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Information and communications technology (ICT) offers enormous opportunities for individuals, businesses and society. The application of ICT is equally important to economic and non-economic activities. Researchers have increasingly focused on the adoption and use of ICT by small and medium enterprises (SMEs) as the economic development of a country is largely dependent on them. Following the success of ICT utilisation in SMEs in developed countries, many developing countries are looking to utilise the potential of the technology to develop SMEs. Past studies have shown that the contribution of ICT to the performance of SMEs is not clear and certain. Thus, it is crucial to determine the effectiveness of ICT in generating firm performance since this has implications for SMEs’ expenditure on the technology. This research examines the diffusion of ICT among SMEs with respect to the typical stages from innovation adoption to post-adoption, by analysing the actual usage of ICT and value creation. The mediating effects of integration and utilisation on SME performance are also studied. Grounded in the innovation diffusion literature, institutional theory and resource-based theory, this study has developed a comprehensive integrated research model focused on the research objectives. Following a positivist research paradigm, this study employs a mixed-method research approach. A preliminary conceptual framework is developed through an extensive literature review and is refined by results from an in-depth field study. During the field study, a total of 11 SME owners or decision-makers were interviewed. The recorded interviews were transcribed and analysed using NVivo 10 to refine the model to develop the research hypotheses. The final research model is composed of 30 first-order and five higher-order constructs which involve both reflective and formative measures. Partial least squares-based structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) is employed to test the theoretical model with a cross-sectional data set of 282 SMEs in Bangladesh. Survey data were collected using a structured questionnaire issued to SMEs selected by applying a stratified random sampling technique. The structural equation modelling utilises a two-step procedure of data analysis. Prior to estimating the structural model, the measurement model is examined for construct validity of the study variables (i.e. convergent and discriminant validity).

The estimates show cognitive evaluation as an important antecedent for expectation which is shaped primarily by the entrepreneurs’ beliefs (perception) and also influenced by the owners’ innovativeness and culture. Culture further influences expectation. The study finds that facilitating condition, environmental pressure and country readiness are important antecedents of expectation and ICT use. The results also reveal that integration and the degree of ICT utilisation significantly affect SMEs’ performance. Surprisingly, the findings do not reveal any significant impact of ICT usage on performance which apparently suggests the possibility of the ICT productivity paradox. However, the analysis finally proves the non-existence of the paradox by demonstrating the mediating role of ICT integration and degree of utilisation explain the influence of information technology (IT) usage on firm performance which is consistent with the resource-based theory. The results suggest that the use of ICT can enhance SMEs’ performance if the technology is integrated and properly utilised. SME owners or managers, interested stakeholders and policy makers may follow the study’s outcomes and focus on ICT integration and degree of utilisation with a view to attaining superior organisational performance.

This study urges concerned business enterprises and government to look at the environmental and cultural factors with a view to achieving ICT usage success in terms of enhanced firm performance. In particular, improving organisational practices and procedures by eliminating the traditional power distance inside organisations and implementing necessary rules and regulations are important actions for managing environmental and cultural uncertainties. The application of a Bengali user interface may help to ensure the productivity of ICT use by SMEs in Bangladesh. Establishing a favourable national technology infrastructure and legal environment may contribute positively to improving the overall situation. This study also suggests some changes and modifications in the country’s existing policies and strategies. The government and policy makers should undertake mass promotional programs to disseminate information about the various uses of computers and their contribution in developing better organisational performance. Organising specialised training programs for SME capacity building may succeed in attaining the motivation for SMEs to use ICT. Ensuring easy access to the technology by providing loans, grants and subsidies is important. Various stakeholders, partners and related organisations should come forward to support government policies and priorities in order to ensure the productive use of ICT among SMEs which finally will help to foster Bangladesh’s economic development.

Based on data collected over a 15 year period (2000–2015) for 89 countries selected across nine geopolitical regions of the world, the purpose of this paper is to explore the role of economic development and the Hofstede index of national cultures in influencing level of government effectiveness and ICT diffusion; as well as the impact of ICT diffusion on government effectiveness. The level of economic development and a country’s ranking on the E-government index were found significant in explaining ICT diffusion and level of government effectiveness, respectively. But the findings also indicate that only the cultural factors such as Indulgence and long-term orientation (LTO) were quite significant in explaining level of government of effectiveness and ICT diffusion, respectively. The findings conclude that while some cultural factors may provide partial explanations for a country’s level of government effectiveness or ICT diffusion, but for other cultural elements, the path of influence is still unclear and at best debatable. Hence, in light of the growing emphasis placed on it in the literature, the effect of culture is limited and may have been overstated. ICT diffusion, while a necessary tool for administrative efficiency, is only but one piece of a larger puzzle and should be developed in consideration of and in the context of a broader framework of economic development, institutional design and behavioral practices.

