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Who influences whom? Analyzing workplace referents' social influence on IT adoption and non-adoption

  • Research Article
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Journal of Information Technology

Abstract

Technology adoption research has long struggled to incorporate normative beliefs from sources in the social environment of adopters into adoption models. We study the role of social influence from different workplace referent groups, like superiors and colleagues from the same or the IT department, on the intention to adopt. An empirical analysis, using data from 152 firms, based on the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology and related approaches reveals that social influence on adoption significantly differs with regard to both source (peer groups) and sink (adopters and non-adopters) of the influence. The results imply that a single cumulative subjective norm measure might be too naïve and that future research might considerably improve our understanding of IT adoption and non-adoption by revealing the differential impact of various peer groups on adoption intention, and also on its antecedents.

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Notes

  1. An earlier version of this paper (‘Do as your competitors do? – Analyzing Competitors’ Influence on the Non-Adoption of Information Systems In Organizations' (Laumer et al. 2008)) was presented at the 16th European Conference on Information Systems.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre of Human Resources Information Systems, University of Frankfurt a. Main, Grueneburgplatz 1, Frankfurt a. Main, Germany

    Andreas Eckhardt

  2. Centre of Human Resources Information Systems, University of Bamberg, Feldkirchenstraße 21, Bamberg, Germany

    Sven Laumer & Tim Weitzel

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  1. Andreas Eckhardt
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Correspondence to Andreas Eckhardt.

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Eckhardt, A., Laumer, S. & Weitzel, T. Who influences whom? Analyzing workplace referents' social influence on IT adoption and non-adoption. J Inf Technol 24, 11–24 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1057/jit.2008.31

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