Making Sound Information Technology Adoption Decisions: A Mindfulness Perspective

Description

Information systems (IS) research in the past decades has investigated what factors drive individuals to adopt a particular technology [e.g., 18, 75, 77, 79]. However, not all of the adoption decisions turn out to be sound. People are limited in their time, experience, and knowledge; such limitations increase the difficulty of correctly evaluating a technology and making sound decisions. Indeed, people often adopt inefficient technologies that later turn out to be disappointing and unsatisfactory [1]. Wrong adoption decisions increase opportunity costs, the missed opportunity to reap the benefits of a more efficient technology, and cause the user to regret a choice [52]. Thus, it is important to understand how individuals can makesoundadoption decisions, which we define in our study as the adoption decisions that lead to a users’ satisfactory post-adoption usage experience and are compatible with their prior expectations of the adopted technologies.This research project is intended to explain the soundness of decision-making in the technology adoption process at the individual level by drawing on the mindfulness perspective. Mindfulness is broadly defined as a state of alertness and lively awareness [45]. Rooted in philosophy and religious studies, mindfulness has been demonstrated in many fields (e.g., clinical research, education and learning, marketing, management, organizational behavior) as a key to making sound decisions and to achieving long-term benefits [26, 44, 49, 63, 82]. The full range of benefits of having made a sound technology choice may be unclear at the time of its adoption [81], and it takes time for adopters to realize these benefits. Thus, the soundness of the technology adoption decision needs to be evaluated at the post-adoption stage. Drawing on the mindfulness perspective, we aim to address the overarching research question:How does mindfulness influence the soundness of an adoption decision that is crystallized at the post-adoption stage?Finding an answer to this research question is important for several reasons. First, as mentioned above, answering this question can have significant implications for practitioners who need to make sound technology adoption decisions. This is important in that technology adoption is often accompanied by large investments in resources such as money and time, many of which are not recoverable. In addition, the soundness of a technology adoption decision needs time to become obvious. So it is difficult, albeit important, to ensure the soundness of an adoption decision at the adoption stage. Hence, understanding the role of mindfulness as a strategy can help people to make sound adoption decisions and reduce the costs associated with the initial technology adoption as well as those associated with the need to switch later.Second, existing IS research has studied mindfulness primarily at the organizational level [e.g., 14, 25, 31, 72]. Yet, as we will explain later in this proposal, mindfulness has rarely been applied to studying technology adoption at the individual level, with very few exceptions [30]. Furthermore, no prior research has investigated the effects of mindfulness on the soundness of information technology (IT) adoption decision-making. Thus, our research can bridge this gap by investigating the role of individuals’ mindfulness in affecting the soundness of their technology adoption decisions.Third, this research can enhance the research on post-adoption system use, a topic that is receiving increasing attention in the IS field. To date, existing IS research has been focused on the continuance of system use as being the key factor in determining the success of a system. This research suggests that the soundness of the adoption decision may rest on more than the selected technology’s continued use and deserves a more systematic investigation. In this proposed research, we will conceptualize the soundness of the adoption decision as being reflected by a set of post-adoption factors, such as disconfirmation, modified beliefs, and level of satisfaction [9].To approach our research question, we plan to conduct our research in two stages. In stage one, we will extend the mindfulness concept by conceptualizing and operationalizing mindfulness in the IT adoption context. In stage two, we will develop a research model to address the role of mindfulness in affecting the soundness of adoption decisions by extending the established Cognition Change Model (CCM) [9]. Essentially focused on user acceptance and the continued use of a particular technology, the CCM renders the longitudinal perspective required for our project and, as we will explain later, includes key outcome variables relevant to the soundness of the adoption decision. Specifically, we plan to extend the CCM by incorporating: (1) the role of mindfulness, and (2) additional outcome variables relevant to the soundness of the adoption decision, such as regret [52].We will collect data to validate the newly-developed mindfulness instruments, and then design a longitudinal survey to test the research model.