Understanding Factors Influencingthe Acceptance & Use of Smartphone Based Training Programs by using UTAUT-A Unified model: A Study with Respect to Employees of Selected Organized Retail Stores of Bangalore

Retail in India is on a growth path with changing lifestyles and demographic patterns of consumers. Retail is emerging as the second largest industry after agriculture in terms of employment. Growing retail industry requires skilled people to manage day-to-day operations. Front-end sales staffs play a vital role in creating happy customers. However, this depends upon the knowledge of product, process, system, and customer service skillspossesed by staffs. This transformation in staffs undoubtedly has to come from what and how the training is imparted to them. Growing real estate cost, price sensitive customers, stiff competition are shrinking the margin on one side, and increasing customer expectations are forcing companies toinnovate and be cost effective.

Training is going digital. Many studies have been conducted to understand the perceptions, attitude, and impact of mobile learning among students and employees. The purpose of this study is to understand factors influencing the intention & use of smartphone based training programs among retail store employees by using UTAUT Model.

This paper uses Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) model to investigate and explain retail store employees’ intention and use of smart-phone for training. A questionnaire was created and administed among front-end retail staffs. Collected data was analyzed using statistical software, SPSS.

Findings of the study shows that performance expectancy, effort expectancy, and social influence have positive influence on behavioral intentions and facilitating conditions on usage of smartphone based training programs.

Overall employees’ acceptance to use depends on what is the content, How is the content and impact on end result i.e. knowledge & sales. This suggests that companies should be careful about the content; it should be such that which has major impact on overall knowledge and sales.