An empirical analysis of collective actions in university anchored community wireless networks

The emergence of wireless devices and the ease in setting up wireless devices has created opportunities for various entities, and in particular to universities, by partnering with their local communities in the form of a university anchored community wireless network. This provides opportunities for students to be part of the community-based initiatives, and universities can use the network as a source to fund some of its research. The main issue with university anchored community wireless is not technical but social in that student involvement is crucial and their contributions are necessary. This research employed empirical research methods on participants to understand the factors that influence the student participation and its significance on the collective actions. This involved analyzing five distinctive elements that were essential in understanding the collective actions, namely behavioral intention, attitude towards technology, facilitating conditions, impediments, and student participation. The research results revealed that the students expressed interest in participation, facilitating conditions, followed by attitude towards technology, then behavioral intention as the most important factors, whereas impediments was statistically insignificant for them. The research results also revealed that the majority of the participants were interested in being part of the community wireless networks and almost all the participants expressed their intention to contribute to the success of this initiative.