An Integrated Environmental Perspective on Software as a Service Adoption in Manufacturing and Retail Firms

Abstract

In this study, we examine the influence of a firm's environmental factors on its intention to adopt software as a service (SaaS). We operationalized our assessment of a firm's environmental pressures as mimetic, coercive and normative pressures and examined the moderating role of perceived technology complexity. Mimetic forces are pressures to copy or emulate other organizations’ activities, systems or structures. Coercive pressures are formal or informal pressures exerted on organizations by other organizations upon which they are dependent. Normative forces describe the effect of professional standards and the influence of professional communities on an organization. We empirically tested our research model using data from 289 valid survey responses. The results provide support for the assertion that there are both significant direct and interaction effects that influence a firm's SaaS adoption intention. Most important was the significant interaction effects between mimetic pressure and perceived technology complexity. This suggests that the complex relationships proposed by institutional theory and diffusion of innovation help to describe how environmental pressures and perceived technology complexity combine to affect intention to adopt an emerging technology. The theoretical contributions of this study are (i) we integrated, tested and validated mature theories in today's supply chain era with a new but rapidly diffusing technology, (ii) and we answered the call to include practical technology artifacts in information systems studies. From a practical perspective, through this work managers may develop a better understanding regarding environmental factors and whether or not they should consider these issues for their firm when formulating an intention to adopt SaaS.

Investigating the Moderating Role of Environmental Uncertainty between Institutional Pressures and ERP Adoption in Jordanian SMEs

“…Scholars have framed the ERP solution literature using numerous different contextual adoption frameworks that encompass external factors, internal factors, and combined organizational viewpoints, with greater emphasis on internal factors [10,22,23]. The current work concentrates on external factors influencing the decision of SMEs to adopt ERP, as there is a large identified gap between the number of studies focused on internal forces and external factors [24]. The subject population of the present study is particularly important, given the modern fluid business environment and the need for works investigating the external impacts of the aforementioned external (environmental) turbulences [24,25].…”

Cost Management in Micro and Small Companies in the Mining Sector

“…The concept of institutional isomorphism is a beneficial instrument to cover the policy and the ceremonial peculiarities which intermediate an important element of contemporary organizational life. Therefore, for Dimaggio and Powell (2005), adopting the characteristics of other organizations as an example is the representation of the response to uncertainty (Dufour, Teller & Luu, 2014;Kung, Cegielski, & Kung, 2015).…”

Integrated E-Marketing Adoption Model for Small Businesses

“…These models however focus on adoption of Information Systems at individual level. At the organization level, the theories commonly cited include the Diffusion on innovation (DOI) [10] the Technology, Organization, and Environment (TOE) framework [11] and DTOE model [12] Existing literature examining e-marketing adoptions models have focused mainly on economic and rational goals of efficiency [13] . Few studies have investigated Information systems adoption especially E-marketing within the lenses of Institutional theory either individually or combined with other theories yet organizational decisions are driven not only by rational goals of efficiency, but also by Institutional environments which include social factors and legitimacy concerns [14] ; [15].Thus the Institution theory has been underused despite its advantages [14].…”