Examining workgroup influence on technology usage: a community of practice perspective

ABSTRACT

This paper develops a new theoretical model with which to examine the factors that determine employees' technology usage within organizational settings. Much of the prior IS training literature has assumed an underlying relationship between necessary conditions for technology adoption — such as user training and support resources — and actual technology use. Whereas these “facilitating conditions” for technology usage [38, 80, 81] have been taken for granted as factors that influence system adoption and usage, the reality of learning and working in organizational settings suggests an entirely different mode of influence on employees' technology-related behavior. Drawing from research in cognitive anthropology [35], and acknowledging the role of communities of practice that shape learning, behavior, and memory [5, 65, 87, 88], we develop an alternative theoretical framework to explain employees' adoption of technology and their degree of system usage. Contrasting this novel theoretical framework with traditional notions that presume technology usage to be directly related to the amount or perceived quality of user training and support, we evaluate both frameworks with empirical data obtained from a technology implementation initiative across five sites of one nonprofit organization. While both theories receive some support from our data, we argue for the recognition that social influences exert an effect not just on whether employees adopt IT [77], but more importantly on how and how much employees use technology for their jobs. Implications for research and practice related to IT training are provided, as well as to more general lessons for managing technology implementation.

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INDEX TERMS

Keywords:
community of practice, situated learning, training, workgroups