Organizational Technology Adoption Framework: Wireless LAN 802.11x

Wireless LAN (WLAN) is a recent technology that has not been extensively studied in IS research discipline. The only available literature is mostly vendor reports that glorify the success story of WLAN implementation. The current study attempts to fill this gap by undertaking a qualitative case study approach to investigate important WLAN adoption factors. Based on technology adoption constructs from previous studies, we propose a research model in an attempt to tailor technology adoption theories to the context of WLAN deployment. In order to assess the research model, we interviewed four WLAN equipped organizations. They belong to the four industry sectors that have a high WLAN rate (Cisco, 2003). The results show both similarity and disparity to findings from previous IT/IS adoption literature. In particular, there is a salient adoption difference between non-profit organizations and commercial organizations. In the last two sections, we discuss the implications of the current study to both IS researchers and practitioners and make suggestions for promising avenues of future WLAN research.