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This paper aims to examine how academics enact trust in e-learning through an inductive identification of perceived risks and enablers involved in e-learning adoption, in the context of higher education institutions (HEIs).

Grounded Theory was the methodology used to systematically analyse data collected in semi-structured interviews with 62 academics. Data analysis followed the constant comparative method and its three-staged coding approach: open, axial and selective coding.

The resulting trajectory of trust factors is presented in a Grounded Theory narrative where individual change and integration through shared collective understanding and institutionalisation are discussed as stages leading to the overcoming of e-learning adoption barriers.

The paper proposes that the interplay between institutionalism and individualism has implications in the success or failure of strategies for the adoption of e-learning in HEIs, as perceived by academics. In practical terms, this points to the need for close attention to contextually sensitive trust-building mechanisms that promote the balance between academics’ commitments, values and sense of self-worth and centrally planned policy, rules, resources and exhortations that enable action.

The purpose of this paper is to report on a research project that identified organisational critical success factors (CSFs) for e‐learning implementation in higher education (HE). These CSFs can be used as a theoretical foundation upon which to base decision‐making and strategic thinking about e‐learning.

The project reported in this paper adopted a critical research approach aiming at proposing strategies derived from a holistic, consultative and emancipatory perspective. Bearing this perspective, the researchers drew inspiration from CSF management theory. Organisational analysis using CSFs is an established management research method as a means of identifying the essential elements that need to be addressed in order for change processes to be effective. The specific data collection method adopted was focus group interviews.

The data analysis from focus group interviews with practitioners, administrators and academics revealed 66 CSFs divided into four clusters: leadership, structural and cultural issues (31), design issues (12), technological issues (7) and delivery issues (6).

Stakeholders are prepared to embrace e‐learning, but not in detriment to their profession and their own careers. Thus, if implementation of online learning is to be successful, the way forward seems to be for the “the university” to manage the change process by proposing and agreeing goals through consensual debate, supporting strategies appropriately and then realising these through common commitment.

The research is original since it takes a critical research approach aimed at eliciting emancipatory data directly from practitioners' views, understandings and opinions. The findings are therefore independent of institutional influence and organisational culture bias.

E‐learning is an organizationally risky investment given the cost and poor levels of adoption by users. In order to gain a better understanding of this problem, the aim of this paper is to conduct a study into the use of e‐learning in a rail organization.

Using an online survey, employees of a rail‐sector organization were questioned about their use and likelihood of adoption of e‐learning. This study explores the factors that affect the way in which learners experience and perceive such systems. Using statistical analysis, 12 hypotheses are tested and explored. Relationships between learning satisfaction, intention to adopt, and the characteristics of e‐learning systems were established.

The study found that e‐learning characteristics can buffer the relationship between learner characteristics and intention to adopt further e‐learning in the future. Further, the paper found that high levels of support can compensate individuals who are low in technological efficacy to adopt e‐learning.

The cross‐sectional design of the study and its focus on measuring intention to adopt as opposed to actual adoption are both limitations. Future research using longitudinal design and research employing a time lag design measuring actual adoption as well as intention are recommended.

From a practical perspective, organizations can focus on the actual content and authenticity of the learning experience delivered by the e‐learning system to significantly impact how employees will perceive and use e‐learning in the future. Low technological efficacy individuals tend not to adopt new technology. Instead of changing individuals’ personalities, organizations can implement supportive policies and practices which would lead to higher e‐learning adoption rate among low efficacy individuals.

The study integrates technology adoption and learning literatures in developing enablers for e‐learning in organizations. Further, this study collects data from rail employees, and therefore the findings are practical to an industry.

The aim of this paper is to link two sides of knowledge transfer (obtaining and providing knowledge), represented by the interplay between experts and novices, possibilities of technical support, and individual and organizational outcomes. An heuristic is developed to link up these different aspects and focus on practical application of some of them; the authors seek to answer the following research question: how can the organization support activities that would encourage knowledge transfer between novices and experts?

The authors used interviews, document collection, and observations on‐site to gain insights into knowledge management and e‐learning activities at Lufthansa, a German airline company, beginning in 2004, with the first qualitative investigation, in the form of telephone interviews. Over the following six years, the authors followed up with archival analysis and in 2010 conducted interviews with four experts who are responsible for knowledge management and e‐learning at the group level at Lufthansa. All interviews were recorded, transcribed and coded, then a qualitative content analysis was conducted. The interviews were complemented by several demonstrations of the system during a visit on‐site.

