Proceedings of 31st International Business Research Conference 27 - 29 July 2015, Ryerson University, Toronto, Canada ISBN: 978-1-922069-80-1 1 Understanding Behavioural Intention towards E-books Use: Does Gender Really Matter? Daniel Kofi Maduku* Gender differences play a pivotal role in technology acceptance and thus influence marketing strategies aimed at soliciting accelerated acceptance of technology. Using the UTAUT, this study examined gender differences in the antecedents of behavioural intention towards e-book use. Results based on survey data obtained from 544 participating students indicate that performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence and facilitating conditions are significant antecedents of behavioural intention towards e-book use. Although gender was found to moderate the relationship between facilitating conditions and behavioural intention, surprisingly, no significant moderating effects of gender were found on performance expectancy, effort expectancy and social influence. Implications of these findings on efforts aimed at promoting rapid acceptance of e-books among students are highlighted in this paper. JEL Codes: O31, I23 and M31 1. Introduction Recent advances in information and communication technology have resulted in dramatic changes to the publishing industry (Jiang & Katsamakas 2010). Books that were hitherto produced in paper are now being converted into electronic formats, often referred to as electronic books, or e-books. An e-book is thus an electronic version of a printed book that can be read on a dedicated e-book reader, personal computer (PC), mobile phone or Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) (Shin 2011). The advantages that e-books have over printed books are manifold. E-books offer 24/7 access and availability, provide remote access, enable full-text search capability and facilitate copying and pasting. Another important advantage of e-books over printed books is that they are mobile. The use of e-books in this social networking age enables users to chat and transfer their preferences for certain books. In addition, e-books are convenient because a reader can bookmark a page, highlight text, or adjust text sizes. The reader can also enjoy various multimedia effects such as oral reading, animations, music and sound effects. Owing to these advantages, e-books are increasingly becoming a standard platform for providing reading materials (Aharony 2014). However, the adoption rate of e-books is still low as their sales lag far behind projections and constitute only a small percentage of the book market. In South Africa the e-book market constitutes only 1.5% of the total book market (Publishers Association of South Africa 2013). The educational book market in South African commanded over 57% of the revenue generate from the total book market in 2012; this is projected to increase to 61% by 2017 (PwC 2013). To increase the adoption of e-books in this segment, most major publishers of academic literature have resorted to converting academic books into e-book formats which are __________________ *Daniel Kofi Maduku, Department of Marketing Management, Faculty of Management, University of Johannesburg, South Africa. Email: dkmaduku@uj.ac.za