IT Diffusion Research Articles

The diffusion of IT in higher education: publishing productivity of academic life scientists

This study investigates how the diffusion of Internet access and other advancements in IT across a broad group of institutions of higher education has affected the publishing productivity of life scientists. Several IT indicators are considered: (1) the adoption of BITNET; (2) the registration of domain names (DNS); (3) the availability of the electronic journal database, JSTOR (http://www.jstor.org/), and (4) the availability of electronic library resources. Data on life scientists are from the 1983, 1995, 2001 and 2003 Survey of Doctorate Recipients (SDR). Educational institutions are classified into tiers depending upon research intensity. Three hypotheses are tested: (1) IT enhances the careers of faculty; (2) IT improves the careers of faculty at lower-tiered relative to higher-tiered institutions; and (3) IT increases women's publication rates relative to those of men. The results provide some support for the first two hypotheses but no support for the third hypothesis.

The reflexive designer – a method for sustainable IT development

An increasing diffusion of IT in almost all aspects of our daily lives in modern western societies raises questions about; how IT is done and what the effects are on social sustainability. In this paper, it is argued that we need to consider these issues during 'the becoming', instead of tackling them in retrospect and relate such a view closer to the work practices of IT designers in order to take sustainability aspects into genuine consideration. In addition, it is argued that the link in between is the elements of negotiation, that is, to acknowledge the process of defining the objectives for what is considered to be social sustainability and what is considered to be the desired result of technology development. A practical method of doing this and as such enhance IT design is put forward; reflexive design, where critical reflection and constructive action is framed as design principles.

Lightning, IT Diffusion, and Economic Growth Across U.S. States

Empirically, a higher frequency of lightning strikes is associated with slower growth in labor productivity across the 48 contiguous US states after 1990; before 1990 there is no correlation between growth and lightning. Other climate variables (e.g., temperature, rainfall and tornadoes) do not conform to this pattern. A viable explanation is that lightning influences IT diffusion. By causing voltage spikes and dips, a higher frequency of ground strikes leads to damaged digital equipment and thus higher IT user costs. Accordingly, the flash density (strikes per square km per year) should adversely affect the speed of IT diffusion. We find that lightning indeed seems to have slowed IT diffusion, conditional on standard controls. Hence, an increasing macroeconomic sensitivity to lightning may be due to the increasing importance of digital technologies for the growth process.

Lightning, IT Diffusion and Economic Growth Across US States

Empirically, a higher frequency of lightning strikes is associated with slower growth in labor productivity across the 48 contiguous US states after 1990; before 1990 there is no correlation between growth and lightning. Other climate variables (e.g., temperature, rainfall and tornadoes) do not conform to this pattern. A viable explanation is that lightning influences IT diffusion. By causing voltage spikes and dips, a higher frequency of ground strikes leads to damaged digital equipment and thus higher IT user costs. Accordingly, the flash density (strikes per square km per year) should adversely affect the speed of IT diffusion. We find that lightning indeed seems to have slowed IT diffusion, conditional on standard controls. Hence, an increasing macroeconomic sensitivity to lightning may be due to the increasing importance of digital technologies for the growth process.

The Diffusion of it in Higher Education: Publishing Productivity of Academic Life Scientists

This study investigates widening access to the Internet and other advancements in IT across institutions of higher education and how these advances have affected the publishing productivity of academic life scientists. What distinguishes this study is that institutional IT access is measured across a wide range of institutions and multiple IT indicators are considered: 1) the adoption of BITNET; 2) the registration of domain names (DNS); 3) the availability of the electronic journal database, JSTOR; and 4) the availability of electronic library resources. Data on life scientists are drawn from the 1983, 1995, 2001, and 2003 Survey of Doctorate Recipients. Universities and colleges are classified into several tiers, depending upon research intensity. Three hypotheses are tested: 1) IT enhances the careers of faculty, independent of tier; 2) IT improves the careers of faculty at lower-tiered relative to higher-tiered institutions; and 3) within tier, the IT revolution increases women's publication rates relative to their male counterparts. The study finds that the diffusion of IT in higher education follows the standard S-curve, with highertiered institutions innovating more quickly. Results regarding the impact of IT on the publishing productivity of life scientists provide some support for the first two hypotheses but no support for the third hypothesis.

From the relative to the absolute digital divide in developing countries

This paper argues that the literature on the digital divide is based heavily on relative rather than absolute magnitudes, although the latter has more welfare significance. It is clear that the former concept has been falling sharply in recent years yet such calculations have not been made for the absolute divide. One contribution of this paper is to redress this gap in the literature for both mobile phones and the Internet using a sample of more than sixty countries. The results tend to be broadly consistent with findings from the literature on the adoption and diffusion of IT in developing countries generally and Africa in particular.

