Managers’ noticing of new organizational IT and influences of IT attributes

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Abstract

Utilizing information processing theory as a lens and integrating various literatures, this paper first develops a process-based conceptualization of managers’ noticing of new organizational information technology (OIT) that occurs prior to managers’ sensemaking. Then, using the developed conceptualization as a theoretical grounding, this paper derives propositions regarding the influences of OIT attributes on noticing. This paper contributes to the literature on IT and innovation adoption, technology frame and organizing vision, and managerial cognition and opportunity recognition. This paper concludes by suggesting future research directions and by providing practical guidelines for proponents/detractors of new OIT striving to influence potential adopters’ noticing.

Introduction

Managers’ recognition of opportunities, along with problems and crises, has long been studied in the management literature (e.g., [2,3]), most recently serving as a focus of entrepreneurship research (e.g., [4,5]). While these same phenomena have held the interest of scholars studying information technology (IT) adoption (e.g., [6]), the vast majority of IT adoption research implicitly assumes that potential adopters are cognizant of promising new IT. Here, being cognizant involves both the act of noticing and the act of sensemaking, i.e., processes by which people give meaning to ephemeral (in noticing) and deliberate (in sensemaking) cognitive experiences. Importantly, Starbuck and Milliken argued that "… noticing may be at least as important as sensemaking … If events are noticed, people make sense of them; and if events are not noticed, they are not available for sensemaking" (1988, p.60).

Taking as a given the (unstated) assumption that a new IT has already been noticed as a viable candidate for adoption, the extant IT adoption literature has focused on sensemaking processes (e.g., [7–9,6]) that adopters go through in evaluating a candidate IT for adoption. For example, Venkatesh et al. [6], after integrating eight prominent user acceptance models, proposed and tested a unified model of IT acceptance in which adoption decisions are affected by adopters’ assessments of performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence, and facilitating conditions. The extant IT adoption literature also has plenty of research efforts advancing the post-adoption side (e.g., [10,11]). As will be detailed later, despite the existence of prior related research, what the extant IT adoption literature is unable to adequately explain is the phenomenon of adopters initially noticing an emergent, possibly relevant new IT.

This paper seeks to address the above-mentioned research gap by providing a theoretical conceptualization of managerial noticing of a new organizational IT referenced in alerting messages. Personal IT (a focus of much of the IT adoption literature) is excluded given this paper’s attention to IT that are applied to organizational opportunities and challenges. An organizational IT (OIT) is an information system or service, enabled through computer/ communication software/hardware ([12], p.123), intended to be used by an organizational aggregate [13], e.g., a set of business units, functional units, administrative units, departments, etc. Most typically, new OIT are noticed, envisioned and/or advocated by managers1 and technology strategists [14–16] serving, formally and informally, as an organization’s eyes and ears [17]. To simplify the arguments, such individuals are referred to as managers. Those managers receive, via searching or scanning, a myriad of information about OIT (e.g., vendors bragging about an OIT, analysts criticizing an OIT, competitors adopting an OIT). Such information about OIT that managers receive is referred to as alerting message.

Why would understanding managerial noticing of a new organizational IT be useful? Gavetti [5] has defined behavioral failures in opportunity recognition as (p. 270): “… impediments to firms’ abilities to compete for opportunities.” After discussing the root causes of such behavioral failures, Gavetti identifies three capabilities for preventing behavioral failures (p. 276): “… rationality (the capability to identify opportunities), plasticity (the capability to act on opportunities), and shaping ability (the capability to legitimize opportunities by constructing the opportunity space).” In the specific context of OIT adoption, behavioral failure occurs if managers fail to notice a new OIT, fail to grasp the organizational capabilities needed to implement a new OIT, or fail to fashion a well-reasoned OIT adoption rationale [16]. This paper’s concern herein is with the first of these three causes of behavioral failure, i.e., failing to notice a promising (i.e., possibly relevant) new OIT.

Developing a theoretical conceptualization of managerial noticing of a new OIT may also shed lights on other related research. One well-established field of research that may benefit from such a conceptualization is regarding the influences of IT attributes on adoption outcomes. New IT are anything but homogeneous, with systematic differences in IT attributes affecting individuals’ assessments of benefits and costs. Scholars interested in IT adoption have made considerable progress in identifying and understanding the variety of IT attributes influencing IT adoption outcomes (e.g., [18,6]). However, prior research examining the influences of IT attributes focused on the sensemaking and post-adoption phases and has not examined these influences during the noticing phase. To complement the existing research on the influences of IT attributes, this paper uses the process-based conceptualization of managerial noticing as a theoretical grounding and develops research propositions to understand how alerting message contents describing OIT attributes influence noticing outcomes. Such hybrid approach combining process and variance approaches has been recognized in the IS literature (e.g., [19]).

