Author(s)

Huifen Wang, Junping Wang

School of Management, Jinan University, Guangzhou, China.

With the rapid development of e-commerce, more and more digital immigrants actively participate in online shopping. However, some may be more skilled in using e-commerce information system (e-commerce IS), while others still meet some barriers doing so. Thus, it is interesting to investigate the e-commerce IS adoption behavior of digital immigrants. To understand the critical resources that contribute to the different behaviors between the digital immigrants, we attempt to operationalize the capital perspective, drew on Bourdieu’s practice theory and propose a research model to investigate: 1) the forms of capital and habitus for using e-commerce IS; 2) what is the relationship between digital immigrant’s capital, habitus and e-commerce IS adoption behavior. Based on the data collected from 334 digital immigrants in China, we empirically test the proposed model. To ensure the validity and reliability of the instrument, factor analysis and reliability test were conducted. The results of multiple regression analysis demonstrate the significant effects of habitus and capitals on digital immigrants’ e-commerce IS adoption, especially the intrinsic motivation and propensity to informatization dimension of habitus, the social influence and social support dimension of social capital. Implications of the findings as well as limitations of the study and directions for future research are also discussed.

Bourdieu, Capital, Habitus, Digital Immigrants, E-Commerce IS, Adoption Behavior

Wang, H. and Wang, J. (2017) The Effect of Habitus and Capitals on Adoption Behavior of E-Commerce Information System: An Investigation of Digital Immigrants. Open Journal of Social Sciences, 5, 159-170. doi: 10.4236/jss.2017.54015.