| Few studies have attempted a holistic examination of the factors affecting an organization's decision to adopt such services for communication, information search, transaction processing, and information dissemination despite the increasing pervasiveness of web-based services. The purpose of this study was to determine how contextual factors such as Information System (IS) maturity of the organization, organizational factors, and environmental characteristics affect the adoption of web-based services by organizations. Four research models and 54 hypotheses were developed, based on a review of literature. Data were collected while using a questionnaire. The sample used for the main study was randomly selected from a federal government website called Pro- Net, http://pronet.sba.gov, an internet-based database containing information about more than 122,836 small, disadvantaged, 8(a), HUBZone, and women-owned businesses. Structural Equation Modeling was performed to test the goodness of fit of the data and the hypotheses. The four models suggested a moderate fit of the data. Of the 54 hypotheses, 21 were supported. Organizational innovation theory studies have not considered perceived usefulness of technologies as a factor in their adoption, but this study suggests that its perceived usefulness may be the most important reason why an organization adopts a specific technology. This study also shows other important factors to be the IS maturity of a company, the firm's performance, and the budget allocated for IS by leaders of the organization. |
