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How do management factors influence digital adoption in the case of a large-scale digital transformation project – A process perspective

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 November 2023

Oliver Kohnke Open the ORCID record for Oliver Kohnke [Opens in a new window] ,
Thea Nieland Open the ORCID record for Thea Nieland [Opens in a new window] ,
Tammo Straatmann Open the ORCID record for Tammo Straatmann [Opens in a new window]  and
Karsten Mueller Open the ORCID record for Karsten Mueller [Opens in a new window]
Oliver Kohnke
Affiliation:
Department of Work and Organizational Psychology, University of Mannheim, Mannheim, Germany
Thea Nieland*
Affiliation:
Department of Work and Organizational Psychology, Osnabrueck University, Osnabrück, Germany
Tammo Straatmann
Affiliation:
Department of Work and Organizational Psychology, Osnabrueck University, Osnabrück, Germany
Karsten Mueller
Affiliation:
Department of Work and Organizational Psychology, Osnabrueck University, Osnabrück, Germany
*
Corresponding author: Thea Nieland; Email: thea.nieland@uni-osnabrueck.de
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Abstract

Although practitioners and scientists agree that user adoption of new technologies is a key success factor in digital transformations, little is known about how specific management factors are related to user behavior. In particular, the temporal nature of digital transformation projects is largely neglected. Therefore, we propose a systematic, theory-based framework for the management of digital adoption (MDA) and derive specific process-oriented hypotheses for content-, process-, and context-related management factors, their relationships to user adoption, and underlying psychological processes (e.g., performance expectancy or social influence). We applied the MDA framework in the context of a large digital transformation project in a logistics company in a two-wave research design. We tested the process-oriented hypotheses based on latent change score analysis among 1,095 users. The results support the assumption that changes in management factors, largely mediated by changes in the psychological processes, lead to changes in user behavior.

Keywords

organizational behaviororganizational changemanaging IT-related organizational changestructural equation modeling
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Management & Organization , First View , pp. 1 - 21
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press in association with the Australian and New Zealand Academy of Management

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