Forces driving adoption of new information technologies

This paper investigates the forces that drive construction firms to adopt new information technologies. The research focuses on CAD and electronic data interchange technologies and studies in-depth eight innovation adoption decisions. The paper presents the findings regarding the forces that created the managerial stimuli for innovation and the organizational characteristics that played an important role in the adoption. The investigation identified four forces that drive innovation: competitive advantage, process problems, technological opportunity, and institutional requirements. These forces change over time and drive the diffusion of a technology in the industry. The study also found that different organizational characteristics determine a company's sensitivity to each force. The paper proposes a new model of diffusion of new technologies and presents the implications for increasing the rate of innovation in the industry.