Measuring user involvement: a diffusion of innovation perspective

User involvement is a need-based motivational attitude toward information systems and their development. As such, it has important implications for the successful creation and deployment of information systems in organizations. This paper reports on the development and validation of an instrument to determine if the distinction between a user's involvement in the process of information system diffusion can be measured independently of that user's involvement with the information system innovation itself. Utilizing previously-validated instruments from consumer behavior research, these two object-based categories of user involvement were operationalized.A longitudinal field study was conducted of users in a large financial institution during the implementation phase, in particular the later activities of the adaptation stage, of the information system diffusion process. During adaptation, the information system product becomes available for use in the organization. Late adaptation stage activities include hardware installation, system conversion, and training. The instruments were pre-tested and assessed as to their content validity, internal consistency, convergent validity, unidimensionality, temporal stability, discriminant validity, predictive validity, and factorial validity. The evidence indicates that the measurement scales are reliable and valid. The primary question of scale independence was examined by discriminant validity. The empirical evidence supports the theoretical distinction between user process involvement and user system involvement. The implications of these findings to research and practice are discussed.

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