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Software process innovations (SPIs) impose a substantial burden on would-be adopters in terms of the know-how and technical knowledge needed to use them effectively. The burden of
organizational learning surrounding these technologiesand complex organizational technologies in generalcreates a "knowledge barrier" that inhibits diffusion (Attewell 1992). While Attewell's model suggests
that many organizations will defer adoption until knowledge barriers have been sufficiently lowered, it says little about which organizations should be more likely to innovate, even in face of high knowledge
barriers. This research proposes that organizations will have a greater propensity to successfully innovate in face of knowledge barriers when the burden of organizational learning is effectively lower,
either because the organizations already possess much of the know-how and technical knowledge necessary to innovate, or because they can acquire such knowledge more easily or more economically. Specifically,
it is hypothesized that information technology (IT) organizations will be more likely to initiate and sustain the assimilation of SPIs when they have a greater scale of activities over which learning costs
can be spread (learning-related scale), more extensive existing knowledge in areas related to the focal innovation (related knowledge), and a greater diversity of technical knowledge and activities in
general (diversity). An empirical study was conducted using data on the assimilation of object oriented programming languages (OOPLs) by the IT
departments of 608 medium to large US firms. Data analysis, using partial least squares, strongly confirmed the importance of learning-related scale, related knowledge, and diversity in explaining the
assimilation of OOPLs. For researchers, these results support and extend Attewell's reconceptualization of diffusion theory for the case of complex organizational technologies. The managerial significance of
these results is in identifying the profile of a likely innovator. For vendors, this profile provides a basis for more targeted marketing and promotion. For potential adopters, this profile supports a
critical self-evaluation: organizations that fit the profile should, in general, be more aggressive adopters of new technology, while those that do not should consider strategies that emphasize delay, or
should consider adoption of a simpler technology variant. |
