Organizational Learning and Assimilation

From Information Systems at Pitt Business

Technology assimilation is best characterized as a process of organizational learning, where individuals and the organization acquire the knowledge and skills necessary to effectively apply the new technology. Thus, companies are able to assimilate new technology by overcoming the "knowledge barrier" necessary to assimilate the technology. When the knowledge barrier is of high cost, organizations will have a difficult time adopting the technology, and thus many organizations defer adoption until the knowledge barrier has decreased and thereby improves the probability of successful adoption. This paper explains the different propensities that firms have in initiating and sustaining the assimilation of complex process technologies.

The paper posits that IT departments will be more likely to initiate and sustain the assimilation of software process innovations when:

• There is a greater scale of activites over which learning costs can be spread
• There is a more extensive existing knowledge in areas related to the focal innovation
• There is a greater diversity of technical knowledge and activities in general

This model is supported from data collected from 608 medium to large US enterprises in the assimilation of object-oriented programming languages.

[edit] Abstract

The burden of organizational learning surrounding software process innovations (SPIs)-and complex organizational technologies in general-creates a "knowledge barrier" that inhibits diffusion. Attewell (1992) has suggested that many organizations will defer adoption until knowledge barriers have been sufficiently lowered; however, this leaves open the question of which organizations should be more likely to innovate, even in face of high knowledge barriers. It is proposed here that organizations will innovate in the presence of knowledge barriers when the burden of organizational learning is effectively lower, either because much of the required know-how already exists within the organization, or because such knowledge can be acquired more easily or more economically. Specifically, it is hypothesized that organizations will have a greater propensity to initiate and sustain the assimilation of SPIs when they have a greater scale of activities over which learning costs can be spread (learning-related scale), more extensive existing knowledge related to the focal innovation (related knowledge), and a greater diversity of technical knowledge and activities (diversity). An empirical study using data on the assimilation of object-oriented programming languages (OOPLs) by 608 information technology organizations strongly confirmed the importance of the three hypothesized factors in explaining the assimilation of OOPLs.

[edit] Paper Information

Authors: Robert Fichman, Chris Kemerer

Check out the paper at The Illusory Diffusion of Innovation: An Examination of Assimilation Gaps

This article was originally published in Management Science, Vol 43, No. 10, September 1997.

[edit] Keywords

Software process innovation, adoption, diffusion, Assimilation, organizational learning, object-oriented programming, object orientation, disk-based survey