Technology Acceptance Research in Malaysia: A Bibliometric Analysis of Tam, Utaut and Related Frameworks

This study evaluates the evolution of technology acceptance studies in Malaysia based on bibliometrics analysis of literature on the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT), and other theories. This study used bibliometric methods and VOSviewer visualization for analyzing 751 scientific publications retrieved from Scopus database in the years 2020 to 2025. Results show that there has been an emergence in the technology acceptance research especially on the aspects of digital transformation, artificial intelligence, fintech, blockchain, health care technology, and e-government. The TAM and UTAUT theories have still maintained the dominance, while other new emerging topics suggest that more focus is being paid towards organizational readiness and digital innovation. Five key clusters were observed from the keywords co-occurrence analysis which are technology acceptance theories, user behavior and adoption intention, digital transformation and artificial intelligence, emerging technologies, and digital reporting and governance. The resulting dataset produced a total number of 11,242 citations, an average number of 14.97 citations per paper and an h-index of 48, which means that there is a significant level of scientific impact in the domain. According to geographic analysis, Malaysia, the UK, the US and Germany produce most of the citation impact. This proves high levels of national research activity as well as international interest in Malaysian technology acceptance research. One can conclude from the findings that although TAM and UTAUT remain the leading models explaining behaviour, the domain starts moving towards new models that take into consideration aspects of implementation of technology. This bibliometric analysis presents researchers with a structured view on the intellectual structure of technology acceptance research in Malaysia and points out directions in which it may evolve, such as artificial intelligence acceptance and digital governance.

Technology Acceptance, TAM, UTAUT, Bibliometric Analysis, Malaysia, Digital Transformation

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