Analysis of selected technology acceptance model constructs and their impact on user behavior

This article compares an existing model to measure competence of managers educated within the business school environment to a similar model at another business school setting. The existing management model initially developed by Thekiso’s is evaluated to determine if the model can be operationalised, hence can be regarded as valid, to apply to another business school’s educated manager sample to measure their managerial competence. Resultantly, Thekiso’s original model was applied to another similar sample at another business school educated manager population in KwaZulu-Natal. These respondents also studied towards a Master of Business Administration degree but their specific cultural, language and business school variables differed. The objective was then to validate the Thekiso model in different application settings. The results showed that the data were suitable to use to determine if the existing model can be used as it is to measure managerial competence. Also, the results indicated that Thekiso’s existing model is not generic and cannot be operationalised as it is school-specific. The anbalysis showed that the measuring criteria developed by Thekiso are relevant but the specific factors identified differ in nature and number, hence altering the core of the measuring model itself. As a result, the article formulates an alternative model for use in KwaZulu-Natal to measure skills for managerial competence in the province. This research is of value to management, academia and researchers because it renders an alternative model to measure managerial competence whilst also warning against operationalization of any of the two models without further validation.

The trends and problems of the national labor market are projected in various economic sectors, supplemented by specific features determined by the peculiarities of a certain sector. The formation of workforce capacity in the transport industry of Ukraine has a particular significance; this branch is the main infrastructure component of the sustainable development of the economic system of any level, ensures national economic security, and deals with the logistics complex as a whole. This is the reason why consideration of the global, national, and local tendencies of labor markets’ development and identification of the main determinants of influence on the endogenous environment is necessary for the enterprises of the transport industry, which creates the need for a research in this area. The main trends of the labor market development at all levels of the economic system – from global to industry – have been determined. The multidirectional tendency has been revealed: on the one hand, the industry shows a negative tendency to decrease in volumes in kind, and it is logical to assume that the need for personnel will also decrease, and on the other hand, there is an increasing number of job vacancies. This indicates the imbalance between national and sectoral economic systems and the management of economic processes “in manual mode”, and the need to forecast the number of employees in the industry as the basis of the workforce capacity of transport enterprises. The factors influencing the number of employed in the transport industry have been substantiated: cargo turnover, passenger turnover, and salary level, and a hypothesis for assessing their impact is suggested, which is confirmed by a correlation and regression analysis, which made it possible to generate a forecast model of the number of employed depending on the substantiated factors. The developed model may be applied to predict the number of people employed in the transport industry, taking into account the above factors.

Perceived e-learning usefulness as a marketing element has significantly affected student satisfaction, which results in a high propensity to continue using the current e-learning services with their universities. Therefore, this study aims to examine the effects of perceived risk, confirmation, and student motivation on perceived e-learning usefulness. This paper employed a convenience sampling technique to collect opinions from 689 university students at different universities (e.g., Thaksin University, Hatyai University, Prince of Songkla University, and Rajabhat University) around Thailand. Those students were actively using e-learning to access their education. After checking data validity, only 527 valid responses were analyzed through the path analysis method. According to empirical findings, confirmation significantly influenced student motivation, while perceived risk did not significantly impact student motivation. Finally, perceived e-learning usefulness was significantly influenced by confirmation, student motivation, and perceived risk. Furthermore, although these factors significantly influenced perceived e-learning usefulness, attitudes toward perceived e-learning usefulness relied mainly on the degree of confirmation, as this factor highlighted the most substantial effect on perceived e-learning usefulness. Moreover, perceived e-learning usefulness as a marketing element is a promising topic in the e-learning service sector, which requires future studies to examine to which extent the current study findings could apply to other groups of students or practitioners.