New theories and methods for technology adoption research

Abstract

This special issue includes six articles on different aspects of technology adoption that represent the development and application of different theoretical and methodological approaches to the business problems that they treat. In terms of theory, three of the articles use behavioral and organizational theories, including adaptive structuration theory, management fashion theory, the unified theory of technology acceptance, the technology acceptance model, and diffusion of innovation theory. The other two are based on economic theory, including network effects theory, and economic growth theory. The methods used are also dramatically different in each of the studies. Three studies use field research and survey methods that are common in organizational and behavioral research designs. The authors of these studies are: Sinclaire and Vogus; Park, Lee and Yi; and Hester. Techatassanasoontorn and Suo’s study, in contrast, uses agent-based computational simulation and network modeling to produce its results. Westland’s article discusses affective information technologies for data acquisition in survey research, and employs a detailed historical overview of the literature, along with survey methods and data analysis to illustrate its application. Finally, the study by Ho, Kauffman and Liang uses panel data econometrics and a variety of refinements that permit the triangulation of evidence based on the assumption of somewhat different modeling relationships. Taken together, the contents reflect some of the current advances that are occurring in the literature with respect to theory and methods for technology adoption research that we hope to showcase in this special issue. The special issue opens with a piece by Jollean Sinclaire and Clinton E. Vogus on ‘‘Adoption of Social Networking Sites: An Exploratory Adaptive Structuration Perspective for Global Organizations.’’ Since social media have become popular with Internet users around the world, global businesses have also recognized their potential importance as a means to be in touch with their customers and the marketplace overall. The theoretical focus of this research involves the dual use of management fashion theory and adaptive structuration theory in order to show the variety of beneficial uses to which organizations are applying social media. Their research is survey-based, and includes interviews with middle to senior managers in a total of 72 large firms that have global operations. In addition to reporting the empirical regularities of social media use, the authors also characterize the different purposes that the organizations have for investing in social media. For example, they report passive versus active applications, proactive versus reactive implementations, and tactical versus strategic uses. The authors also suggest that adaptive structuration theory enables them to interpret the use of social media in global organizations in terms of the low levels of restrictiveness and sophistication, crossed with the open nature of the social media environment on the Internet, to draw conclusions about the basis for further technological innovations with social media, as well as related changes in the way that organizations operate and structure themselves in relation to these technological innovations. Although their study is exploratory and early in its cycle of development, it nevertheless offers a useful perspective on the various issues that can be pursued in follow-on research to gain a fuller understanding of the R. J. Kauffman (&) School of Information Systems, Singapore Management University, 80 Stamford Road, Singapore 198702, Singapore e-mail: rob7585@gmail.com