Perceived Usefulness and Use of Information Technology: the Moderating Influences of the Dependence of a Subcontractor towards His Contractor

The perceived usefulness is a concept that has been used by several authors in different fields of study. The analysis of these studies shows, as suggested by Davis (1989), that when the individual perceives the information and communication technologies (ICT) to improve his performances, he uses them more frequently in his daily activities at work. However, one may think, as does this research, that the external factors can lead to relativize the significance of this hypothesis. Indeed, the mobilization of the research on the sociology of use and the organizational dispersion of the company allowed us to deduct that within the subcontractor enterprises, the use of ICT by the employees, who favourably perceive their usefulness, depends on the degree of the enterprises’ dependency towards their contractors, in the sense that when this dependency grows, the reactive and standard use of these technologies is requested to the detriment of their creative use, and vice versa. The analysis of results, based on a positivist paradigm, a deductive reasoning and a quantitative empirical investigation, enabled us to empirically validate a conceptual model indicating, in fact, that in the subcontractor companies highly depending on their contractors, employees who are convinced that ICT improves their work performance made more reactive use in their administrative activities, while the creative use of these technologies in disseminating the information permanently and in real time has not been promoted within companies which are weakly dependent on their contractors.