Digital market adoption by underserved MSMEs in developing countries: Mediation and moderation by self-efficacy and trust

• Novel Technology, Organization and Environment (TOE) extension: self-efficacy and trust for MSMEs digital adoption. • Self-efficacy mediates anxiety & facilitating conditions for MSME digital adoption. • Trust moderates TOE factors for MSME digital adoption. • Trust boosts model R-square to 76 % for MSME digital adoption (PLS-SEM). • PLS-SEM study: Underserved MSME adoption in developing country of West Papua, Indonesia. This study addresses the critical yet fragmented understanding of digital market adoption among underserved MSMEs in developing countries. Despite increasing technology access, these vulnerable communities face significant adoption barriers beyond infrastructure availability. Extending the Technology-Organization-Environment (TOE) framework with individual-level factors, this research investigates the key drivers of digital market adoption intention in this context. Analysing data from 151 underserved MSMEs through partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM), the study reveals three key contributions. First, self-efficacy exhibits dual mediating roles: it fully mediates the relationship between facilitating conditions and adoption intention and competitively mediates the relationship between technology anxiety and adoption intention, suggesting that while confidence mitigates anxiety’s negative influence, anxiety can paradoxically drive “desperation adoption” under survival pressures. Second, trust acts as both an enabler and a moderator, influencing the effects of technology anxiety, organizational size, and competitive pressure on adoption. Third, these mediation and moderation mechanisms collectively enhance the model’s explanatory power (R² = 0.76), demonstrating that psychological readiness determines how MSMEs interpret and act upon external supports. The findings underscore that digital adoption in underserved contexts requires interventions that build self-efficacy, foster trust, and align infrastructural investment with psychological empowerment to achieve inclusive digital transformation for underserved MSMEs.