Open University vs. Consorzio Nettuno: An Institutional Analysis of Two Technology Enabled Higher Educational Systems

Assuming a rational perspective, the adoption and development of a new organisational technology can be viewed as a way to achieve an higher level of efficiency by finding the best way to fully exploit its potential. In other words, one might sustain that since organisations do initially ignore how to best deal with an innovative technology, they engage in a trial and error learning process that finally leads to the x-efficiency frontier. Once this knowledge is achieved, it will probably be spread around by external agents (e.g. consultants) enabling an imitative process. Thus in the long run all organisations will make almost the same efficient use of a mature organisational technology. In this paper we tried to explore how the same technology (eLearning) has been adopted by two diverse educational organisations. The patterns of development have been studied across time to verify if a progressive convergence has occurred. Results are providing some useful insights on what variables must be paid attention to when transferring a technological organisational innovation in a different settin