Adaptation to IT-Induced Change

Reference: Bruque, S., Moyano, J., Eisenberg, J. (2008) Individual Adaptation to IT-Induced Change: The Role of Social Networks. Journal of Management Information Systems 25(3), 177-206.

I was interested in this paper because my current research addresses the role of Web-based social networking on innovation and other organizational outcomes. Existing research on Web-based social networking is quite sparse, probably because the technology is so new. So, when I saw the title of this article, I hoped that it would be relevant to my work. It turns out that this research concerns traditional social networks, not Web-based ones, so its relevance to my own research is not direct. Nevertheless, it seems reasonable to extend the authors' conclusions to individuals' extended (Web-based) networks. Thus, it provides some interesting hypotheses for future research.

Even had there been no relevance to my research, I found this article interesting and refreshing. The highlight for me is to see "adaption to IT-induced change" as the dependent variable rather than the common "adoption of technology." There is a significant difference between adoption and adaption, which the authors describe in some depth. Adoption is a binary variable -- either you adopt or do not. Although one can measure the extent of adoption by counting the number of people in an organization who adopt or fail to adopt, adoption remains binary at the individual level. In practice, many changes force employees to adopt to whatever technology is installed, so the real question is how they adapt to these changes. The authors argue and provide references to support the claim that IT-induced changes are harder to adapt to than most other types of change.

The conclusions of the study are not surprising. Adaptation improves the larger the size of the support network and the greater the strength and density of the informational network. The authors defined these networks to include people outside as well as inside the company. This is a significant departure from most studies and makes me optimistic that the results will extend to Web-based social networks. One disconcerting methodological issue is that subjects were allowed to list only five members of their support network and five members of their informational network. I don't believe that there was any measure of the extent to which these networks overlapped. Of course, Web-based social networks are much larger, although they are probably less "strong" or intense.

A significant contribution of the study is the creation of an instrument to measure individual adaptation to IT-induced change.