Customer relationship management as advertised

PurposeThe paper aims to raise the question: how can a new information technology's (IT's) early momentum toward widespread adoption and eventual institutionalization be sustained? The purpose of the paper is to examine sustaining technological momentum as a form of institutional work and entrepreneurship not widely recognized as such.Design/methodology/approachThe paper reports a case study of Business Week's special advertising section used in 2000‐2004 to both exploit and help sustain the momentum of customer relationship management (CRM).FindingsThe study finds that the advertisement section's producers employed it over several years to recurrently produce and disseminate credible discourse advancing CRM, incorporating models for action, and providing fresh meanings to the organizing vision for this technology so as to accentuate its progress and keep it worthy of continued attention. Most significantly, acquired momentum, while problematic to sustain, can nevertheless serve as its own resource, to be continuously reinvested in the form of public discourse which must itself be kept “lively” so that momentum may be extended.Originality/valueThe paper contributes to the institutional explanation of IT diffusion by theorizing the process of sustaining technological momentum as an important institution‐building task. In particular, it illuminates the contribution of entrepreneurially produced and disseminated discourse to this process and provides an illustration and analysis of specific forms of institutional work, strategies, and tactics employed in the process. Additionally, the paper suggests that institutional work for sustaining technological momentum differs in certain respects from that needed to launch a technology so as to acquire momentum in the first place.

Implications of researcher assumptions about perceived relative advantage and compatibility

Although scale reuse is an important and efficient research practice, it may not always be the most appropriate practice. Mechanistically reusing scales developed for a particular context may lead to a variety of undesirable effects. One of the risks is that frequently reused scales can inadvertently begin to alter the definitions of related constructs. When this occurs, a full understanding of the constructs can be lost. Innovation diffusion is one area in which evidence suggests that this has occurred, specifically for relative advantage and compatibility. This article seeks to better understand the risks of mechanistic scale reuse within the information systems field, with a specific focus on the relative advantage and compatibility constructs. We review the information systems literature focusing on IT adoption and diffusion, examining the theoretical and empirical relationships between relative advantage and compatibility. Evidence from this review indicates that there may be both conceptual and empirical overlap between the two, which has led to inconsistent empirical and theoretical treatment of the constructs across studies. We also report an empirical examination of the domain coverage of the scales, which provides evidence that the scales a) exhibit a high degree of conceptual and empirical overlap and b) only represent a subset of their full conceptualization. We offer recommendations for researchers who wish to use these constructs in future work.

IT diffusion in developing countries

Policymakers need to recognize that developing economies have different drivers for IT investment than their wealthier brethren.

IT diffusion in developing countries

Policymakers need to recognize that developing economies have different drivers for IT investment than their wealthier brethren.

Editorial Introduction to the Special Issue on: Transfer and Diffusion of IT for Organizational Resilience

Editorial Introduction to the Special Issue on: Transfer and Diffusion of IT for Organizational Resilience

Dawn of E-Government – an Institutional Analysis of Seven Initiatives and Their Impact

Most countries have defined strategies for e-government. The objectives for implementing e-government are often defined but the means for fuelling the adoption and diffusion of e-government are typically less well clear in the policy statements. The present study assesses the impact of latest Danish initiative implemented to stimulate e-government adoption. The e-Day initiative simply yet powerfully states that ‘one governmental authority has the right to demand that its communication with another authority must be in electronic format’ which is expected to create ripple effects both internally and externally. The e-Day initiative represents a drastic change in the former policy statements concerning IT adoption and diffusion in Danish government. The policy statements had previously been based on voluntary adoption focusing on visions and pedagogical intervention in governmental agencies, but the e-Day initiative marked a departure from that strategy and the carrot has been exchanged by the whip, and the voice is imperative.

Assessing the UK policies for broadband adoption

Broadband technology has been introduced to the business community and the public as a rapid way of exploiting the Internet. The benefits of its use (fast reliable connections, and always on) have been widely realised and broadband diffusion is one of the items at the top of the agenda for technology related polices of governments worldwide. In this paper an examination of the impact of the UK government's polices upon broadband adoption is undertaken. Based on institutional theory a consideration of the manipulation of supply push and demand pull forces in the diffusion of broadband is offered. Using primary and secondary data sources, an analysis of the specific institutional actions related to IT diffusion as pursued by the UK government in the case of broadband is provided. Bringing the time dimension into consideration it is revealed that the UK government has shifted its attention from supply push-only strategies to more interventional ones where the demand pull forces are also mobilised. It is believed that this research will assist in the extraction of the success factors in government intervention that support the diffusion of technology with a view to render favourable results if applied to other national settings.

Launching professional services automation: Institutional entrepreneurship for information technology innovations

Why do some information technology innovations come to be adopted widely while others do not? One promising research stream has begun to investigate how institutional factors shape the diffusion of IT innovations. Here we examine how these institutional factors themselves are shaped. Specifically, we explore how interested actors termed institutional entrepreneurs develop institutional arrangements to launch an IT innovation toward widespread adoption. Undertaking a contemporary case study of a new class of enterprise software, professional services automation (PSA), we found that to launch PSA, institutional entrepreneurs sought to mobilize an organizational community by developing and recognizing leaders and facilitating members’ focus on PSA. They further struggled to legitimate PSA by developing a coherent organizing vision that incorporated compelling success stories. We tie these findings together in a model that usefully shifts the focus of IT innovation research from assessing institutional effects to understanding institution-building. This new focus suggests an alternative IT diffusion theory with several practical implications.

Das „gläserne Schlachtfeld“ als soziotechnologisches Leitbild der modernen US-amerikanischen Kriegführung

The Information Revolution has leveraged the attention which the academic discourse is paying to the impacts of information and communication technologies, although aspects of how to conceptualize these impacts theoretically are insufficient. Focusing on the role of IT during the rearmament of the US-military since the end of the Cold War a neogramscian perspective on the genesis and diffusion of IT as “political project” is outlined. IT gives a new model of warfare and contributes to the significant consent which the rearmament of the US-military has gained among US-citizens.

THE IT REVOLUTION ACROSS THE UNITED STATES

In this paper we study the geography of the IT revolution in the U.S. economy. By relating the intensity of IT production and diffusion to labor productivity growth for the United States, we find three main results. First, states with above‐average production intensity of IT manufacturing show more growth acceleration than other states. Second, the same applies to states with above‐average IT diffusion. Yet, while the result for IT‐producing states is strong, the result for IT‐using states is somewhat smaller and less robust across specifications. Third, we also reconcile our state‐wide pieces of evidence with previous industry and aggregate evidence. Accelerating productivity growth in IT‐producing states stems from both IT‐producing and IT‐using industries in those states and is not a manifestation of the exclusive importance of IT production. Moreover, the less robust evidence for IT‐using states is due to lower growth contributions from IT‐producing and other industries in these states, not a symptom of a missing effect of IT usage.

New directions in the roles and responsibilities of the HRM function

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to introduce the special issue, which brings together five papers exploring the changing anatomy of HRM at organisational level.Design/methodology/approach– This overarching paper briefly contextualises the theme and introduces the five selected empirical papers.Findings– The findings in this paper vary according to the core theme of each of the five contributions. The first paper highlights whether the mix of distributed HR activities between the HR department and internal/external agents may be understood to be less a product of contextual influences and more a matter of corporate choice. The second paper establishes that role dissonance is a very real issue for middle managers with HR responsibilities. The third paper unearths the complexities and challenges involved in changing existing HRM procedures and practices in a post‐merger scenario. The fourth paper provides an understanding of the management of human resource supply chains and outlines five, empirically derived, generic models of HR outsourcing. The final paper finds that human resource IT diffusion and take‐up is primarily fuelled by interpersonal communication and network interactions among potential adopters.Originality/value– Combined, the papers offer insights on the changing anatomy of the HRM function against the backdrop of a dynamic contemporary organisational landscape and showcase cross‐national research on the theme.

India and Information Technology: A Historical & Critical Perspective

This article uses a historical and critical perspective to analyze the growth of India's IT industry. India's quest for technology development in the pre- and post independent period of its history is analyzed. Its history, colonial past, culture, entrepreneurship climate, educational facilities and IT diffusion are all examined within this umbrella. The study uses historical data starting from the turn of the twentieth century as it tries to identify the factors and then go beyond those factors to understand the strong historical and cultural roots that have affected the gradual evolution of the IT industry in India. The study shows that India's current position is a result of almost eight decades of sustained efforts by its political leaders and intelligentsia - aided by social, cultural, and historical factors that have driven public policy - to build a strong technology-infrastructure and to achieve self- reliance.

Feature: It Diffusion and Industry and Labour‐Market Dynamics

The emergence and rapid diffusion of information and communication technology is the most radical technological transformation of the last couple of decades and has had an enormous economic impact. This bundle of four articles contains research that discusses major economic implications of the diffusion of IT. They focus on two main implications of IT: (i) networks and industry dynamics, and (ii) IT and workplace organisation. The two sets of two articles contribute both original theoretical insights and new empirical results to these themes.

Jump-Starting the Internet Revolution: How Structural Conduciveness and Global Connections Help Diffuse the Internet

The growing perception that the Internet is becoming an engine of global economic and social change has inspired both governments and intergovernmental agencies to accelerate the diffusion of the Internet around the globe via multimillion dollar programs and initiatives. Unfortunately, few empirical studies guide these initiatives. The purpose of this research is to investigate the causes that drive Internet capacity, with special emphasis on diffusion theory. Global diffusion of IT requires some degree of structural conduciveness (similarities between developed and developing countries in economic, political, and social structures) as well as contact with developed countries. In our pooled time-series models of 58 developing nations over the 1995-2000 time period, we find that both structural conduciveness (i.e., teledensity, service economies, political openness, and global urban share) and globalization (i.e., aid share, tourist share, foreign investment share, and trade share) shape the distribution and growth of Internet usage.