New theoretical perspectives on technology adoption
There is a growing recognition that the adoption and extensive diffusion of new ITs and technological innovations that support social networking are critical to support the related growth of our information rich society in a way that benefits people and organizations. Similarly important is how the emergence of new technological innovations changes the way that organizations survive and thrive in the highly competitive environment of the global economy. Another frontier for impact of new technologies is at the country level for sustainable social and economic development. Some examples include the emergence of mobile and Internet based telephony, open software systems, infrastructure and application support for digital social networks, digital entertainment services on the Internet, and more intelligent hardware based data storage systems. Their incorporation into innovative products and services has had dramatic benefits at all these different levels. The research literature on the adoption and diffusion of new technologies and innovations is voluminous and has identified numerous relevant factors associated with adoption and diffusion across multiple levels of analysis. For instance, the popular technology acceptance model has offered a parsimonious theory to explain individual level adoption and use of new innovations. Similarly, research at the organizational and interorganizational levels has been able to explain the impetus for the adoption of technological innovations based on multiple relevant perspectives. They include theories of: organizational readiness; innovation ownership and co investment considerations; the appropriation of value from contemporary versus future oriented value flows associated with technology adoption; and the acceleration and deceleration of firm level technology adoption in competitive markets. There still are many opportunities for theory development in the adoption and diffusion of new technological innovations though. Although much of the research in the Information Systems discipline up to the present has emphasized individual adoption of new technologies, a broader umbrella of research is appropriate that offers rich theory about technology adoption by accounting for the relevant technological, institutional, national and historical contexts. It is also appropriate to develop research on technology innovation and adoption that moves beyond the dominant paradigm of establishing the relationships between the independent variables of innovator profiles, and the dependent variables of innovation quantity and quality. Some of the promising opportunities for theory development involve such perspectives as contagion effects, management fashion, innovation mindfulness, technology ecosystems and innovation life cycles, innovation configurations, the evolution and impacts of standards organizations, and quality led innovation and technology adoption. Our motivation for this special issue actually the first of several for Information Technology and Management was to engage researchers from the international academic and business communities who are thought leaders and practice innovators to work collaboratively on the development of new theoretical perspectives and methods advances related to research on technology adoption. Through this effort, we were fortunate to have attracted R. J. Kauffman W. P. Carey School of Business, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287, USA e mail: rkauffman@asu.edu
Inf. Technol. Manag.