Dead or Alive? The Development, Trajectory and Future of Technology Adoption Research

Abstract

Research on individual-level technology adoption is one of the most mature streams of information systems (IS) research. In this paper, we compare the progress in the area of technology adoption with two widely-researched streams in psychology and organizational behavior: theory of planned behavior and job satisfaction. In addition to gauging the progress in technology adoption research, this allows us to identify some fruitful areas for future research. Based on our comparison, we conclude that there has been excellent progress in technology adoption research. However, as a next step, we call for research focused on interventions, contingencies, and alternative theoretical perspectives (to the largely social psychology-based technology adoption research. Also, we believe it would be important to use the comparisons discussed here as a basis to develop a framework-driven set of future research directions to guide further work in this area.