An approach for identifying conflicts in technology adoption at the informal, formal and technical level

• Main Author: Nadee, Winai
• Published: University of Reading 2017
• Online Access: https://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.749329

Innovation and technology adoption is crucial to the effective enhancement and/or improvement of an organisation's performance. Existing technology adoption models fail to facilitate consideration of all aspects (i.e. individual, organisational, technology systems), and fail to highlight where conflict between aspects occurs. By considering the interplay of individual, organisational and technological aspects, the aim of this thesis is to investigate innovation patterns within business environments and/or relationship structures that encourage positive individual adoption activity in organisations. Data was captured in Thailand, a country that has recently faced considerable technology and infrastructure adoption. Technology turnover in Thailand is fast, and innovation adoption across Thai society is a key to economic development. Using a mixed methods approach, with the use of both quantitative and qualitative data capture, this thesis combines three interconnected activities: Activity 1 relates to identification of a classification scheme to support innovation adoption pattern analysis. The research justifies the need for, and describes the development of, a dual aspect adoption model, which was developed on the theoretical foundation of Ronald Stamper. The dual aspect model was strongly influenced by Stamper’s semiotic onion, which divides systems into informal, formal and technical norm layers. Stamper’s semiotic onion, which in turn was influenced by Edward T. Hall’s ‘Crucial Trio Concept’. Two overlapping semiotics onions were used to represented, and highlight, the interaction between two systems; with each system representing either an individual, an organisation, or a technology. Adoption matrices were identified and nine points of potential conflicts were discovered. The adoption matrix was validated using a survey questionnaire, conducted by 217 respondents, who had been or were involved in technology adoption projects. Results showed that the order, definition of, and flow between Stampers norm layers, i.e. as defined in Stamper’s organisational semiotics onion, is not evidenced empirically within modern day organisations. Results implied that norm definitions, and norm layer interaction or empirical data aligned with Hall’s original Major Triad definition. Moreover, results highlighted a significant relationship between the innovation matrix and individual cognitive dissonance and technology perception states, suggesting the need to consider individual internal beliefs/concepts when considering innovation adoption. In terms of contributions, the section: provides a quantitative validation of Stamper’s semiotic onion; suggests a new onion that should be used when representing individual, technology and/or organisational systems; proposes the reshaped dual aspect model, based on Hall’s Major Triad, as a tool to study the interplay between two systems; introduced a reshaped alignment framework, based on Hall’s Major Triad, which allows the decomposition of systems conflict, and implies that full informal and formal alignment between the two systems is not essential, as implied by Stamper, in order for a business to achieve technical level innovation. The contributions allow combined consideration of individual, organisational and technology aspects, and supports, decomposes, and guides management of the innovation process. Activity 2 relates to the expansion of our understanding of the technology adoption conflicts by development of a framework to identify, in context of business, potential aspect conflict impacting technology adoption; i.e. to support problem identification, communicate and support resolution of aspect conflict, and affiliate management of change. This research investigated relevant norm structures from the literature, i.e. to capture the activities related to individual, organisational and technology aspects. By facilitating common business methods, i.e. BPMN / UML components and norm analysis, a framework was proposed to identify relevant structures, using the classification scheme. The research subsequently, using case example, qualitatively investigated how problem identification, communication, conflict resolution, and management of change can be contextually handled in a range of business contexts. The framework was validated via the use of relevant case studies. From the framework, we were able to answer to the research question in terms of contributions, practitioners can apply the developed framework to guide their gap analysis process, and apply the bundled framework as a guidance towards detailed analysis, towards detecting possible conflicts arising from technology adoption. Moreover, this framework can be considered as a method for capturing and highlighting conflict in the innovation adoption process. Activity 3 investigated the relationship between adoptions and individual factors, i.e. to support enhancement of the conceptual innovation model. The research investigated the impact of individuals by applying the CVScale, which captures Hofstede’s five cultural dimensions enhanced for measurement at the individual level. Moreover, by employing use of 3D-RAB and Kano model, i.e. to investigate the relationship between innovation, technology and the individual dimension, we show the importance of the individual’s concept layer on user behavioural activity. The result from SEM analysis shows that long-term orientation (LTO) dimension, influences the attitude towards targeted behaviour (ATTB) and the attitude towards changing non-target and/or maintaining current target behaviour (ATCMB); sub factors of individual cognitive dissonance. SEM confirmed that individual dimensions influence the individual’s cognitive dissonance state; i.e. the individual’s attitude towards target behaviour and the individual’s attitude towards changing / maintaining behaviour. Moreover, it was shown that gender and technology types have moderating effects on the relationship between LTO and ATTB. In terms of contributions, this section provides insightful understanding of the relationship between individual dimensions, individual attitude according to the innovation adoption process. This thesis, as a whole, provides a significant contribution as combination of the activities allows us to investigate adoption patterns and/or relationship structures that encourage positive individual adoption activities in organisations. The practical contribution, from this thesis, is that business users can fundamentally apply the dual aspect model, the dual innovation path incorporating with the framework for analysis of interacting systems. These models help identifying of, and support management of, potential conflicts and changes that must be implemented to support innovation adoption in business.