User Acceptance of Emergency and Disaster Response Mobile Application in the Philippines: An Investigation Based on the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology Model

Emergency and disaster situations continue to rise in all parts of the world, especially in the most risk-prone countries such as the Philippines. However, emergency and disaster response applications in a smartphone in the Philippines are underrepresented in literature. This study measures the acceptance level of the recently launched emergency and disaster response applications in a smartphone for citizens, through a survey conducted based on the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Used of Technology model. Results show that the majority of the respondents were female who belong to age 18-23 years old. Most of the respondents do not know about the emergency and disaster response application and its capability. However, the majority of the respondents are willing to use the emergency and disaster response application and are motivated to share the capabilities of the application with their families and friends. Most of the respondents are learning the application for the first time. The correlation results of effort expectancy that influences behavioral intention shows significantly among other indicators that correlate to behavioral intention. Moreover, gender showed a significant influence on the facilitating condition to behavioral intention. On the other hand, age does not show significant influence on facilitating condition, social influence, effort expectancy and facilitating condition to the behavioral intention of use. Thus, this work offers research and practical implications for developing countries, and other economies.