Organizational use and diffusion of information technology in China and an international comparative assessment

The research on determinants of technology acceptance is important and provides practical insights into how organizations can manage information technology (IT) diffusion. However, great inconsistencies in the findings of the determinants of IT acceptance and use plague the existing literature in this area. While the established innovation diffusion theory has always stated that different adopters exist in the innovation diffusion process and some recent studies have urged the researcher to distinguish between users and potential adopters, the majority of the studies in the IT area fail to make that distinction. We believe that one major cause of the inconsistencies in the literature is the failure to recognize different adopter groups. The primary purposes of this study are to demonstrate that there are different types of adopters and more importantly, that the variable relationships pertinent to technology acceptance are different across the adopter groups. Two research models and 21 hypotheses are developed based on the review of relevant literature to investigate the differences among three adopter groups: earlier, later, and potential adopters. We test the hypotheses and models with data collected in China, an increasingly important player in the global market and a significant trading partner of the United States. Fourteen hypotheses are supported. The results show that the adopters differ from each other along several dimensions: the behavioral beliefs that shape attitude, the effect of attitude and subjective norm on behavioral intention, and the degree of innovativeness. The comparisons of the findings of this study to others suggest that cultural factors, such as individualism are relevant in IT acceptance research. The theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed.