Individual innovation adoption and the role of organizational culture

Technological innovations are generally considered to contribute positively to the organization, but there are gaps in our understanding of how benefits can be realized. In particular, studies of technological innovation adoption in organizations tend to focus on structural aspects of adoption and top-down, organization-wide implementation. Building on this work, we examine the relationship between organizational culture and individuals’ extent of adoption (frequency of using technology features). Using a survey of 1000 physicians in the USA, we studied the association between perceived organizational innovativeness and cohesiveness and the extent to which physicians adopt electronic health records. We found that organizational innovativeness was positively associated with individuals’ extent of adoption, and that this relationship was mediated by going to others for advice regarding the technology. Our findings were supported by interview data.