Adoption of information and communication technology: Impact of technology types, organization resources and management style

The aim of this paper is to find out: why some organizations adopt ICT later than the others, and whether organizations have different adoption strategies based on the type of ICT.

This paper is an empirical study of the ICT diffusion process between the early and late adopters of relational database and local area network.

The results of the study indicate that there are significant differences between early and late adoption organizations with regard to management characteristics such as the age and interests of the CEO and CIO, and also the adoption process such as the evaluation period and initiation time. However, no significant differences were found in organization resource or corporate strategy factors. Furthermore, the results of the study indicate that there are significant differences in organizational characteristics such as sales volume, organization slack and rewards between the two types of ICT.

The sample size is relatively small. Replication of this study with additional organizations in the sample will allow stronger validation of diffusion theory.

It is believed that the results of the study will provide useful guidelines in strategy development for managing ICT diffusion by organizations and IT vendors.