IT Diffusion Research Articles

Rethinking Why and How Organizations Acquire Information Technologies, Part 2

The purpose of this essay is to examine how a comfortable paradigm for explaining the spread of a major technology began cracking, shaken by new findings. I do this by, first, summarizing familiar explanations for the diffusion of computing, as much recently historical research still depends on it. Then I describe problems-cracks-appearing in these assumptions, followed by a proposed modification of how to view IT's diffusion the why and how an an update more in line with current historiography. The conclusion of this essay identifies implications for research on other technologies, especially those that emerged during the Second Industrial Revolution still unfolding, many of which are morphing into quasi-computers themselves.

ICT Literacy Competence of Staff members of Colleges of Education in Kano State, Nigeria

This research is financed by Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFUND), Nigeria Abstract The role ICT in effective teaching and learning activities in tertiary educational institutions across the globe is sine qua none. However, the use of ICT by individuals is dependent on ICT literacy/competence level. Therefore, this study examined the ICT competence level of staff members in colleges of education in Kano state of Nigeria. A cross-sectional form of descriptive survey design was adopted. Though the population of this study was 2,815 comprising 1,131 and 1,684 academic and non-academic staff respectively a sample of 250 was used . A combination of simple random and stratified random sampling techniques was used to select sample for this study and data was collected through a self-completion structured questionnaire. Student-test statistic was used to test the main alternate hypothesis of the study at 95 per cent confidence level. Generally, data analysis revealed that staff members have high level of ICT competence level in word/data processing, sending/receiving e-messages, sourcing research materials and disseminating information . Staff members have very weak ICT competence level in graphic design, architectural drawings, composing music, processing staff payroll, among others . Significant difference exists between the ICT competence levels of academic and non-teaching (administrative staff). It was recommended, among others, that technological friendly environment should be created and sustained by school administrators. Employees’ basic technology needs must be met and sufficient support provided for academics and non-academics to feel comfortable with using technology in their daily official work. Keywords: ICT competence, educational institutions, staff members, adoption, IT diffusion, innovations DOI : 10.7176/IKM/9-2-08

Opening the envelope of health care information systems research

In 2004, Chiasson and Davidson published a challenge to the scholarly Information Systems (IS) field to embrace health information systems research more fully within its mainstream research interests. In the ensuing 14 years, health care research has become an acknowledged specialization within the IS field. In this review article, we examine how health care research publications have developed within the IS field's leading journals since 2004 and explore the analytical and technological areas of focus within these publications. In addition to providing a descriptive overview of such research, we also examine three topical clusters in-depth (health IT adoption and diffusion, physician resistance to health IT use, and health IT impact on health care or system outcomes) to consider how researchers have addressed the challenge of developing general IS knowledge within this distinctive research context while also contributing contextually-relevant insights to the health care field. Finally, we discuss the implications of these analyses and suggest potential areas for future research. Overall, we contribute a foundation for IS health care researchers to consider how to position their work to contribute to knowledge through informational and organizational theory as well as to address important concerns of practice at the intersection of health and IS.

From Placebo to Panacea: Studying the Diffusion of IT Management Techniques with Ambiguous Efficiencies: The Case of Capability Maturity Model

In light of the inherent shortcomings of single-perspective approaches in IT diffusion research, in this paper, we develop a multi-perspective framework for studying the diffusion of IT management techniques. The framework is then applied to explain the diffusion of capability maturity model (CMM). This research contributes to information systems theory by (a) illustrating how several different theoretical perspectives (i.e., forced-selection, efficient choice, fashion, and fad) can be used to explain an IT management innovation diffusion; (b) identifying the specific limitations of each perspective; and (c) demonstrating how these perspectives can be reconciled and yield a holistic understanding of the diffusion trajectory. Building on 20+ years of CMM research, the propositions of this paper shed more light on the underlying dynamics driving the adoption decision among software vendors, and will inform IS scholars and practitioners about the types of actions that can foster the dissemination of emerging IT management techniques.

