IT Adoption in Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises: The Role of Knowledge Acquisition

The knowledge-based view of the firm has motivated a rich stream of research on how social factors impact knowledge acquisition by firms. More recently, information systems research has seen an increasing interest in the effect of social influences on software assimilation. This paper combines these two streams to examine the impact of social influences on software assimilation within the firm, using knowledge acquisition as a mediating variable. A square structural equation model using formative constructs is developed. In this study of small and medium firms, we investigate the assimilation of three different software systems that support manufacturing. Data has been collected and is currently being analyzed. Results would be discussed at the conference.

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