A Study of Senior Information Systems Managers’ Decision Models in Adopting New Computing Architectures

摘要

There has been considerable interest recently in the promise of new computingrnarchitectures such as the diskless computing architecture, which runs applicationsrnoff a network. In previous theoretical work on Information Systems (IS)rnadoption, the question of whether classical diffusion variables determine the organizationalrnadoption of IS with low knowledge barriers and low user interdependenciesrnis still unresolved. In the practitioner literature, the discussion on new architecturesrnhas focused mainly on the costs of ownership of the architectures.rnThis work proposes a novel methodology for IS adoption studies, usingrnconjoint analysis. Issues such as data collection, data analysis, selecting scales andrnlevels of predictor variables, construct validity, formulating testable hypotheses, andrnJournal of the Association for Information Systems 2rnselecting an appropriate sample size are all discussed. As an example study,rnfactors important to senior IS managers when deciding to adopt a computingrnarchitecture for their organization are identified and operationalized. Using conjointrnanalysis, the relative importance of these factors is measured as well as whetherrnor not the effect of levels of these factors on decision-making is linear.rnThe findings show that technology factors, which are a subset of classicalrndiffusion variables, are sufficient to explain the adoption of computing architectures,rnwhich are a type of IS innovation with low impact on organizational processes andrnlow knowledge barriers for end-users. The software quality associated with anrnarchitecture is the most important factor considered by IS managers and its effectrnis linear. The effect of the cost factor is less important, non-linear, and in somerncases, unexpected. The effects of centralization, backward compatibility with thernorganization, and acceptance by third parties are all linear, but less important thanrnsoftware quality.