This study examines how existing ICT diffusion and infrastructures among a set of 89 countries spread across nine world geopolitical zones has been able to improve their government effectiveness – as measured by their relative scores or rankings on the global “government effectiveness index” over a 15 year period (2000–2015); and also how specific cultural factors may influence the level of ICT diffusion. Drawing data from the United Nations e-Government knowledge database, the United Nations Development Program, the GlobalEconomy.com, as well as other socio-demographic sources, I examine key and associated indicators that influence information technology diffusion and its contributory effects on level of government effectiveness; as well as the impact of national cultures on ICT diffusion.

Overall, the finding from this analysis point to the fact that only two of the Hofstede national culture variables were significant (LTO and Indulgence). The other four national culture variables (Power Distance, Individualism, Masculinity/Femininity and Uncertainty Avoidance) were not. Indulgence has a negative effect on level of government effectiveness, while LTO has a positive effect on ICT diffusion. The other culture variables were not significant in any of the regression models, but they seem to congregate much closer to or around the mean.

This is the only work of its kind that has utilized the seven Hofstede indicators to test for the relationship between culture and technology over a long period of 15 years.

Brazil’s telecommunications sector has been going through a process of privatization that will change conditions for information technologies (IT) diffusion among Brazilian firms. The impacts of privatization will be especially important to Brazilian firms that are still in the early stages of IT diffusion, such as small‐ and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs). The aim of this paper is to discuss the impacts of privatization of telecommunications on IT diffusion among Brazilian SMEs. The paper will first analyze the factors that stimulate SMEs to adopt IT, such as the positive impacts on competitiveness. The paper will then describe how the changes that are taking place in the telecommunications sector can influence IT diffusion. In the third section, the paper will consider the case of Brazil, discussing the specificities of IT diffusion in SMEs from developing countries. As a conclusion the paper will discuss how policy measures can be taken so that Brazilian SMEs can benefit from the changes in the telecommunications sector.

Through an evaluation of the information technology (IT) adoption and diffusion models and the free and/or open source policy of the South African Government, the underlying assumption is that the developmental divide between those with and those without access to technology is purely technical. This paper aims to illustrate that if Free and/or Open Source Software is to be used as a building block to bridge the “digital divide” a more social and environmental perspective, which embraces the philosophy behind the software, needs to complement the technical perspective. The human environmental model is presented as a useful alternative which, if embraced, can inform more holistic information and communication technology (ICT) policies.

Through a review of diffusion of innovations models an alternative diffusion framework is described and applied to an interpretive open source case study in South Africa.

Contemporary diffusion and innovation models are narrowly focused on IT as a purely technological linear phenomenon. This perspective also underlies many ICT policies. A more socio‐technical adoption model can assist in providing a more holistic approach to ICT policy development.

The application of a new innovation model, the human environmental model, to ICT policy provides a holistic framework in which the complexity of the innovation process can be reflected in policy. Such an approach to ICT policy formulation will assist with broadening the perspective of policy makers from IT as a technical solution to IT as part of a socio‐technical solution and recognise the duality of the innovation process.

The critical nature of diffusion in understanding the link between individual competency and collective competency is often underconceptualized. Organizational learning involves diffusion of knowledge and/or skill from the individual to members of the collective, and expansion of the collective's capacity to take effective action. Three types of individual and collective competency are identified, ranging on a continuum from explicit‐and‐quickly‐diffused to tacit‐and‐slowly‐diffused Patterns of diffusion can occur in stages: by critical mass, in cycles, or in a synthesis of styles. A model illustrating these dynamics is presented. Criteria for evaluating successful collective learning are introduced.

The purpose of this paper is to address the gap in knowledge by exploring the role of customers and vendors in diffusion of modern equipment technologies into the construction industry.

To address the need to consider both vendors and customers in the innovation diffusion process and the need for in-depth cross-sectional studies, semi-structured interviews were undertaken with 147 participants including 85 vendors and 62 customers of modern construction technologies at company, project and operational levels in Australia and North America. Thematic analysis and an analytic hierarchy process illustrate the critical role of both customers and vendors in the diffusion process of modern equipment technologies.

A new conceptual model is presented which classifies modern equipment technology customers into four categories: visionaries (group I); innovators (group II); pragmatists (group III); and conservatives (group IV) based on the way in which they interact with vendors in the innovation diffusion process. The results also reveal that there is a significant emotional/affective aspect of innovation diffusion decisions which has not been recognised in previous research.

The major contribution of this study is that it analyses the role of both vendors and customers in the equipment technology diffusion process at three different levels (strategic, project and operational) in large corporations and small-to-medium-sized businesses. The findings not only advance construction innovation research beyond traditional linear models of innovation, but also provide new knowledge which enable customers and vendors to interact more effectively in the diffusion of new construction equipment technologies.

