Does Change Management and Technological Acceptance theory have a relationship?
Businesses decide to invest in information systems (IS) for many reasons; among these are, the continual pressures to cut costs, increase the products and services that can be offered to customers, or simply improve the quality of services or products. (Legris, Ingham and Collerette, 2003), or comply with some new or updated regulatory and legal requirements.
But does this indicate that Change Management has a relationship with Technological Acceptance Theory?
Well, Change Management has been defined as ‘the process of continually renewing an organization’s direction, structure, and capabilities to serve the ever-changing needs of external and internal customers’. (Todnem, 2005).
Technological Acceptance Theory has been defined as the study of an individual’s adoption, acceptance, and use of information technologies (IT) and information systems (IS), and has been a recognised field of research since the 1970s. (Momani and Jamous, 2017).
Discussion
Does technological Acceptance Theory impact Change Management, or does Change Management impact the way that technologies are accepted and then adopted?
I am sure, you like me, may have different types of relationships with the technologies you may use, from the very accepting of change within social media, like Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, to the unaccepting of changes within Technologies used at work, and these attitudes and experiences can impact on how quickly new technology solutions are adopted.
Technological implementation projects have a very checkered history of successes and failures, with many failures being spread across news outlets. (BBC News, 2014; Peppard, 2023).
Some research has suggested that 46% of projects were delivered over budget, late, or with fewer features or less functionality than originally specified. With almost one-third or 28% of those projects being cancelled. (Legris, Ingham and Collerette, 2003).
But many more projects could be considered as failures, not because as has been suggested they are over budget, late, or have less functionality, but because the technology that is being implemented is not adopted by the people or the employees that would be using it.
But what does this have to do with Change Management, well Change Management has come to represent how organisations will help people change, the ‘What’, ‘How’ and ‘Why’ tasks are done, in turn supporting the changes in organisational direction, structure, and accountability, etc.
However, Change Management should not just be considered as a way of getting employees to change the ‘What’, ‘How’ and ‘Why’, of the tasks they perform, but as a methodology of responding to an identified organisational gap between what is currently done and what is required.
Technology acceptance theories and models aim to convey the concept of how users may understand and accept the new technology and how they may use it. For any new technology, there are many variables that affect the individuals’ decision-making process about how and when they will use it (Momani and Jamous, 2017).
This gap between the current and the needed situations could be observed as requiring a managed change, and these are normally categorised as either, 1. The rate of change occurrence (For example Business process re-engineering). 2. The source of the required change. (Is the change needed because of an external or internal influence. 3. The size or scale of the change. (Is the change just going to impact a team, a department, a country or the organisational at a global level). (Todnem, 2005).
So Change Management could be observed as a method of addressing any identified gap between the current and the required organisational position, which through the category of the type of change required could suggest the types of actions that would be required.
These actions could either be the implementation of a new or upgraded technological solution, the change to some business processes, the collection and analysis of new or current information or the re-organising of a team or department.
It has been suggested that the need for Change Management has never been greater with the speed of change within organisations ever increasing (Balogun and Hope Hailey, 2004; Burnes, 2004; Carnall, 2003; Kotter, 1996 (Todnem, 2005).
Many if not all of these business changes may require additions or alterations to the currently implemented Information technology systems, to assist in addressing the identified business gap, and it is here that the relationship between Change Management and Technological Acceptance Theory could be observed, as the acceptance of any altered and new technological systems would have to be accounted for.
There are Ten well-known Technological Acceptance Theories, All are designed to measure the degree of acceptance, rejection and satisfaction the individual(s) may have against any technology or information system, depending on the constructs or determinants which represent the theory structure (Momani and Jamous, 2017)
TRA (Theory of Reasoned Action) and TPB (Theory of Planned Behaviour), both investigate planned Human behaviour in conjunction with the use of technologies (non-technology specific), with TPB taking into account factors like Locus of control, (Our levels of self-control, and assuredness) and both have been observed as offering realistic predictions of behaviours towards new technologies.
TAM and TAM2 (Technology Acceptance Model), Both build on the TRA model, but TRA and TPB investigate attitudes towards behaviours, TAM and TAM2 both replace the investigation of attitudes towards behaviours with, measures of the perceived usefulness and ease of use of any technology.
Both TAM and TAM2 could be observed as offering an indication of how an individual will accept any new technology.
So to answer the question posed earlier; What is the relationship between Technological Acceptance Theory and Change Management?
Well, as has been suggested, it could be suggested that Change Management could impact how technology is accepted and used. It could also be observed that how technologies are accepted and used within the workplace, may have an impact on how Changes through Change Management are made, and how effective they can be within the organisation.
In Conclusion
Change Management and Technological Acceptance Theory are complex subjects, with academics and business commentators studying many aspects of the subjects over the last decades.
This blog covers those subjects at a very simplistic level, and in no way could represent the complexities of both subjects, however, as has been suggested Change Management looks to address identified gaps between what the business needs or perceives, and the current environment.
However, organisational change is more an open-ended and continuous process than a set of pre-identified set of discrete and self-contained events. (Todnem, 2005).
As has been suggested Change Management is not just about how technological changes can impact employees, or what can be done to gain their acceptance, but the changes a business would need to make so the identified gaps can be addressed.
So it could be offered that although change management is not always about technology, it could be observed as one of the central attributes.
Additionally, Technological Acceptance theory addresses and looks to measure and offer indications on how and why employees either accept or reject new or altered technologies within the workplace.
Therefore, I suggest that although change management is not always about technology, and the systems that are used, for any business change to be successful, that has a technological aspect, then Technological Acceptance theory may impact how effectively and how fast those technology additions or alterations are accepted.
So in the mind of this blogger to answer the question; Does Change Management and Technological Acceptance theory have a relationship, the answer would be ‘Yes’.
Because, Technology Acceptance Theory can influence how business changes are implemented, with Change Management influencing through the type of change category, the technological aspect of the change.
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