Conceptual Development
In order to establish the theoretical framework for this paper we analyzed several theories from
innovation diffusion and technology acceptance within IS literature.
Innovation diffusion: Diffusion is a process by which an innovation spreads across a population of
potential adopters over time (Rogers 1995). However not all innovations diffuse at the same rate and even
so, there is a gap in terms of initial adoption and subsequent usage as seen in the organizations. This gap
has been named as “assimilation gap” (Fichman and Kemerer, The illusory diffusion of innovation: An
examination of assimilation gaps 1999) which is defined as the difference between cumulative adoption
and cumulative deployment after initial acquisition. Other scholars too have pointed out instances of
either under-utilization or de-installation (Eveland and Tornatzky 1990) of recently installed
technologies. Primary reasons cited have been lack of appropriate increasing returns to adoption and
presence of knowledge barriers (Fichman and Kemerer, The illusory diffusion of innovation: An
examination of assimilation gaps 1999). Lack of appropriate absorptive capacity (Cohen and Levinthal
1990), lack of effort in organizational learning (Kogut and Zander 1992) are other cited reasons apart
from the more political or monetary reasons (Tornatzky and Klein 1982, Premkumar, Ramamurthy and
Nilakanta 1994). Although the above scholarly works set the tone but they do not address the micro issue
of studying the extent of adoption of an innovation. Moreover, innovation diffusion literature appears to be concerned about the diffusion in numbers rather than the diffusion in terms of actual usage,
acceptance and assimilation within the organization. Little empirical work is available on “post adoptive
behavior” (Jasperson, Carter and Zmud 2005) although conceptualization of post adoption activities has
been included.