Role of value compatibility in IT adoption

Compatibility has been recognised as an important element in the adoption of IT innovations in organisations but as a concept it has been generally limited to technical or functional factors. Compatibility is also significant, however, with regard to value compatibility between the organisation, and the adopted IT innovation. We propose a framework to determine value compatibility analysing the organisation's and information system's structure, practices and culture, and explore the value compatibility of an organisation with its adopted self-service computer-based information system. A case study was conducted to determine the congruence of an organisation's value and IT value compatibility. This study found that there was a high correspondence in the organisational structure and practice dimensions; however, there were organisational culture disparities. The cultural disparities reflected the self-service acceptance and training issues experienced by the case organisation. These findings add insight into the problems experienced with value compatibility and the adoption of the information systems, and show the potential use of the proposed framework in the detection of such problems.