Correspondence: Weihua Shi, College of Business, University of Southern Mississippi – Gulf Coast, Long Beach MS 39560, USA. Tel: +1 228 865 4505; Fax: +1 228 865 4588; e-mail: Weihua.shi@usm.edu

¹is a visiting assistant professor at the University of Southern Mississippi. She received her MA degree in Economics from Vanderbilt University and her PhD in Finance from the City University of Hong Kong. Her research interests include behavioural finance, risk management and banking.

²is an assistant professor of Business Information Systems (BIS) and Director of BIS programmes at the College of Saint Mary, Omaha, Nebraska, USA. He has more than 20 years experience in business management in manufacturing, wholesale and retail, services and banking industries. His research interests include information security, strategic management and business education.

³is a professor of International Business at the University of International Business and Economics. His research interests include e-business, international business and international trade law and practice. Dr Wang is Director of the International Business Bridge (IBB). He has extensively published in the areas of international business, electronic business and others.

Received 30 October 2007; Revised 30 October 2007.

Abstract

Several models have been proposed in the literature to understand technology acceptance in which social environmental factors are not primarily addressed. Drawing upon the social contagion theory and institutional theory, this study proposes a model to examine three social environmental factors of normative, coercive and mimetic pressures within the internet banking (IB) context. The model is tested using survey data from 124 respondents. The results reveal that normative and coercive pressures significantly influence the attitude and intention of adopting IB, while mimetic pressures appear not to. Attitude plays a mediating role between institutional pressures and IB adoption. This study spearheads an institutional analysis at the individual level within the IB context. The findings also provide valuable insights for bank managers to manage the IB services.