IT Diffusion, Implementation and Assimilation in Micro-Businesses – an Exploratory Study Based on a Process Approach

An important limitation of the management information systems (MIS) literature concerns the lack of a process model to understand how a system is assimilated by the organization. We seek to contribute to this topic through studying ERP adoption in two Chilean restaurants. In this paper is proposed that adoption occurs as a process composed of four stages and, therefore, it is presented findings from three of them. We used action-research (AR) as a methodological framework. Two AR cycles were performed in each case. Qualitative data was collected from the field through video recording, interviews, observation and social network analysis. Analysis data was analyzed by comparing results within-cases and between-cases. Three conclusions were reached: (1) during the implementation, a user-system negotiation cycle occurs; (2) after assimilating, the system must be constantly confirmed, otherwise can be abandoned; (3) speed of assimilation by group users depends of degree of influence in the social group of early adopters. Interestingly, an innovative micro-business owner could become a barrier to successful assimilation of a system. Findings introduce a dissenting view to most studies that have found that involvement of management is always beneficial to the success of a technology project. Our findings show involvement of owner impacts a successful adoption, but this impact is not because that person is the owner, but because of their degree of influence on the social group. Conclusions of this study will be of interest to micro, small and medium-business owners because it shows the value of social structure of the organization as a determinant of the success of a technological project.

Rival precedence and open platform adoption: An empirical analysis

Herding in open platform adoption decisions appears to prevail even when the systems adopted represent high risks with enterprise-wide impact. We present a model of organizational open platform adoption that integrates six different theoretical mechanisms based on a technology-organization-environment framework that drives herding: network effect benefits, new platform benefits, new platform risk, organizational learning, mimetic pressures, and competitive pressures. To find which mechanisms work significantly in organizational IT decision-making in accordance with IT diffusion and rival precedence, we empirically test the model by splitting the samples according to the proportion of rivals that have already adopted innovations. The empirical results demonstrate that among the six herding mechanisms, new platform risk and organizational learning drives herding in the earlier stage of diffusion and new platform benefits and competitive pressure drives herding in the later stage of diffusion. The results imply that organizations react conservatively to new platforms when they perceive less platform diffusion. However, as diffusion increases, organizations react more strategically to maintain competitive parity with rivals by imitating rival decisions.

Technology diffusion: Shift happens — The case of iOS and Android handsets

The diffusion of technology artifacts is often marked by abrupt events and incremental evolutionary moves, resulting in shifts in diffusion parameters as well as the underlying mechanics. In this paper, we model the diffusion of Android and iOS based handsets, where new models and operating system versions are released periodically. We relax a common assumption in IT diffusion studies, of holding diffusion parameters constant, and find that there are clear breaks in their values at specific points in time. Using the system dynamics methodology, we then develop and calibrate a causal model of the underlying mechanics. Significant events during evolution of the two platforms are matched temporally with the observed breaks, and the changing mechanics of diffusion across the breakpoints are identified using this causal structure. We find that iOS and Android handset diffusion patterns, although superficially similar, were driven by different mechanics. Our study contributes to the IT diffusion literature by (i) establishing the need to test for, and model, shifts in diffusion parameters over the horizon of interest (ii) offering a method to identify changes in diffusion mechanisms accompanying these shifts and (iii) demonstrating that similar temporal diffusion patterns need not imply similar underlying mechanics.

Technology Evaluation and Imitation: Do They Have Differential or Dichotomous Effects on ERP Adoption and Assimilation in China?