The adoption of XBRL presents new opportunities for considerably enhancing the business information supply chain. However, its diffusion has proved to be very challenging. The purpose of this paper is to draw upon stakeholder and social network theories to evaluate issues surrounding the diffusion of XBRL in Australia.

Qualitative empirical evidence collected via interviews is used to identify XBRL stakeholders and to assess their salience which is considered to be a key characteristic of stakeholder networks.

It was found that there is a lack of salience among the current XBRL stakeholders in Australia. While all stakeholders were found to have a legitimate basis for adopting XBRL, most lack power or centrality and none possesses urgency claims for XBRL which collectively are likely to have a significant impact on its diffusion. As a remedy, instrumental measures, such as knowledge building and deployment, subsidy, mobilisation, and innovation directive, by way of which organizational stakeholders can positively affect XBRL diffusion, are critically assessed. The need for normative action is also highlighted.

This paper contributes to the existing body of knowledge by enhancing understanding of the complex phenomenon of the diffusion of network innovations, such as XBRL. This helps recognize the potential of individual stakeholders to effect innovation diffusion using their salience. Taken together, this information can help in designing proactive adoption and diffusion strategies for network innovations.

There is a paucity of research in the area of the diffusion of network innovations. This work constitutes, therefore, an extension to the existing body of knowledge.

In the construction industry, it has proven difficult to implement and realize innovation efforts, for example in the development of industrialized construction and use of platform concepts. Thus, the purpose of this study is to characterize the innovation diffusion process in the social system of a large Swedish contractor company. Specifically, the diffusion of three innovative industrialized house-building (IHB) platforms and factors affecting their adoption and implementation (particularly effects of their perceived radicality in relation to the company’s decentralized characteristics) are identified and discussed.

A case study approach was applied, using empirical material including semi-structured interviews and archival records (research reports from earlier studies at different points in time related to each innovation and annual corporate reports). The material was analyzed using Rogers’ (2003) five-stage innovation process model, acknowledging the importance of social systems’ structures.

Structural characteristics of the social system strongly affect innovation diffusion. In subsystems that had not been involved in initiation of the innovations, they were regarded as radical, which hindered their adoption and implementation.

This study builds upon the recent findings that successful innovation implementation depends on a range of contingencies in the construction context. Although the diffusion of the innovations per se has been traced over a ten-year period, generalizability is limited because the results come from one construction company.

Contractors have invested substantially in the development of industrialized construction and use of platform concepts, but less in their implementation, so they have obtained little gain. How innovations are perceived and implemented in different subsystems affects the success of their implementation in the overarching social system.

This study adheres to previous calls for more research on firm level in the complex social system of construction companies by adopting a ten-year perspective on the diffusion of innovation at a large contractor addressing in particular the impact of the innovations perceived radicality in relation to the decentralized characteristics of the company.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate empirically the critical factors for the diffusion of web technologies in supply chain management (SCM) functions, based on the technology‐organizational‐environment model, and to identify the benefits resulting from diffusion.

Data were collected, via an internet survey, from 251 respondents, ranging from middle‐level to top‐level managers, from firms which currently utilize web technologies for their supply chain activities. Structural equation modelling was employed for five factors: relative advantage; competitive pressure; complexity; trialability; and top management support, which have been hypothesized to affect the diffusion of web technologies in SCM functions.

The results suggest that all the factors except trialability are significant predictors of web technologies' diffusion in supply chain functions. The results show also that by diffusing web technologies, organizations can enhance their supply chain activities.

The survey was conducted in a Malaysian context, using a limited set of variables, thus limiting the generalizability of the findings.

This study provides a greater understanding of managers' perception of web technology diffusion in their organizational SCM functions, and benefits realizing from diffusion of web technology, such as operational efficiency.

Those interested in adopting web technologies in their supply chain activities may find these results helpful in guiding their efforts.

The purpose of this paper is to understand the process through which external diffusion of business-to-business (B2B) e-procurement impacts firm performance. The research model has been developed to empirically examine the role of information transparency and supply chain coordination in improving the firm financial performance by external diffusion of e-procurement.

The survey is conducted in India with a target population of purchasing professionals working on the B2B e-procurement platform. The measurement model was first tested by using confirmatory factor analysis for reliability and validity, then structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to test the hypotheses of the research model using AMOS 22. The phantom model approach has been used for testing multiple mediators.

The result of the study highlights the importance of information transparency and supply chain coordination in enhancing the firm financial performance by external diffusion of e-procurement. The results establish the role of information transparency in enhancing firm performance by improving supply chain coordination. The results also indicate that supply chain coordination mediates the relationship between external diffusion of e-procurement and firm financial performance.

This is the first study that has focused on the external diffusion of e-procurement and its impact on firm performance. Also, this study attempted to understand the process through which external diffusion of e-procurement impacts the firm financial performance.