Would you share? Predicting the potential use of a new technology

In this paper, we describe the case of wireless grids, an emerging technology that enables ad hoc sharing of resources (such as screen, signal and microphone) on edge devices (such as PDA’s, laptops and mobile phones). We look at the circumstances under which people are willing to share the resources on their edge devices using a technology with which they are not yet familiar. We collected data among students from a University in the North-Eastern USA (N = 284) through a policy capturing design (also known as factorial design or conjoint measurement), and analyzed the information via multilevel regression analysis. This approach allowed us to explore factors that explain the use of emerging peer-to-peer technologies among consumers as well as context-related characteristics. Context-related characteristics, in particular trust in communication partners, explain the willingness to share and, consequently, the use of wireless grids.