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) software is a platform for innovation with high failure rates due to its complexity. In China, failure rates of ERP are also high, with key differences between China and Western countries in terms of development, cultural, and organizational structure. Even when Chinese firms successfully adopt ERP, many fail to assimilate ERP and consequently never experience the full benefits of the innovation. The purpose of this study is to examine the predictors of adoption versus assimilation in Chinese firms. The existing literature largely assumes a dichotomy of choices when implementing organizational innovations in business: technological evaluation and imitation. We argue that this dichotomy does not apply well to a Chinese ERP context. China has achieved tremendous success in manufacturing and industrial processes through technological leapfrogging offered by imitation. At the same time, Chinese firms are under increasing pressure to innovate. Therefore, we argue that forces of imitation and evaluation are likely both at play when Chinese firms adopt and assimilate innovations—including ERP. Accordingly, we examined how two behaviors, interorganizational social technology imitation and rational technology evaluation, influence Chinese organizations in adopting and assimilating ERP systems. Our findings suggest that both social technology imitation and rational technology evaluation are determinants of Chinese ERP adoption and assimilation. Hence, this study offers new ways for IT and innovation researchers to explore social behavior (i.e., imitation) in IT diffusion processes and to consider the merits or risks of such behavior alongside the conventional rational approach (i.e., evaluation).

Understanding the Development of Trust: Comparing Trust in the IT Artifact and Trust in the Provid

The importance of trust has been shown in numerous studies in the IS discipline, including but not limited to IT adoption and diffusion. Although researchers agree that trust is not only relevant for one-time interactions, but that trust develops gradually during an interaction and needs to be maintained over time, most studies rely on research designs that only capture a cross-sectional snapshot of trust development. We aim to address this gap in the trust literature by conducting a five-wave longitudinal field study to investigate how trust in a new IT artifact – a new student information system – and trust in the provider of the system emerges. The results of our latent growth modeling analysis indicate that trust in a new IT artifact develops as follows. First, the users confirm whether their level of initial trust was correct and adapt their level of trust accordingly. Next, the users start to build trust, resembled by a linear growth in trust. Finally, trust stops to increase and remains stable. Furthermore, this development does not vary comparing new and experienced users. For trust in the provider, the results differ between new versus experienced users. New users also confirm whether their level of initial trust was correct and adapt their level of trust in the provider accordingly. Next, new users start building trust, but the trust-building process is characterized by a quadratic growth. In contrast, for experienced users, we observed a constant linear growth throughout the study. Based on our results, a sixth stage called confirmation of initial trust should be added into the trust lifecycle in between the stages of initial trust building and trust building.

IT‐Based Technical Change and Job Instability

AbstractWe investigate the impact of IT diffusion on the stability of employment. We document the evolution of different components of job instability over a panel of 348 cities in France, from the mid‐1970s to the early 2000s. The evidence goes against the view that the diffusion of IT has spurred job instability. Yet, analysing long‐term differences in the occupational structure, we find that IT diffusion has increased the share of high‐skill occupations at the expense of low‐skill occupations. This is consistent with French firms' reliance on their internal labour market to meet the new skill requirements associated with IT diffusion.

THE INFLUENCE OF CHANGE AGENTS ON INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY DIFFUSION IN FIRMS

The role of change agents in technological diffusion and innovation at firm level has been addressed in published literature mostly within the context of the developed countries. However, the involvement of change agents in the diffusion and adoption of IT-based innovations by small and medium-sized firms in the developing countries is largely unexplored. The main research questions are why and how management decisions to adopt and use IT are influenced (if any) by the interactions of key people in firms with several identified change agents. Case studies are used as the preferred approach to answer the research questions and to understand the qualitative aspects of IT diffusion at the level of the firm. The study concludes that IT diffusion in small and medium-sized firms expose mixed institutional influences. The mechanism by which change agents are involved in IT diffusion is also unique and is claimed to be different from that is generally found in other studies in this area. Some policy implications are proposed by this study.

Innovation Through BYOD?