Every person can be simultaneously a novice and an expert in different fields of knowledge. Novices and experts need organizational leeway which allows time for creating “knowledge nuggets” (providing knowledge) and for learning (obtaining knowledge). The Lufthansa example shows that organizational leeway, the convergence of e‐learning and knowledge management in the form of rapid e‐learning, and introduction of knowledge transfer methods that provide opportunities for employees to obtain and provide knowledge, i.e. practice knowledge transfer on the job.

The contribution of this paper is that the authors develop an heuristic, which explains technically supported knowledge transfer processes among novices and experts, and their individual and organizational outcomes. The heuristic helps to classify knowledge transfer processes and their outcomes.

The purpose of this study is to propose an integrated model based on expectation–confirmation model (ECM), flow theory and human–organization–technology fit framework to examine whether human, organizational and technology factors as antecedents to medical professionals' beliefs can affect their continuance intention of the cloud-based e-learning system.

Sample data for this study were collected from medical professionals at five hospitals in Taiwan. A total of 500 questionnaires were distributed, and 368 (73.6%) useable questionnaires were analyzed using structural equation modeling in this study.

Synthetically speaking, human, organizational and technology factors, as antecedents to medical professionals' continuance intention of the cloud-based e-learning system have been examined, and the results strongly support the research model with all hypothesized links being significant.

Particularly, it is worth mentioning that the application of capturing both ECM and flow theory for completely explaining three types of factors (i.e. human, organizational and technology factors) as external variables to medical professionals' cloud-based e-learning continuance intention is well documented, that is, information systems (IS) and nonIS determinants are simultaneously evaluated, and extrinsic and intrinsic motivators are both taken into consideration in this study's theoretical development of medical professionals' cloud-based e-learning continuance intention to acquire a more comprehensive and robust analysis.

E-learning is one area of strategic application of information technology (IT) in the educational field. In the past, massive investments in e-learning systems have neither been necessarily effective nor created value for e-learners. As a result, e-learning systems’ evaluation has become critical. Although many researchers have studied e-learning’s performance evaluation, there is little research on e-learning assessment, which uses pedagogical principles and organizational issues along with information systems (ISs) assessment measures. Thus, the purpose of this study is to consolidate multi-dimensional aspects of e-learning evaluation by applying balanced scorecard (BSC) as a strategic performance measurement method. This study further seeks a solution for designing a systematic approach, in which three equally important considerations must be balanced: organization, pedagogy and technology.

This paper introduces a framework for assessing e-learning systems by using fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (FAHP) and BSC. Owing to the growing use of BSC in strategic management, this study applies its four perspectives as a base for performance evaluation. To identify measures of each perspective, a comprehensive literature review has been conducted. Modifying the list of measures is completed in two phases: first by using a focus group consisting of six e-learning experts, and second, by using a survey analysis conducted among 256 Iranian e-learners. FAHP is applied to weigh and determine the rank-order of the measures.

The results propose integrating pedagogical, organizational and technical measures based on the BSC framework for evaluating e-learning systems. In the proposed framework, effective BSC perspectives and their rank-orders and weights are presented as a guideline for assessing e-learning systems in Iran.

In e-learning initiatives, organizational issues must be considered along with technological and pedagogical factors simultaneously. The proposed framework can assist educational institutions and organizations to identify weaknesses and strengths of e-learning projects and guide them to select appropriate strategies for progress.

A review of the e-learning literature shows that there are few substantive theoretical accounts, which adequately integrate multiple dimensions of e-learning evaluation; yet, most researchers view e-learning evaluation as the most difficult part in the e-learning implementation process. This study proposes a new conceptual framework to evaluate e-learning initiatives systematically. The main contribution of this study is to develop a new systematic approach for e-learning systems’ evaluation that integrates two well-established managerial methodologies (BSC and FAHP), and considers pedagogical, organizational and technological aspects synchronously.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the factors affecting employees’ overall acceptance, satisfaction and future use of e-learning, specifically exploring the impact that age has on the intended future use of e-learning relative to the other potential predictors.

