An exploratory study of alignment issues of IT acceptance with professionals in a project setting

Abstract

The information technology (IT) literature has demonstrated a link with business performance and effectiveness when IT and business objectives are aligned. However, project settings and joint-venture projects in particular, challenge the way alignment has been conceptualized, exposing other sources of alignment. Projects require a quick diffusion of IT to many different stakeholders with different individual and group interests representing many professions with different professional affiliations. Coordinating the diverse groups of individual expertise that often have short stays and weak allegiance to the project is quite difficult. These factors lead to many types of incentive problems in learning and using new IT necessary for project success. This potentially leads to individuals rejecting or bypassing the use of mandated information technology when the individual's personal, group or professional interests do not coincide with project objectives. As a result, a joint venture project setting challenges the underlying assumptions of Diffusion of Innovation Theory and Technology Acceptance Model, thus providing an important contribution for theoretical development in the IT diffusion literature. Therefore, an important research question for IT diffusion, arising from project situations, is: How are individual professional and project incentives aligned in order to diffuse the necessary IT to achieve coordination and project success? The results of this exploratory study conclude that alignment issues affecting an individual's IT acceptance on joint venture projects originates from many unexplored sources. These five alignment issues include objectives, work output, work value, technology expectations, and peers and are required by the individual, their originating company, the project, and the owner company. Each of these alignment issues reveals different aspects of a complex negotiated order to IT diffusion.