Managers' influence tactics and innovation implementation effectiveness: effects of users' characteristics and innovaiton attributes

Innovations are expected to bring many benefits to organizations. However, unless an innovation is implemented successfully, its intended benefits will not be realized. Successful implementation requires users’ acceptance and use of the innovation adopted by the organization. Managers have been proven to be a critical factor affecting innovation implementation success; however, how managers could influence innovation implementation effectiveness has not been probed adequately in the innovation literature. This study examined the effect of influence strategies used by managers on innovation implementation effectiveness and further explored the role of innovation attributes and users’ characteristics in the influence process. Therefore, this study tried to investigate three research questions: (1) how do different influence strategies used by managers impact innovation implementation effectiveness; (2) how do users’ perceived innovation attributes affect the effectiveness of managers’ influence strategies; and (3) what is the impact of users’ characteristics on the effectiveness of influence strategies? Three hundred and one employees from two Taiwanese companies that adopted knowledge management systems (KMS) participated in this study. The results showed that the managers’ persuasive strategy was positively related to both users’ attitude toward using KMS and their actual usage, while the relationship-based strategy was negatively related to both users’ attitude and their usage. Managers’ use of the assertive strategy only resulted in users’ negative attitude toward using KMS, but had no effect on the actual usage. Both relative advantage and complexity mediated the relationship between influence strategies and innovation implementation effectiveness. Users’ intrinsic motivation resulted in users’ positive attitude, but had an effect on users’ usage. Users’ extrinsic motivation had no effects in prediction either users’ attitude or usage. Users’ power distance orientation had no effect on either users’ attitude or users’ usage, but positively moderated the relationship between influence strategies and users’ usage.Ph. D.Includes bibliographical referencesIncludes vitaby Hao-hsuan Chi