Abstract. Information technology (IT) innovations have been vital to the success of organizations seeking to improve efficiency and productivity. IT's global diffusion has however raised serious questions about its neutral application across cultures and contexts. This paper synthesizes a sample of the literature to conceptualize the key cultural challenges in IS innovation as, differentiation, externality, compatibility, embeddeness. The study shows that the adoption decision is challenged by differentiation, and the adoption phase exhibits issues of externality. During implementation, compatibility is the key challenge of innovators and the assimilation literature revealed that embeddeness was the cultural challenge that phase. The synthesis also revealed that the comprehension phase where adoption decisions are made was lacking significant study. The paper proposes two opportunities for research and examples of research methods that can be use to investigate pre-adoption phenomena.Keywords: Innovation, culture, differentiation, comprehension, methods.
IntroductionInformation technology (IT) is a significant investment for any organization, thus extracting the most value from these innovations is vital, and can be highly rewarding (Rau & Bye, 2003). As a key resource for business in a new competitive age, IT innovations enable the complex interactions that are required to support our global economy (M. Barrett, Jarvenpaa, Silva, & Walsham, 2003). IT has become a symbol of progress throughout the world, driving greater global interactions. Information systems (IS) researchers view mitigating the challenges of innovating with IT as imperative to participating in, and reaping the benefits of our new globally connected economy (Mustonen-Ollila & Lyytinen, 2004). Many organizations do not possess the technical expertise to develop new IT innovations, thus they are more likely to adopt them. Thus, IS innovation is the adoption of IT innovations for use in unique ways and the term has normally been restricted to early adopters (B. Swanson, 1994; E. B. Swanson, 2010). While many studies have focused on adoption, it is not the initiation of the innovation process. Prior to adoption, the adoption decision must be made, and after adoption, the innovation needs to be implemented, and assimilated by the organization. The benefits of innovation adoption can only truly be realized when it has been integrated into the activities of the organization's value chain (Armstrong & Sambamurthy, 1999).
C. Lawrence and M. OivoThe importance of IT in our global society should not allow for the naive assumptions that innovations will exhibit the same productive attributes in organizations and individuals existing in culturally distant contexts (Ein-Dor, Segev, & Orgad, 1993;Kaye & Little, 1996;Vodanovich, Sundaram, & Myers, 2010;Wagner & Newell, 2004). Globalization has generated significant research interest in culture and IS, as organizations, seeking to keep pace with a growing competitive marketplace, are motived to adopt the latest...