Leveraging the IT innovation capabilities of employees is becoming increasingly feasible in the era of IT consumerization. Consumer IT tools, in form of tablets, smartphones, or social media, are entering organizations and are changing the way employees use technology for work. In this article, the authors decipher the term IT consumerization in more detail by providing a framework that illustrates the various perspectives of the phenomenon. They then apply the various perspectives in order to propose an IT consumerization framework that juxtaposes consumer IT with enterprise IT in its ability to lead to individual IT innovation behaviors. Using data from 486 European employees that work for large-sized companies, they are able to infer that consumer IT and the permission to use privately owned IT exert positive effects on employees’ innovation behaviors. An examination of the various perspectives supports the assumption of science and practice that BYOD strategies and the diffusion of consumer IT within organizations are beneficial for innovation. The results provide a first step in theorizing about the innovative power of IT consumerization.

Analysing the diffusion and adoption of mobile IT across social worlds.

The diffusion and adoption of information technology innovations (e.g. mobile information technology) in healthcare organizations involves a dynamic process of change with multiple stakeholders with competing interests, varying commitments, and conflicting values. Nevertheless, the extant literature on mobile information technology diffusion and adoption has predominantly focused on organizations and individuals as the unit of analysis, with little emphasis on the environment in which healthcare organizations are embedded. We propose the social worlds approach as a promising theoretical lens for dealing with this limitation together with reports from a case study of a mobile information technology innovation in elderly home care in Denmark including both the sociopolitical and organizational levels in the analysis. Using the notions of social worlds, trajectories, and boundary objects enables us to show how mobile information technology innovation in Danish home care can facilitate negotiation and collaboration across different social worlds in one setting while becoming a source of tension and conflicts in others. The trajectory of mobile information technology adoption was shaped by influential stakeholders in the Danish home care sector. Boundary objects across multiple social worlds legitimized the adoption, but the use arrangement afforded by the new technology interfered with important aspects of home care practices, creating resistance among the healthcare personnel.

A Rhetorical Approach to IT Diffusion: Reconceptualizing the Ideology-Framing Relationship in Computerization Movements

In this paper we propose rhetoric as a valuable yet underdeveloped alternative paradigm for examining IT diffusion. Building on recent developments of computerization movements theory, our rhetorical approach proposes that two central elements of the the

The Diffusion of IT in the Historical Context of Innovations from Developed Countries

The well-known s-shaped diffusion of technology curve generally works well in developed countries. But how does it perform in the very different context of developing countries? Across a wide range of new technologies imported from the developed countries it works poorly. In most cases the penetration rate fails to reach 25% of the population. The reason for this as I see it has to do with the concentration of innovations in the rich countries and the devotion of R&D to rich rather than poor country problems. I redrew the s-shaped curve to reflect these facts. At the other extreme, however, are technologies such as the mobile phone, which have reached a penetration rate in some developing countries that is higher than in certain developed countries. The underlying reason for this unusual experience is thought to be leapfrogging, the conditions for which are especially favourable in the case of mobile phones. Therefore there is a need to redraw the curve that explains the diffusion of most new technologies in developing countries.

Post-Acceptance Intentions and Behaviors

Due to its extensive use for the study of information technology adoption and use, the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) serves as an ideal base model for the study of post-acceptance IT diffusion outcomes. The research presented in this paper incrementally builds on TAM-based research to gain meaningful insights into the potential differences individuals’ exhibit in three types of diffusion outcomes in a post-acceptance context. The authors model and test the effects of perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use on intentions to use, intentions to explore, and trying to innovate – IT diffusion outcomes proposed as vital in a post-acceptance context. In addition to TAM predictive variables, the authors investigate how autonomy, a personal control factor, and subjective norms, a social factor, influence individuals’ intentions toward and behaviors associated with technology use. The findings suggest cognitive intention outcomes are more likely to be influenced by technology-related factors, while behavioral outcomes are more likely to be influenced by social and personal control factors in post-acceptance contexts. Implications of the study for practice and future research are also discussed.

