What explains why organizations adopt computing technologies? This is the fundamental question addressed in Computerization Movements and the Diffusion of Technological Innovations, the new book by Margaret S. Elliott and Kenneth L. Kraemer.

The management and organizational research on diffusion of technical innovations has tended to emphasize features of technology, organization, and environment that shape diffusion in response to an economic need. Environment has been conceived narrowly as constituting pressure for adoption due to firm, industry, or global competition. But several computer scientists have argued that environment needs to be conceived as a richer construct that captures more of the dynamics of diffusion within society. That is, diffusion takes place in a broad context of interacting organizations and institutions which shape visions of what the technology can do and how it should be used. Those socially constructed visions of the technology shape the perceptions of people in organizations and drive diffusion.

Innovation diffusion theory emphasizes the importance of the relationship between the features of technological innovations and the context of adopting organizations or societal groups in achieving diffusion of technology such as computers or information communication technologies (ICTs). Diffusion occurs when the innovation has reached a stage where organizations or society have adopted an innovation in practice. Sociologists and economists have theorized that diffusion in organizations is influenced by the specific context of the adopting organizations and by specific features of the technology or technological process being adopted. Examples of context might include organization size, adoption costs, technical background of potential users, or similar features. Various aspects of a technology, such as competitive advantage, return on investment, usability of the technology, or fit with work practices, might intervene in the diffusion process.

Although innovation diffusion theory is helpful in understanding the adoption and use of specific technologies in organizations, it does not address the broader societal context that influences technological diffusion, such as ideological beliefs or visions surrounding an innovation. Many groups within society, such as vendors, media, academics, visionaries, and professional societies, are instrumental in promoting the adoption and diffusion of technology through utopian visions of what the technology can do to change or improve social or work life. Kling and Iacono have called this broad environmental dynamic a “computerization movement” (CM) to signal its separation from, yet affiliation with, technology and social movements more generally.

Through theoretical analyses, systematic empirical studies, field-based studies, and case studies of specific technologies, the book shows CMs to be driven by Utopian visions of technology that become part of the ether within society, creating a general bias in favor of computing adoption. The empirical studies presented here show the need for designers, users, and the media to be aware that CM rhetoric can propose grand visions that never become part of a reality, and reinforce the need for critical and scholarly review of promising new technologies.

(CRITO Research Spotlight, March 2008)

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