Technological, Organizational, and Environmental Antecedents to Web Services Adoption

The proliferation of web services within the last two years enables organizations to assimilate software and services from different companies and locations into an integrated service capable of streamlining important processes. Widespread adoption of web services has not yet occurred across all industries. To better understand the key determinants of web services adoption at the firm level, a conceptual model of factors impacting web services adoption was developed. The conceptual model was grounded in the technology–organization–environment (TOE) framework (Tornatzky and Fleischer, 1990) to support the formulation of eleven propositions that may affect adoption and continued utilization of web services. Specifically, factors for each of the contexts within the TOE framework were formulated and supported including: (1) technological factors (security concerns; reliability; deployability); (2) organizational factors (firm size; firm scope; technological knowledge; perceived benefits); and, (3) environmental factors (competitive pressure; regulatory influence; dependent partner readiness; trust in the web service provider). A summary of the relationships between the key constructs in the model and recommendations for future research are provided