Abstract

Past studies on information systems innovation have focused on explaining the innovation and adoption of information technology by the potential adopter populations in the IT market. In contrast, few studies have examined adoption of IS innovations by IS development (ISD) organizations that produce services which underlie the innovations. Disruptive technological innovations such as Internet computing have, however, become intimately intertwined with innovative activities among ISD organizations due to their critical mediating role in the IT value chain. We draw upon Lyytinen and Rose (2003a, 2003b), and identify three sets of disruptive innovations in the IT value chain: breakthroughs in computing capability and architectures (base innovations), transformative innovations in IS development (process innovations), and disruptive changes in IS services (service innovations). We conduct a cross-sector paper-based survey of 78 small ISD organizations that develop software to external clients to test the following four research questions (see Table 1 for detailed hypotheses): 1. Is the adoption of Internet computing pervasive in ISD organizations in that base technologies, processes, and services change together? 2. Do ISD organizations perceive Internet computing as radical? 3. How does the perception by ISD organizations of base innovations impact their perception of process and service innovations? 4. How do such factors as firm size, the time of adopting base innovations, and the extent of adopting process and service innovations influence these relationships?

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