Diffusion and Innovation Theory: Past, Present, and Future Contributions to Academia and Practice

Part 4: PanelInternational audienceThe field of information systems (IS) has throughout its history experienced extensive changes in technology, research, and education. These renewals will continue into the foreseeable future [10]. It is recognized that IS is a key force in the ongoing societal and organizational renewal and change [2, 8, 14]. For example, in the US business sector, IS continues yearly to consume about 30% of total investments made [5]. Recent research document that IS supports the creation of business value, with particular emphasis on an organization’s innovation and change capabilities [1, 3]. Traditionally, research in IS has been interdisciplinary in nature - since it draws on innovation theory, models of value creation, actors’ roles and behaviors, the creation and running of task oriented groups, and how these relate to organizational structures and mechanisms [24]. Throughout its history the question of benefits from investing in IS has been lively discussed

Why Do Evaluations of eHealth Programs Fail? An Alternative Set of Guiding Principles

Trisha Greenhalgh and Jill Russell discuss the relative merits of “scientific” and “social practice” approaches to evaluation and argue that eHealth evaluation is in need of a paradigm shift

From use to effective use: a representation theory perspective

Information systems must be used effectively to obtain maximum benefits from them. However, despite a great deal of research on when and why systems are used, very little research has examined what effective system use involves and what drives it. To move from use to effective use requires understanding an information system's nature and purpose, which in turn requires a theory of information systems. We draw on representation theory, which states that an information system is made up of several structures that serve to represent some part of the world that a user and other stakeholders must understand. From this theory, we derive a high-level framework of how effective use and performance evolve, as well as specific models of the nature and drivers of effective use. The models are designed to explain the effective use of any information system and offer unique insights that would not be offered by traditional views, which tend to consider information systems to be just another tool. We explain how our theory extends existing research, provides a rich platform for research on effective use, and how it contributes back to the theory of information systems from which it was derived

Dental practitioners and a digital future: an initial exploration of barriers and incentives to adopting digital technologies

Background Digital technologies are proliferating into dental practices. While their technical attributes have often been studied, it remains unclear why some dentists adopt and use these technologies more than others. Aim To explore the incentives for and barriers against accepting and using digital dental technologies. Method Eleven semi-structured qualitative interviews were conducted with experts in dentistry, dental technology and dental education in the Netherlands. Results Dentists' acceptance and use of digital technologies are to varying degrees driven by the perceived advantages over analogue methods, perceived influence on treatment quality, dentists' personal and professional orientation, and social influence from peers and external groups. These effects are complemented by personal and dental-practice characteristics. Conclusions The findings suggest that there are large differences in motivation to adopt and use digital technologies between early adopters, late adopters and non-adopters, which should be examined in greater detail. We recommend that educators, dentists, and representatives of the dental industry who deal with the diffusion of these technologies take account of dentists' widely different attitudes to digitalisation