Skilled Labor Supply, It-Based Technical Change and Job Instability

In this paper, we provide empirical evidence on the impact of IT diffusion on the stability of employment relationships. We document the evolution of the different components of job instability over a panel of 350 local labor markets in France, from the mid 1970s to the early 2000s. Although workers in more educated local labor markets adopt IT faster, they do not experience any increase in job instability. More specifically, we find no evidence that the faster diffusion of IT is associated with any change in job-to-job transitions, and we find that it is associated with relatively less frequent transitions through unemployment. Overall, the evidence goes against the view that the diffusion of IT has spurred job instability. Combining the local labor market variations with firm data, we argue that these findings can be explained by French firms' strong reliance on training and internal promotion strategies in order to meet the new skills requirement associated with IT diffusion.

Adoção da tecnologia da informação em organizações rurais: o caso da pecuária de corte

O objetivo desse trabalho foi estudar o uso e a difusão da TI na pecuária de corte, a partir de fatores que influenciaram a adoção; e descrever recursos, procedimentos e ações necessárias para seu funcionamento. A pesquisa foi realizada em duas fases: uma quantitativa e outra qualitativa. Na primeira, foi realizado um levantamento do tipo survey com produtores, buscando informações acerca das diferentes tecnologias adotadas e das atitudes em relação a elas, possibilitando identificar o grau de inovatividade dos produtores e agrupá-los pela semelhança da postura tecnológica. A segunda analisou experiências, opiniões e perspectivas a respeito da tecnologia integrada ao sistema produtivo de duas propriedades em cada categoria, totalizando dez estudos de caso, a partir de entrevistas pessoais. Os resultados proporcionaram entendimento sobre os motivos da adoção ou rejeição de uma determinada TI, permitindo identificar as razões para alguns produtores adotarem mais rapidamente que outros. Foi possível entender as alterações ocorridas na organização rural por ocasião da implantação dessas tecnologias, observando-se um avanço nas práticas gerenciais a partir da adoção e uso da TI. De um modo geral, os processos foram aprimorados e facilitados, com reflexos positivos em várias áreas da propriedade, incluindo recursos humanos e a imagem do empreendimento no mercado.

The Diffusion of Information Technology and the Increased Propensity of Teams to Transcend Institutional and National Borders

This study examines the relationship between the diffusion of IT and changes in collaboration patterns across institutional and national borders. To undertake the research, the authors match an explicit measure of institutional IT adoption (domain names, e.g. www.umsl.edu) with institutional data on all published papers indexed by ISI for over 1,200 U.S. four-year colleges, universities and medical schools for the years 1991-2007. The publication data examined cover the social sciences and natural sciences and narrower fields such as economics and biology. Two measures of institutional collaboration are examined: (1) percent of papers produced by a U.S. institution with one or more co-authors at another U.S. institution (US-US); and (2) percent of papers produced by a U.S. institution with one or more non-U.S. coauthors (US-INTL). We first describe collaboration patterns across universities and then use regression analysis to examine the impact of IT exposure on multi-institution collaboration. IT exposure is measured by the number of years elapsed since an institution’s adoption of a domain name. Results indicate dramatic growth in the percentage of both US-US and US-INTL collaborations, as well as important differences by field. The study provides modest evidence that length of IT exposure has had a positive and significant effect on both US-US and US-INTL collaborations.

Back to the future of IT adoption and evaluation in healthcare

This is a time of expansion, hope and change in the area of Health Information Technology (HIT). In this study, we provide an in-depth perspective into the adoption and diffusion of IT in healthcare based on a review of the current literature and upon expert panel assessments of adoption and diffusion issues, achievements to date, challenges facing key e-health technologies and future possibilities. These data are synthesised in the form of a research framework showing the main three areas of e-health (Electronic Medical Records, Clinical and Administrative systems and Telehealth) on three levels (individual, organisation and system). Current adoption and diffusion challenges and future possibilities are systematically presented via this research framework to inspire practice and research with both an individual and collective view of the key health systems currently confronting the healthcare sector.