This study empirically analyzes the factors influencing the acceptance and use behavior of blockchain technology in welfare benefit administration. Specifically, it examines how public officials and welfare recipients perceive blockchain technology in...
This study empirically analyzes the factors influencing the acceptance and use behavior of blockchain technology in welfare benefit administration. Specifically, it examines how public officials and welfare recipients perceive blockchain technology in the public welfare sector and verifies the relationship between behavioral intention and actual use behavior. The research model is based on the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT). Among the four core UTAUT factors, performance expectancy and effort expectancy were retained, while social influence and facilitating conditions were excluded in light of the contextual characteristics of early-stage blockchain adoption in public welfare administration. In addition, three domain-specific factors—policy support, security perception, and personal innovativeness—were incorporated as extended variables, resulting in a model with five independent variables. Data were collected from 320 respondents, consisting of public officials and welfare recipients from local governments in Korea, and user type was examined as a moderating variable. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was applied for hypothesis testing. The results indicated that, among the five independent variables, effort expectancy, policy support, and personal innovativeness significantly and positively affected behavioral intention, whereas performance expectancy and security perception had no statistically significant effect. Behavioral intention, in turn, positively influenced actual use behavior. In addition, policy support directly affected use behavior, and personal innovativeness exhibited a suppression effect—negatively influencing use behavior while positively influencing it indirectly through behavioral intention. A multi-group comparison further revealed that the effects of effort expectancy and personal innovativeness on behavioral intention were stronger among public officials, whereas the effect of policy support was stronger among welfare recipients; the path from behavioral intention to use behavior was also significantly stronger for public officials. These findings suggest that technology acceptance in public welfare administration operates differently from that in the private sector, and that user-tailored adoption strategies—emphasizing usability and innovation for public officials and institutional and policy support for recipients—are needed for the successful implementation of blockchain-based welfare administration.