The project developed an online survey and invited employees of one Australian rail organisation to participate. Questions were structured around the factors that affect acceptance and future use of e-learning. Statistical analysis was used.

The findings from the study suggest that, despite the often espoused stereotype, age is not a significant factor impacting either future use intentions or satisfaction with e-learning. In contrast, three variables were found to be useful predictors of intention for future use of organisational e-learning; low complexity, authenticity and technical support.

The study did not consider other moderating effects related to demographic data other than age, such as educational experience. Further, the case presented is a single organisation and therefore is not necessarily representative of other industries. Future studies should adopt a mixed methods approach.

This study has emphasised that attention needs to be focussed on factors over which organisations have control when adopting and using e-learning. Employee age should not be seen as an obstacle to e-learning implementation, rather attention needs to turn to effective and user-friendly e-learning interventions along with sufficient technology support.

Perceptions within industry and indeed in some literature, suggest that employee age stereotypes still exist in relation to technology uptake. This research has demonstrated that this stereotype is an erroneous assumption and emphasised the importance of other factors.

Conceptual model in this paper combines existing scientific knowledge grounded in theories of planned behavior, diffusion of innovation and a unified theory of acceptance and use of technology, while aiming to identify relevant determinants of continuous use of e-learning by employees who used e-learning in the past year at their workplace.

The authors developed and empirically tested the positive impact of professional, personal, IT and environmental factors on the continued use of e-learning among 672 employees across different sectors using the structural equation modeling technique.

Research results suggest that the most powerful determinant of continuous use of e-learning are personal factors. Environmental influences and technological aspects also exhibit a positive and significant impact on the continuous use of e-learning. Research hypothesis related to the positive influence of professional factors on the continuous use of e-learning has not been empirically confirmed. Also, results demonstrated that continued use of e-learning contributes to better individual business performance.

The practical contribution is threefold: to companies, education institutions and human resource managers. For companies, identification of key determinants will lead to a better understanding of employees needs regarding continuous job improvements. The findings can be used by educational institutions to design e-learning programs according to results and real value to employees. On the other hand, human resource managers can benefit from this study in terms of getting concrete factors that motivate employees for continuous job improvement.

The research sheds light on the proposed integrated model that tests the post-adoption of the continuous use of e-learning within an organizational context.

Nowadays, organizations are facing fast markets’ changing, competition strategies, technological innovations and accessibility of information. In such highly dynamic situations, many factors must be coordinated to realize effective decision-making. In addition, the definition of organizational intelligence is as follows: intellectual ability to answer organizational issues and focus on the unification of human and mechanical abilities for solving problems. This paper aims to investigate important factors (organizational learning, knowledge management and e-learning systems) that influence organizational intelligence.

Data have been collected from 290 personnel of tax administration of East Azarbaijan, Iran. For measuring the model’s elements, a questionnaire has been proposed. Surveys have been reviewed by experts with significant experiences in the organizational intelligence field. For statistical analysis of questionnaires, the statistical package social sciences 25 and SMART-partial least squares 0.3 have been used.

Findings from the study verify the validity of the design for an organizational intelligence assessment. The outcomes indicate that e-learning systems positively affected organizational intelligence. In addition, they show that the influence of knowledge management and organizational learning on organizational intelligence is important.

Organizational intelligence’s multidimensional nature makes it a very useful and essential management tool. Therefore, it provides beneficial results for the organizations’ managers to study the important factors affecting it.

Technological improvements in broadband and distributed computing are making it possible to distribute live media content cost‐effectively. Because of this, organizations are looking into cost‐effective approaches to implement e‐Learning initiatives. Indeed, computing resources are not enough by themselves to promote better e‐Learning experiences. Hence, our goal is to share preliminary results on testing a holistic evaluation method for e‐Learning environments. To this end, we have built an experience within class dynamics using an open source Learning Virtual Environment integrated with webcast and video archive features. Our proposed evaluation method capyures user feedback by classifying it according to motivation to e‐learn in groups, since we have found this approach simpler than using classic behavioural methods. This helped us to define practical design guidelines to yield faster and more efficient e‐Learning development processes. Our results show that consistent communication both online and offline, translates into efficiency. It also dampens negative perceptions during the transition from traditional to online learning environments. These results will contribute in designing intervention strategies to optimize organizational investments in e‐Learning across user groups and contexts.