1. Social Media for Brand Awareness:
Implementing the Technology Acceptance Model to Examine
the Attitudes in the Architectural Engineering Business
31st International Business Research Conference
Ryerson University - Toronto
Dr. Oday Aswad
Mobile: +1 (613) 276 1391; +971 50 3156987
email: odayaswad@gmail.com

2. The Intent of This Research
To examine… the attitudes of marketing managers
Towards… incorporating social media
Into… the business of Architectural Engineering
In… Dubai
Because… this business relies on Brand Awareness and
networking for marketing, which social media
can amplify via the high speed of transfer and
viral capability of reaching.
The Industry
Architectural Engineering (Arch/Eng.)
The Marketing Activity
Brand Awareness
The Suggested Tool
Social Media

3. The Managerial Attitude
Managers apply the visions or the leaders. Managers are the most influencing in the decision making process.
Kotterman (2006)
“Managers’ decisions depend great deal on their own perceptions of risks and order of predictability of events”. Alrafi
(2009, pp. 49-54)
Managers risk-averse and resource oriented. They organize, control, recruit the staff and put the budget. Mintzberg
(1973)

4. How managers should Re-Think their way to deal with social media.
To explain the influence on the managerial attitude towards social media.
To survey the selected sample of Arch/Eng. Firms’ managers in Dubai.
To select & develop a model that can assist to examine the attitude of Arch/Eng. managers.
To summarize and classify perceived risks and benefits Arch/Eng. Managers to integrate social media into business.
The Research Agenda

5. The Literature Review
• Risks – Benefits Analysis
• Risks & Benefit categories based on Past literature of the
Arch/Eng. Business
Perceived Risks
Technical &
Operational
Social & Cultural
Legal
Perceived Benefits
Brand Awareness
Network Expansion &
Faster Reachability
Client & Audience
Management
Security & Privacy
Reputational

6. The Literature Review
• Selecting & Developing the Research Model
• Attitude is the output, similar inputs & pervious
managerial usage
1- Theory of Reasoned Action – TRA
2- Theory of Planned Behavior - TPB
3- Technology Acceptance Model - TAM
4- Technology Acceptance Model Two - TAM2
5- Technology Readiness Index – TRI
6- The Technology Readiness Acceptance Model – TRAM
7- The Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology – UTAUT

7. The Research Methods
• Technology Acceptance Model - TAM
• The Original Model
Technology Acceptance
Model – TAM
by Davis et al. (1989)
Davis’s model focused on
“Perceived Usefulness and
perceived Ease of Use as
fundamental determinants” Perceived
Ease of
Use
Perceived
Usefulness
External
Variables
The Attitude The
Intention

8. The Literature Review
• Risks – Benefits Analysis
• Suggested Risks categories based on influence on
the Arch/Eng. Business
Perceived Business Risks
Reputational
Security
Indirectly influencing
the managerial
Attitude
Directly influencing
the managerial
Attitude
Legal
Perceived Operational Risks
Technical
Operational
(Time, cost and
performance)

9. The Research Methods
• Technology Acceptance Model - TAM
• Related Extensions
Extended TAM model by Choi and Chung. (2013)
Perceived
Social
Capital
Subjective
Norm
Intention to
Use Social
Media
Perceived
Ease of
Use
Perceived
Usefulness
Perceived
Risk
Intention to
Use
Perceived
Ease of
Use
Perceived
Usefulness
Privacy
Performance
Financial
Time
Psychological
Social -
Reputation
al)
Perceived Risk Facets by
(Crespo, et al., 2009)

10. The Proposed Model
Davis (1989)
The newly extended constructs
Choi & Chung (2013)
Perceived Social
Capital (Benefits)
Subjective
Norm
Attitude
towards
Social MediaPerceived Ease of
Use
Perceived
Usefulness
Perceived
Operational Risks
Perceived
Business Risks
H5b
H4
H3a
H1a
H2
H1bH3b
H5a

