The Impact of Gartner’s Maturity Curve, Adoption Curve, Strategic Technologies on Information Systems Research, with Applications to Artificial Intelligence, ERP, BPM and RFID

Abstract

How does technology maturity and adoption affect samples, research issues and use of methodologies in information systems? What is a source of some research issues in strategic and emerging technologies? This paper addresses these questions and others using some frameworks generated by a well-known corporate research group.

Gartner Group has been an icon to their corporate clients. However, Gartner has received only limited attention by academics. This paper examines three related frameworks used by Gartner for their usage in analyzing information systems (IS) and accounting information systems (AIS) research. Although researchers have previously examined the adoption curve, they generally have ignored the impact of the technology maturity curve and the interaction of the two curves. The paper generates a number of findings, including, where a technology is on the maturity curve limits and facilitates the type of research questions that can be addressed regarding that technology. In addition, Gartner’s “strategic technologies” can provide a basis for understanding which technologies are likely to be appropriate for analysis by researchers.

Keywords: Gartner, Maturity Curve, Adoption Curve, Strategic Technologies, AIS Research, Information Systems Research, Artificial Intelligence, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Systems, Business Process Management (BPM), Radio Frequency Identification (RFID)