Innovation and Diffusion Theory Research Area

Information Systems Innovation and Diffusion Studies Tor J. Larsen, Ph.D. Associate Professor The project was initiated in 1986 and is still running [Dissertation & Publications] [Norwegian bank] [Framework] [Diffusion Theory]

I have always wondered what the couplings among the issues of the use of IS, IS innovation on the individual level, and IS innovation on the organizational level might be.

Dissertation Work and Publications
The first effort within this area was my dissertation, completed in 1989. You will find it in Dissertation Abstracts (Ann Arbor). The sample is data from 99 middle managers in a Division of a major international manufacturing corporation (and it isn't 3M!) in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA. The dissertation material has been further developed and documented in three articles.

The first article analyzed IT use among these middle managers. The major contribution here is that the article includes hands-on use of IT, the degree of delegation of IT tasks, and the use of support functions. The article was presented at HICSS in 1991 and included in the conference proceedings, see abstract.
The second article, published in the Journal of Management Information Systems, Vol. 10(2), Fall 1993, pp. 155-176, looked at two questions, see abstract:

Among middle managers, does the individual degree of business innovativeness or experience with IT best explain the degree of IT innovativeness?
What are the relationships among the degree of individual business and IT innovativeness and commonly used variables representing external and internal networking behaviors?

The third article, published in the journal of Information & Management, 1999 (forthcoming), investigated differences in IT use between more- and less-innovative middle managers, see abstract.

IS innovation in a major Norwegian bank
In 1993 a student of mine investigated the impacts of organizational factors and IT on individual IT innovation. The relationship between IT innovation and strategic benefit was also explored. The sample here was 55 middle mangers in the International Business Division of a major Norwegian Bank. Because McFarlan et. al., and others, have claimed that the banking sector uses IT strategically, we thought that the data would yield strong relationships. Although this undertaking had its theoretical and methodological problems, it was surprising to find:

Respondents strongly perceived that organizational factors and IT inhibited individual innovative efforts.
The few individual IT innovations that were accepted aimed at increasing efficiency within the International Business Division but had no relationship to market improvements.
The top directors (in the line organization) and the top IT-department directors defined and initiated all IT market related innovations. The middle managers in the International Business Division were not invited to participate, much to their frustration. (The thesis is published in Norwegian: Trømborg, Lars. (1993) Kan individbasert IT-innovasjon ha strategisk betydning? Diplomoppgave, siviløkonomstudiet, Handelshøyskolen BI.)

IS Innovation Framework
These investigations made me think about the meaning of IS innovation. I strongly felt that the literature in this field is very fragmented, as was the case with my own work. The increased focus internationally on diffusion theory as the basis for understanding organizational IS innovation did not make the picture clearer. I felt a strong need to develop a framework for IS innovation. The opportunity came when Mehdi Khosrowpour invited me to develop the edited book, with Eugene McGuire (Eds.) (1998). Information Systems Innovation and Diffusion: Issues and Directions. Hersey, PA:
Idea Group Publishing. In it I present the chapter "Information Systems Innovation: A Framework for Research and Practice," pp. 411-434, see abstract.

The Power of Diffusion Theory
This brings me up to the present. I think there is a strong need to discuss the appropriateness of diffusion theory as a platform for explaining organizational IT innovation processes. The strengths and weaknesses of Roger's theory, I think, are best documented when compared to innovation theory. I have developed a proposition "Diffusion Theory as the Basis for Understanding Information Technology Related Change: True or False?", see attachment. I have invited Fred Niederman to join me in developing this proposition into a full article. I think it has merit!