Understanding how managers initially notice a new OIT (as well as the influences of IT attributes) is practically valuable for at least two reasons. First, it is not uncommon for new, potentially value-adding OIT to either fail to be noticed for adoption or suffer from delayed consideration [20]. Second, the abilities of a new OIT’s proponents/detractors to influence managers’ noticing processes via the crafting and transmitting of alerting messages are likely to prove critical in preventing faulty managerial noticing. In order to influence managers’ noticing processes, proponents/detractors must compose and transmit attention-grabbing messages with parts of these messages describing attributes of the focal new OIT (e.g., [16,21]). A robust theory of how and why managers notice new OIT can provide practical guidance to inform proponents/detractors of how best to craft these alerting messages.

This paper is expected to contribute to the literature in several ways. First, this paper contributes to the IT adoption literature by providing finely delineated descriptions of two noticing processes: awareness and arousal. Such theoretical conceptualization provides a robust framework for ensuing research aimed at better understanding why organizations exhibit considerable variations in their uptakes of new OIT. Second, this paper also contributes to the IT adoption literature by applying presented conceptualization to develop research propositions linking influential OIT attributes to these two noticing processes, thus complementing and extending existing research on the role served by IT attributes in the adoption processes. Third, this paper contributes to the literature on technology frame and organizing vision by providing a firmer cognitive foundation for why technology frame and organizing vision are also useful for the noticing of technology. Finally, the detailed description of the two cognitive processes under noticing may also help deepen or clarify existing understandings in the managerial cognition and opportunity recognition literature.

The remainder of this paper is structured as follows. First, prior work related to managerial noticing of new OIT is discussed. Then, the theoretical foundation is introduced. This foundation incudes: the primary theoretical lens (information processing theory, IPT) and related concepts, current thought regarding cognitive information processing related to noticing, and the set of OIT attributes expected to be most influential regarding managers’ noticing. Next, a process-based conceptualization of managerial noticing of new OIT is presented. Then, using the developed conceptualization as a theoretical grounding, this paper develops research propositions regarding how alerting message contents describing OIT attributes influence noticing outcomes. This paper concludes by explaining contributions, suggesting directions for future research, and offering message-crafting guidelines to proponents/detractors of new OIT.

Section snippets

Prior research related to managerial noticing of new OIT

Prior IT adoption research [22,23], though quite limited and not focused specifically on OIT, has recognized the importance of managers being cognizant of new IT. Below, related prior research as well as its inadequacy is discussed.

Huff and Munro [22], having interviewed managers involved in IT assessment and adoption, built on Rogers’ [24] stage model of innovation adoption to describe IT assessment and adoption. Specifically, they suggested that IT assessment and adoption is driven by a

Theoretical foundation and concepts

The principal theoretical lens, IPT, is first introduced–although this paper focuses on the noticing phase, the sensemaking phase will be briefly discussed, for comparison purpose, when later conceptualizing managerial noticing of new OIT; concepts important for illustrating the differences between noticing and sensemaking will also be introduced here. Those concepts are identified via a review of related literatures, as summarized in Appendix A. After that, locations of cognitive information

Conceptualizing managerial noticing of a new OIT

Fig. 2 depicts the two cognitive processes (i.e., awareness and arousal) associated with noticing that serve as precursors to sensemaking. Generally, managers involved with OIT adoption decisions are expected to transit from one process to a subsequent process when the conclusion arrived at via a process’s information processing meets certain requirements. Table 4 describes IPT elements for the two processes under noticing, as informed by prior research applying the IPT lens to study

The influences of OIT attributes on managerial noticing

While the above conceptualization could be used to understand the influences of many factors during managerial noticing of new OIT, this study chooses to focus on the influences of IT attributes. Below, the influences of OIT attributes during the awareness process are first discussed. Here, OIT attributes affect the vividness of OIT-related cues embedded within alerting messages. Next, the influences of OIT attributes during the arousal process are discussed. Here, OIT attributes affect the

Discussion

This paper’s research objectives were to develop a theoretical conceptualization of how managers initially notice a new OIT referenced in alerting messages and, using the developed conceptualization as a theoretical grounding, to understand when and how alerting message contents describing OIT attributes influence managers’ noticing. In achieving these objectives, this paper contributes to the literature in several ways. Fig. 3 depicts how this paper contributes to the nomological network of

Implications for future research

This paper opens a number of future research opportunities. Four such opportunities are identified below.

First, this paper encourages research that provides an enriched descriptive understanding of behavioral failures [5] regarding IT opportunity recognition. While information systems scholars have, after three decades of study, evolved robust models of adoption and post-adoption behaviors, important but unanswered questions exist, such as (but not limited to): “What behaviors and processes

Practical implication

Research propositions suggest a number of guidelines for OIT proponents and detractors to follow in crafting alerting messages. Prior research has identified a broad spectrum of technology proponents/detractors likely to engage in such messaging. Some proponents or detractors may be external to an organization such as vendors (e.g., [149]), suppliers (e.g., [150]), securities analysts (e.g., [151]) and external consultants (e.g., [152]); some may be internal to an organization such as

Conclusion

This paper develops a theoretical conceptualization of how managers initially notice a new OIT referenced in alerting messages prior to the manager initiating sensemaking of the OIT. Elaborated descriptions of two cognitive processes that compromise noticing are provided and research propositions based on this conceptualization specifying when and how OIT attributes influence noticing are offered. These ideas provide significant contributions to information systems research on adoption and on

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