilitating conditions in the form of internet connection, low cost wi-fi facility as the resources and quick online assistance through customer care as the support. It is very critical to have good facilitating conditions to promote digital payments in the rural settings as rural people are used to making payments through traditional system and the facilitation of required assistance and resources might influence their inclination towards digital payments and bring out the hesitation of using new technology. Therefore, we hypothesize that H4: Facilitating conditions positively influences intention to use digital payments.

2.4

Citizen empowerment theory.

Researchers [START_REF] Zimmerman | Citizen participation, perceived control, and psychological empowerment[END_REF]; Zimmerman 1995) proposed psychological citizen empowerment theory and defined as "the connection between a sense of personal competence, a desire for, and a willingness to take action in the public domain". This theory attempts to comprehend the motivation in the work settings. However, [START_REF] Kang | Understanding public engagement: conceptualizing and measuring its influence on supportive behavioral intentions[END_REF] observed that psychological empowerment is crucial in motivating large population to engage in an activity with positive outcomes. Naranjo-Zolotov& Oliveira (2018) studied the citizens' intention to use and recommend for electronic participation in e-government services. The empowerment theory is context specific and constructs impact, meaning, competence and self-determination as motivational aspect of empowerment. In this study, we define empowerment as the second order construct developed on the first order four constructs however we felt that motivational empowerment at workplace cannot be generalized when it comes to motivating the rural people towards the use of digital payments. Spreitzer (1996), way back believed that it is important to assess the empowerment through perception. This extended our work in the form of exploratory discussion with the rural people in general in the surrounding areas so as to understand the meaning of rural empowerment towards digitization. With 20 such in depth discussions, it turned out that the rural pop-221 ulation, especially the middle age group and old age group are apprehensive towards the use of digital payments however the younger rural population showed their eagerness towards digital payments. The rural youth is highly inclined to bridge this social gap between the rural people and urban ones and believe that if given the orientation, they are willing to learn and adopt the new technologies and also showed their inclination towards learning the benefits of digital payments. On exploring further, they acknowledged that the use and understanding of digital payments give them a sense of self-esteem and equality vis-à-vis their urban counterparts. Thereby, it is recommended to reframe the empowerment theory constructs in the context of Indian rural population towards digital payments. Thereby, we propose the empowerment constructs as sense of self-esteem, sense of equality, competence and self-determination. Thus, we propose to replace the two constructs as impact and meaning by self-esteem and sense of equality in the case of acceptance of digital payments in rural India.The existing literature however suggests that empowerment theory may contribute significantly in the adoption of a new system. Therefore, we hypothesize that H6: Citizen empowerment positively mediates intention to use digital payments to enhance continuous intention to use.

Intention to use and continuous intention to use

As observed by Tam and Oliveira (2016), retention of the customers is as important as attracting them for the potential purchase. If the users feel satisfied from the services offered by merchant, they are more likely to repeat the use of the services, which will lead to their intention of continuous usage [START_REF] Kuo | The relationships among service quality, perceived value, customer satisfaction and post-purchase intention in mobile value-added services[END_REF][START_REF] Moon | Extending the TAM for a world-wide-Web context[END_REF]. It has been also observed that users will be involved in the continuous usage if they intend to use services at all, as users want to have an enjoyable experience while using a service (Kim, Ferrin, & Rao, 2009; Kim, Chan, and Gupta, 2007). Sharma & Sharma (2019) also observed that intention to use leads to actual usage particularly in the case of m-banking. It is believed that if rural people get positive inclination towards digital payments, the associated benefits, the use of ease, the supporting facilities and also the sense of empowerment might influence their decision of continuously using it. Thereby, the intention to use tends to positively and significantly impact the continuous intention of usage which leads to the development of the following hypotheses: H7: Intention to use positively influences continuous intention to use digital payments.

3

Proposed research model The longitudinal quantitative study using the proposed research model will provide consistent insights to generalize results from strategic perspective. Finally, the crosscultural evaluation of the research model will provide additional insights about digital payments in the rural population from two or more cultural settings. This is a working paper and intends to further test the theoretical model proposed as the ongoing work.

  Thakur & Srivastava 2014; Alalwan et al. 219 2017; Tamilmani et al. 2019). Moreover, performance expectancy has been taken a strong predictor of behavioral intention towards the mobile apps and m-commerce (Luo et al, 2010; Venkatesh et al. 2012;

  Wei et al. (2009) categorized social influence as mass media influence and personal influence. Social influence has been identified as a strong predictor of behavioral intention (Crabbe et al. 2009; Venkatesh et al.2012). Further, Slade et al. (2015) observed that individuals have a tendency to seek opinions from their social network before embarking upon a new technology. Alalwan et al. (

Fig. 1 .

 1 Fig. 1. Research Model (Adapted from Venkatesh et al. 2003)