EMPIRICAL RESEARCH Five-factor model personality traits as predictors of perceived and actual usage of technology Tim Barnett 1 , Allison W. Pearson 1 , Rodney Pearson 1 and Franz W. Kellermanns 2 1 Department of Management and Information Systems, Mississippi State University, Starkville, U.S.A; 2 UNC-Charlotte, Charlotte, NC, U.S.A Correspondence: Tim Barnett, Department of Management and Information Systems, Mississippi State University, P.O. Box 9581, Mississippi State, MS 39762, U.S.A. Tel: 662-325-2419; Fax: 662-325-8651 Received: 15 December 2011 Revised: 15 September 2012 2nd Revision: 30 April 2013 3rd Revision: 07 October 2013 4th Revision: 18 February 2014 5th Revision: 18 March 2014 Accepted: 25 March 2014 Abstract Understanding the adoption and use of technology is extremely important in the field of information systems. Not surprisingly, there are several conceptual models that attempt to explain how and why individuals use technology. Until recently, however, the role of personality in general, and the five-factor model (FFM) of personality in particular, had remained largely unexplored. Our study takes an interactional psychology perspective, linking components of the FFM to the use of technology within the conceptual framework of the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT). After empirically confirming previous research findings linking performance expectancy, effort expectancy, and social influence to technology use, we test direct relationships between FFM personality traits and technology use in the context of a web- based classroom technological system, utilizing measures of perceived and actual use of technology. Consistent with expectations, conscientiousness and neuroticism are associated with perceived and actual use of technology, with conscientiousness demonstrating a positive association with both perceived and actual use and neuroticism, a negative association. Extraversion was also significantly associated with actual use, although not in the positive direction expected. Further, the significant relationships between the personality traits and the actual use of technology were direct and not mediated by expressed intentions to use the system. European Journal of Information Systems (2015) 24(4), 374–390. doi:10.1057/ejis.2014.10; published online 3 June 2014 Keywords: personality; five-factor model; UTAUT; TAM; system use; individual differences; technology acceptance; technology adoption Introduction Understanding how and why users accept and use technology is of critical interest to Information Systems (IS) research. Not surprisingly, theories of technology adoption, such as the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) (Davis, 1989) and TAM2 (Venkatesh & Davis, 2000), have proliferated. After synthesizing eight such models, Venkatesh et al (2003) developed the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT), concluding that it ‘provides a useful tool for managers needing to assess the likelihood of success for new technology introductions and helps them understand the drivers of acceptance’ (p. 425). The UTAUT ‘represents a shift from a fragmented view of technology acceptance to a unified view that inte- grated the major theories and technology acceptance models into a single theory’ (Abu-Shanab et al, 2010, p. 495) and ‘has been applied to the study of a variety of technologies in both organizational and non-organizational settings’ (Venkatesh et al, 2012). Thus, we position our study of technology acceptance and use within this widely accepted framework. European Journal of Information Systems (2015) 24, 374–390 © 2015 Operational Research Society Ltd. All rights reserved 0960-085X/15 www.palgrave-journals.com/ejis/