Adopting IS process innovations in organizations: the role of IS leaders’ individual factors and technology perceptions in decision making

While there is a rich body of literature on information system (IS) innovations, there is a limited understanding of the role IS leaders’ individual factors and their appraisals of technological factors play in organizations’ adoption of IS innovations. We address these gaps in the IS literature by focusing on an IS process innovation – namely, computer-aided software engineering (CASE) – which is targeted at the core activities of systems development/maintenance in IS departments. We specifically examine how organizations’ CASE adoption decision is impacted by (1) two individual factors of IS leaders (i.e., leaders’ hierarchical position and job tenure) and (2) their perceptions of technological factors (i.e., relative advantage and technological complexity of CASE). Data were gathered from IS leaders at 350 organizations in the United States using a national cross-sectional survey. The findings suggest that IS leaders’ hierarchical position and their job tenure significantly differentiate CASE adopters from non-adopters. IS leaders at lower levels of the organizational hierarchy and with shorter job tenure made the adoption decisions in adopter organizations, while IS leaders at higher levels of the organizational hierarchy and with longer job tenure made the adoption decisions in non-adopter organizations. The findings also reveal that relative advantage has two dimensions – namely, perceived efficacy advantage and perceived efficiency advantage – and IS leaders’ evaluation of the perceived efficacy advantage of CASE differentiates adopters from non-adopters. The study has important implications for our theoretical and practical understanding of the factors related to IS leaders that are influential in the organizational adoption of IS innovations.