Improving the Adoption Level of Employee for Web 2.0 Tools

CHAPTER 1RECOMMENDATION

1.1 Introduction

After analysis and interpretation of the results, recommendations will now be made on the basis of these findings. The objective of this chapter is to suggest recommendations that would enhance the level of adoption of the employees in the company.

1.2 Recommendations

Based on the finding, the following suggestions may improve employee’ adoption of the enterprise 2.0 tools:

1.2.1 Phased Approach for implementation

Given there is significant number of employee who have moderate understanding of enterprise 2.0 tools, it would be better to start rolling features such social networking and wiki at initial phase of the initiative or deploying a complete solution to only the subject matter expert or early adopters. As user become more familiar with the tools, new features can be rolled out incrementally or expanded to wider audience in the company. The early adopters/SMEs can act as advocate of the tools and therefore, Enterprise 2.0 tool’s usefulness can be promoted by presenting its relative benefits to the wider audience. The deployment strategy can be broken based on the level of confidence of the employees.

1.2.2 Communication and Executive support

Strong communication is absolutely essential for the promotion of the usefulness of the tools given that performance expectancy is the second most influence construct to intention to use. Hence top management and champion of the project should be involved in creating awareness and promotion of the collaboration feature of enterprise 2.0 tools.

Knowledge sharing factor is a key determinant of user adoption hence it essential for the management to reinforce the emphasis on a culture of collaboration through their messages. Also, awareness campaigns should begin before implementation and more emphasis should be made during the launching of the initiative and ongoing after the launch. These activities will help employee to understand the purpose and how it will help them to boost their performance at work. As part of the ongoing communication plan, existing channels such as town hall meeting and newsletters can be used to periodically highlight how the tools are adding value to the business. In addition, success stories and user experiences can be share through these platforms. Users who are skeptical about the tools may be encouraged to adopt it when they hear about the successes of their peers. Lastly a feedback mechanism can be incorporated in the tools itself to encourage users to report their experiences and suggestions. Executive leadership and champion could enhance their approaches based on the feedback to provide a better service to employees.

1.2.3 Executive support

The support of Executive and managers are essential for the rollout and adoption of the tool in event a top-down initiatives approach would be adopted .Employees would be more willing to adopt the tools if there is an atmosphere where social influence to enterprise 2.0 is encouraged by their leaders. Executive support can range from verbal encouragement to their actual use itself i.e. Broadcasting company communication or collecting feedbacks of employee on the business using the tools. Executive involvement would help to give lots of credibility to the new collaborative technology.

1.2.4 Training and Programs

To influence effort expectancy positively, champion can leverage on training program to make adoption of enterprise 2.0 as easy as possible for the users and hence more successful. Even enterprise 2.0 tools might be intuitive for some users due to the fact that most of the employees are conversant in IT, but it is not the case for all work streams (testing & Support). Hence customized training program could be delivered to address specific needs of each workstream and also based on their adoption rate. Brief introductory training can be offered to wider audience to help them to understand the solution and use the application. Then customized training can be delivered based on role and interest. For instance a “train the trainer” approach can adopted whereby multi-day classroom training can be delivered to subject matter experts and early adopters. These evangelists would use their social and organizational influence to encourage their colleagues to adopt and embrace the tools. However for the majority of the users mini frequent training program would be more efficient and cost effective. Additionally, with online documentation, training videos, FAQs and recurring training events, users would be able to digest it at their own pace and utilize the full potential and capabilities offered by such tools. Last but not least, on-going training is critical since the adoption rate would vary for each work streams.

1.2.5 Organizational infrastructure and support

Organizational infrastructure and user support implies establishing a set of user support activities and resources who have require skills in event the user community is experiencing any infrastructure or technical difficulties with the tools. Even facilitating conditions was not a key determinant to intention to use enterprise 2.0 tools, it can be considered as a hygiene factors which would lower the expectation of the users in case the quality of support is not adequate. Hence, proper procedures for the support model should be defined and broadcast to the users. Also, existing IT Help desk can be trained to address user queries and issues. Furthermore, user feedback mechanism can be implemented in the process to collate user experience and improve on them on an on-going basis.

