Information technology adoption: a review of the literature and classification

Abstract

In the information systems (IS) domain, technology adoption has been one of the most extensively researched areas. Although in the last decade various models had been introduced to address the acceptance or rejection of information systems, there is still a lack of existing studies regarding a comprehensive review and classification of researches in this area. The main objective of this study is steered toward gaining a comprehensive understanding of the progresses made in the domain of IT adoption research, by highlighting the achievements, setbacks, and prospects recorded in this field so as to be able to identify existing research gaps and prospective areas for future research. This paper aims at providing a comprehensive review on the current state of IT adoption research. A total of 330 articles published in IS ranked journals between the years 2006 and 2015 in the domain of IT adoption were reviewed. The research scope was narrowed to six perspectives, namely year of publication, theories underlining the technology adoption, level of research, dependent variables, context of the technology adoption, and independent variables. In this research, information on trends in IT adoption is provided by examining related research works to provide insights and future direction on technology adoption for practitioners and researchers. This paper highlights future research paths that can be taken by researchers who wish to endeavor in technology adoption research. It also summarizes the key findings of previous research works including statistical findings of factors that had been introduced in IT adoption studies.