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Innovation diffusion theory provides a useful perspective on one of the most persistently challenging topics in the IT field, namely, how to improve technology assessment, adoption and implementation. For this reason, diffusion is growing in popularity as a reference theory for empirical studies of information technology adoption and diffusion, although no comprehensive review of this body of work has been published to date. This paper presents the results of a critical review of eighteen empirical studies published during the period 1981-1991. Conclusive results were most likely when the adoption context closely matched the contexts in which classical diffusion theory was developed (for example, individual adoption of personal-use technologies) or when researchers extended diffusion theory to account for new factors specific to the IT adoption context under study. Based on classical diffusion theory and other recent conceptual work, a framework is developed to guide future research in IT diffusion. The framework maps two classes of technology (ones that conform closely to classical diffusion assumptions versus ones that do no0 against locus of adoption (individual versus organizational), resulting in four IT adoption contexts. For each adoption context, variables impacting adoption and diffusion are identified. Additionally, directions for future research are discussed. 1.

This paper describes the impact of Critical Success Factors (CSFs) across the stages of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) implementations using the responses from 86 organizations that completed or are in the process of completing an ERP implementation. Our results provide advice to management on how best to utilize their limited resources to choose those CSFs that are most likely to have an impact upon the implementation of the ERP system.

Introduction The task of deciding when and how to innovate is not an easy one. Consider the following managerial quandaries: . A CIO has joined a firm that lags in the adoption of emerging information technologies. He wonders: just how innovative should this firm be going forward, and what can be done to position it to be more willing and able to assume the challenge of early adoption? . A VP of marketing resides in a firm that generally leads in IT innovation, and must decide whether to endorse the immediate adoption of a particular innovation with major implications for marketing strategy. She wonders: are her firm's needs in this area and "readiness" to adopt sufficient to justify taking the lead with this specific innovation? If so, how should the assimilation process be managed? . A product manager must design a deployment strategy for an innovative software development tool. He wonders: how fast can this technology diffu

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Although organizational innovation with information technology is often carefully considered, bandwagon phenomena indicate that much innovative behavior may nevertheless be of the “me too” variety. In this essay, we explore such differences in innovative behavior. Adopting a perspective that is both institutional and cognitive, we introduce the notion of mindful innovation with IT. A mindful firm attends to an IT innovation with reasoning 1 Jane Webster was the accepting senior editor for this paper. Swanson & Ramiller/Innovating Mindfully with IT RESEARCH ARTICLE grounded in its own organizational facts and specifics. We contrast this with mindless innovation, where a firm’s actions betray an absence of such attention and grounding. We develop these concepts by drawing on the recent appearance of the idea of mindfulness in the organizational literature, and adapting it for application to IT innovation. We then bring mindfulness and mindlessness together in a larger theoretical synthesis in which these apparent opposites are seen to interact in ways that help to shape the overall landscape of opportunity for organizational innovation with IT. We conclude by suggesting several promising new research directions.

Research at the University of Texas at Austin for financial support. Prabhudev Konana

There is a rich stream of research that studies technology adoption by individuals and organizations (Rogers, 1962; Tornatzky and Fleischer, 1990; Cooper & Zmud, 1990).

EDI has become a popular area for academic research since the late 1980's. Yet most of the studies which have been undertaken have tended to focus either on the strategic planning and requirements elicitation for EDI, which take place before the system is implemented, or have been concerned with issues such as the integration of EDI into internal applications. In this paper we look at the implementation of EDI in a broader way, considering the implementation process in terms of both a `change process' as well as technological diffusion and taking into account the factors influencing that process. We suggest that a model based on this view will describe the implementation process in the real world and allow the creation of a more comprehensive picture of the events which take place during the implementation process. 1. INTRODUCTION Electronic Commerce (EC) has changed the way organisations perform their activities and Electronic Data Interchange (EDI), which is a part of EC, is crucia...

The extent of organizational innovation with IT, an important construct in the IT innovation literature, has been measured in many different ways. Some measures are more narrowly focused while others aggregate innovative behaviors across a set of innovations or across stages in the assimilation lifecycle within organizations. There appear to be some significant tradeoffs involving aggregation. More aggregated measures can be more robust and generalizable and can promote stronger predictive validity, while less aggregated measures allow more context-specific investigations and can preserve clearer theoretical interpretations. This article begins with a conceptual analysis that identifies the circumstances when these tradeoffs are most likely to favor aggregated measures. It is found that aggregation should be favorable when: (1) the researcher's interest is in general innovation or a model that generalizes to a class of innovations, (2) antecedents have effects in the same direction in all assimilation stages, (3) characteristics of organizations can be treated as constant across the innovations in the study, (4) characteristics of innovations can not be treated as constant across organizations in the study, (5) the set of innovations being aggregated includes substitutes or moderate complements, and (6) sources of noise in the measurement of innovation may be present. The article then presents an empirical study using data on the adoption of software process technologies by 608 US based corporations. This study—which had circumstances quite favorable to aggregation—found that aggregating across three innovations within a technology class more than doubled the variance explained compared to single innovation models. Aggregating across assimilation stages had a slight positive effect on predictive validity. Taken together, these results provide initial confirmation of the conclusions from the conceptual analysis regarding the circumstances favoring aggregation.