11. The Research Methods
• Model Validation
• According to similar studies in the past
literature
Face & Content Validity:
Construct Reliability & Validity
To import validated question items from past literature’s question pools that are related to each construct.
To interview industry executives to evaluate the question items’ fitness for the purpose of this research.
To use Likert’s scale of five levels of agreement to represent the experts’ evaluation.
To conduct a Pilot survey to a minimum sample

12. The Research Methods
• Introduction
• The Population, Sample & Demographics of the sample
Firm’s Size (Number
of Employees)
Number
of firms
1 – 25 66
26 – 100 131
More than 100 23
Table – 1:
Size of
sampled firms
Classification Number
of firms
Unlimited floors 123
G + 12 floor 43
G + 4 floor 50
G + 1 floor 4
Table – 2:
Classifications of
sampled firms
471 Arch/Eng. firms which are actively operating as per Dubai Municipality.
264 firms agreed to participate in the main survey. Calculated for a confidence level of 95% and marginal error of 4%
220 managed to complete the questionnaire. 83.3% of response rate.

13. The Research Findings
• Representation of the Explanatory Power
• The Explanation of Influence
0.427
Perceived Social
Capital (Benefits)
Subjective Norm
Attitude towards Social Media 0.765Perceived Ease of Use 0.732
Perceived Usefulness 0.665
0.463
0.398
0.149
0.25
0.475
0.318
- 0.236
Perceived Operational Risks Perceived Business
Risks

14. The Research Findings
• The Resulted Formulae
where PEOU = Perceived Ease of Use; PU = Perceived Usefulness; SN = Subjective Norm; PSC = Perceived Social
Capital; Err = Error Variance
Attitude = -0.236 (Business) + 0.25 (PEOU) + 0.149 (PU) + 0.318 (SN) + err
PU = 0.463 (PSC) + 0.398 (PEOU) + err
PEOU = -0.427 (Operational Risks) + 0.475 (PSC) + err

15. The Research Findings
• Descriptive Analysis
• Percentages from the Questionnaire’s
answers

16. The Research Findings
• Descriptive Analysis
• The Experts’ feedback
That the understandability applies only for the personal level. while on the commercial level, the experts
believed the other way around.
The disagreement regarding the level of staff delegation to undertake social media communication on
behalf of the firm, was attributed to different cultural and security backgrounds.
The disagreement regarding the Time management was attributed to the lack of policies and training.

17. Conclusions & Recommendations
• Reputation and Audience’s Opinion
The Attitude was 76.5% explained by the proposed model
Only Two constructs explained 55.4% of managers’ attitude towards social media. Business Risks &
Subjective Norm
Managers perceived audience’s perspective about the firm, as essential.
•The audience’s perspective was a common priority existed within both constructs.
Managers perceived the reputational and security risks as the most concerning
•Those concerns had the maximum level of agreement by managers (PR_SOC_1, PR_SEC_1 and PR_SEC_3 ) showing a 100% agreement

18. Conclusions & Recommendations
• Prepare your firm to get the Benefits
Managers acknowledged the benefits of social media and linked them with ability to handle it.
•Firms acknowledged that they have to be prepared in terms of the availability of workforce and acquiring technical capabilities by which firms
would consider social media easy to use.
Managers had comparable perceptions regarding Operational risks and benefits of social media.
•Manager were not over-attracted to engaging with social media, but at the same time they were not intimidated either.
•Managerial perceptions of the Ease of Use can be influenced by operational concerns like time at work and availability of staff.
Managers admitted the need to policies and training to implement social media into their business.
•Policies are needed to govern the usage of social media at work and on behalf of the firm. While training is needed to master social media at a
commercial level.
Managers perceived their staff as unprepared to communicate the firm’s audience.
•In terms of technical, marketing and security awareness. While reputational concerns were emphasized regarding staff delegation.

19. Conclusions & Recommendations
• Key Success Factors
• Continuous Orchestration

20. Thank you
Any Question?
Dr. Oday Aswad
Mobile: +1 (613) 276 1391; +971 50 3156987
email: odayaswad@gmail.com
31st International Business Research Conference
Ryerson University - Toronto