Which Factors Influence Laboratory Employees’ Acceptance of Laboratory 4.0 Systems?

Laboratory 4.0 systems provide a central ecosystem in the lab that connects people, processes, devices, and environmental data, comparable to the concept of smart home. Laboratory 4.0 enables laboratory employees to organize their lab and allows users to combine products from different vendors to create their personal laboratory infrastructure. Contrary to the field of smart home, to our knowledge, there is no study investigating the laboratory employees’ acceptance and intention to use the technology of laboratory 4.0. Therefore, this study aims to examine the factors which influence the acceptance of laboratory 4.0 of potential users by applying the technology acceptance model (TAM) adopted from smart home. Partial least squares-structural equation modeling (PLSSEM) was used to describe the TAM and extended by trust and perceived risk, which pose potentially important factors for users in the sensitive field of laboratory data. The results revealed that users’ attitude toward laboratory 4.0 is heavily affected by users’ perceived usefulness which, in turn, impacts the intention to use laboratory 4.0. By determining the total effects, perceived usefulness is the most important factor influencing attitude toward and intention to use laboratory 4.0. In comparison to smart home, attitude toward use and perceived usefulness seem especially important in the context of laboratory 4.0 and appear to play a decisive role regarding the establishment of this infrastructure. The current study can serve as a foundation for future research on improving laboratory 4.0 systems by considering the relevance of influencing factors on user acceptance.