An Empirical Investigation into Factors Relating to the Adoption of Executive Information Systems: An Analysis of EIS for Collaboration and Decision Support*

ABSTRACT This study focuses on the organizational adoption of Executive Information Systems (EIS). A distinction is made between two related, complementary EIS capabilities—EIS for collaboration support (EIS c ) and EIS for decision support (EIS d ). EIS c is relatively standardized and replicable, while EIS d has to be developed in situ given the specific characteristics of the user and task. The adoption process is conceptualized as an initial transition from a state of nonadoption to adoption (adoption status) and subsequent internal propagation of the technology (adoption level). Data collected from a national survey are used to test hypotheses between identified contextual variables and the adoption status and adoption level of EIS c and EIS d . Adopters and nonadopters of both EIS c and EIS d do not differ in their organization size, suggesting that the traditional paradigm of “EIS as a technology for large firms” is no longer true. Environmental uncertainty is found to promote the transition from a state of nonadoption to adoption of both EIS c and EIS d while continuing to catalyze the internal propagation of EIS d . While no differences are observed in IS department size between adopters and nonadopters of EIS c , our results suggest that larger IS departments provide the resource base to explore the less standardized of the two capabilities, EIS d . IS support is also found to be critical for the subsequent internal propagation of EIS d . Furthermore, the adoption level of both EIS c and EIS d are found to be promoted by top management support. Implications of these results are discussed for the organizational adoption of EIS.