Organization Adoption of Linux: An Institutional Perspective

The rapid adoption of Linux servers by organizations in recent years begs the question of whether the adoption is driven by careful considerations of organizational needs or by bandwagon phenomena. Drawing from the institutional perspective of Tolbert and Zucker (1983), this paper presents a two-stage adoption model for Linux servers and examines systematically the determinants of organizational adoption of Linux servers at each stage. It proposes that, while the adoption of Linux servers is determined by organizational factors both at early and late stages, these factors become relatively poorer predictors as Linux servers becomes more institutionalized. Moreover, as the process of adoption continues, institutional factors become more significant predictors of organizational adoption decisions. This paper contributes to theory building in IS adoption research in general and open source software adoption research in particular.

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