Assimilating information technology innovations: strategies and moderating influences

This paper examines the process of new technology assimilation with an objective of understanding what specific organizational strategies facilitate the assimilation process. A four-cell conceptual framework is synthesized from prior research, which differentiates between two units of analysis responsible for assimilation-an individual or the organization. Depending on the specific location of an organization and a technology within this framework, as well as the desired location, a few "generic" assimilation strategies are described that allow an organization to move from one cell of the framework to another by influencing individual adoption behaviors. Recognizing that the outcomes of assimilation strategies are influenced by key moderating influences-such as the differences in the technology that is being assimilated, the characteristics of target adopters, and their perceptions toward that technology-prior research is again reviewed to study the impact of these moderating variables. The assimilation strategies, together with the effects of moderating variables, constitute a model of innovation assimilation. Adopting a process orientation, the model is used to perform a retrospective analysis of the efforts of nine major corporations as they attempted to assimilate new information technologies into their operations. The analyses yield a contingency framework for the choice of assimilation strategy that can be used as a guide for management action.