Why does the chapter argue that an extended UTAUT model is more appropriate than the original for studying job seekers' acceptance of AI-enabled recruitment systems?

The chapter argues that the original UTAUT, though high in explanatory power, does not capture the full complexity of AI-enabled recruitment because recruitment is emotionally charged, high-stakes, and involves opaque algorithms. Extending UTAUT with perceived trust and technology intricacy brings in psychological and cognitive dimensions that functional constructs alone miss, yielding a more comprehensive and precise model for this context.

The chapter acknowledges that the original UTAUT model has strong explanatory capacity (up to 70% of variance in adoption intention) and four core constructs: performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence, and facilitating conditions. However, it argues that prior research shows adding external constructs increases the model's precision in explaining technology adoption. Recruitment is unlike conventional technology-use contexts: it entails emotional investment, personal risk, and fragility. AI-enabled recruitment systems also behave like a 'black box,' making users unable to understand decision-making, which can trigger apprehension and feelings of losing control. A narrow functional-centric view relying only on perceived usefulness or ease of use would therefore give an incomplete explanation of acceptance. To address these gaps, the study extends UTAUT by adding perceived trust and technology intricacy. Perceived trust captures dependability, fairness, openness, and ethical application, acting as a high-order psychological determinant that influences both user desirability and performance evaluation. Technology intricacy reflects the psychological cost of dealing with perceived complexity beyond mere operational effort. This extended model integrates social, technological, emotional, and infrastructural dimensions, and it explains a substantial portion (R² = 0.613) of user desirability toward AI recruitment systems. The chapter concludes that incorporating trust as a formal predictor and distinguishing complexity from effort strengthens UTAUT's psychological foundations, making the extended version more appropriate than the original for studying job seekers' acceptance in this context.