¹Leeds School of Business, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, USA

Correspondence: Dirk S. Hovorka, Leeds School of Business, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309 USA. Tel: +1 303 492 1175; Fax: +1 303 492 5962; E-mail: Dirk.Hovorka@Colorado.edu

Received 18 May 2005; Revised 19 June 2005; Accepted 9 January 2006.

Abstract

As distributed organizations increasingly rely on technological innovations to enhance organizational efficiency and competitiveness, interest in agile practices that enable adoption of information technology (IT) based innovations has grown. This study examines the influence of a network organization environment on the ability to develop agile adoption practices. An exploratory case study design was used to investigate the interactions between network structure, social information processing, organizational similarity (homophily), and absorptive capacity during the adoption of a large-scale IT system in two network organization environments within New York State. The data suggest that network organization characteristics and communication processes that reinforced social influence and supported knowledge transfer positively influenced adoption agility. We propose a model of agile adoption practices and discuss implications for the development of theory about network organization characteristics and capabilities to adopt IT-based innovations.