1.2.6 Incentives and Recognition program

Successful adoption of enterprise 2.0 tools is highly dependent on a culture of collaboration (knowledge sharing factors). Incentives can be an effective short term strategy for pulsing employee to try the tools and integrate them in their day to day activities. However the right recognition program would help to make it sustainable. For instance, at discovery phase a contest can be launched in the company on how each team can integrate enterprise 2.0 tools in their daily process and then showcase it to wider audience. Rewarding the best team would definitely help to create a buzz within the company and make people aware what can be achieved. Additionally to promote collaboration, users can earn points and badges by answering questions, post content and share knowledge. Recognizing most active contributors and users publicly would make them more visible to the organization, hence enhancing their reputation. They would be perceived as expert by peers and management therefore helping them to build new network within the company. Also, kudos can be share within the application whereby peers can give public recognition to contributors and users.

1.3 Conclusion

This chapter has presented a set of recommendations which could be adopted to improve the adoption level of employee for web 2.0 tools. It is firmly believed that these suggestions would indeed help the senior management to take better decision and ensure both successful implementation and adoption of enterprise 2.0 tools in company XYZ.

CHAPTER 2 CONCLUSION

2.1 Introduction

The aim of this concluding chapter is to reflect on the objectives of the study and to determine the extent to which they have been met. The research questions will therefore be re-examined to ascertain whether they have indeed been answered. Finally, the limitations with respect to the study and areas of further research will be identified.

2.2 Research overview

The objective of this study is to to identify factors affecting the adoption of Enterprise 2.0 tools of an offshore company (Company XYZ). This research primarily reviews and focuses on the user adoption factors that senior management should consider in addition of exploring some of the decisions made and thought processes that certain enterprises have undertaken to assist in the introduction of Web 2.0 technologies in their work place. Additionally the current acquaintance level of employee was evaluated with respect to enterprise 2.0 tools.

A review of literature indicated that technology acceptance models need to be adjusted in order to address for new paradigm. Hence a conceptual mode was proposed based on UTUAT model and relevant factors from other literatures. A stratified sample was conducted to empirically evaluate the conceptual model. According to the descriptive statistical analysis, majority of the respondents intend to use the enterprise tools once implemented. The extended UTAUT model comprised of seven hypotheses, which were used to determine if intention to use enterprise 2.0 tools is statistically significant or not. Each of the hypotheses was tested and findings showed that five out of the seven hypotheses were statistically significant. The study revealed that knowledge sharing factors, performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence and attitude towards technology were key determinants to influence the intention to use enterprise 2.0 tools. Consistent with UTAUT model both anxiety and facilitating conditions did not have any impact on the adoption of web 2.0 tools. Furthermore stepwise regression analysis indicated that knowledge sharing factors and performance expectancy were the most influencing of variables to predict behavioural intent to use enterprise 2.0 tools. With knowledge sharing factors explaining 36 % of the variability in the dependent variables. The slight differences between original UTAUT study and the findings of this study may be attributed to the difference in the cultural or organizational context.

The result with regards to the acquaintance level of the employee revealed that they were very conversant with ICT in general, however majority of the employee have moderate understanding of enterprise tools. Not surprisingly, social networking site was the tool which employees have more exposure and RSS feed & mashups were tools which were less familiar. Also, findings showed that the development workstream would be early adopters of tools, where by large majority employee of this department were willing to invest own efforts to learn them quickly.

The study was concluded by proposing a set of recommendations. Suggestions such communication plan, training, recognition program, user support might be useful to enhance the acceptance level of the employee with regards to enterprise 2.0 tools.

2.3 Research limitation and Future Research

Though this study provide interesting insights, it is important to acknowledge its limitations and future research. With regard to limitations, findings can’t be generalized to broader context due to the fact that the study was focus on a specific case study. However there is ample scope for future research in this area. Firstly, a study may be carried out to assess the actual usage of enterprise 2.0 tool after implementation in the company. Secondly, in order to generalize this study; the study can be extended to other organizations which are planning to introduce enterprise 2.0 tools. The conceptual model explained 65% of the variance with regards to intention to use of enterprise 2.0 tools. Hence the 35% of the variance can still be explained by other factors. Henceforth, further research can introduce other predictors in order to build more comprehensive study.