Developing a human-organization-technology fit model for information technology adoption in organizations

Abstract

Some information technologies (ITs) are better adopted than others and even the same IT may be adopted differently even in similar organizations. Existing old-fashioned theories which focused on one or several of technical, managerial, personnel factors cannot fully explain the phenomenon. This paper proposes human-organization-technology (HOT) fit as an overarching concept to explain the IT adoption heterogeneity in organizational technology management. The HOT fit model includes the characteristics and bi-party relationships of the human, organization, and technology dimensions. The model can be further used to holistically evaluate the HOT fit, diagnose the HOT configuration, and strategize organization adaptation directions iteratively. It provides a genuine theoretical perspective to investigate IT adoption in society.