Does Task-Technology Fit Matter?

Reference: Fuller, R.M. and Dennis, A.R. (2009), Does fit matter? The impact of task-technology fit and appropriation on team performance in repeated tasks, Information Systems Research 20(1), 2-17.

This is an important piece of research. It’s not often that new research dispels or substantially modifies well accepted models of how things work. This is one such example. Prior research has supported the intuitive belief that the fit between a technology and the task to which it is applied significantly affects success in performing the task. Presumably, the poorer the fit between a task and the technology used to perform it, the worse the performance of the task. This “Task-Technology Fit” theory was first formalized in MISQ in 1995 (Goodhue) and has been extensively analyzed, developed, and verified by subsequent research. However, as Fuller and Dennis show, the TTF theory is incorrect when applied to a repeated task. It turns out that by the third time the task is repeated, users will have figured out how to adapt the technology and the way the task is accomplished so that there is no significant difference in their performance or their perception of the technology. While poor-fit teams failed to equal the performance of well-fit teams in initial task performance, the differences between them melted away over time, becoming indistinguishable by the third repetition of the task!

This finding, while surprising and counter-intuitive, has some theoretical grounding. It is rooted in Adaptive Structuration Theory (AST) (Desanctis & Poole, 1994). AST holds that in performing a task, people adapt the elements of the tools that they use, the features they select, the rules they apply, and the way that they apply them. This process, called appropriation, allows them to improve their performance over time. Prior research has, indeed, recognized the role of appropriation in explaining the performance of teams using information technology. The “Fit-Appropriation Model,” (FAM) (Dennis et al, 2001) holds that performance is affected by both technology fit and appropriation. But, until now, there was no recognition of the possibility, much less the likelihood, that appropriation would ever dominate over fit, and certainly not in such a short period of time.

This research is limited to a single context, task, and technology, and used students as research subjects. Generalizability still needs to be established. However, assuming that the findings stand up to further scrutiny, they are ground breaking.