Despite significant attention given to effects of early exposure on acceptance and adoption of new systems, there continues to be ambiguity regarding its effectiveness beyond a threshold. For organizations concerned with optimal utilization of IT resources, a deeper understanding of ideal levels of early system exposure can result in greater realization of benefits through enhanced design of system training and mitigation of adverse effects of exposure on adoption. In this article, we propose that the relationship between system exposure and acceptance can demonstrate diminishing gains—as early exposure to a system increases beyond a reasonable level, its acceptance declines. Preliminary findings from an enterprise-wide system implementation suggest that exposure through pre-launch system trials results in diminishing system acceptance beyond an optimal point. We draw on learning and response-stimuli literature to interpret this early evidence. The article concludes with research propositions, recommendations, and implications for practice.
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/monica_adya/65/
Published Version. Communications of the AIS, Vol. 29 (2011): 259-278. Permalink. © 2011 Association for Information Systems (AIS). Used with permission.
Copyright (2011), by the Association for Information Systems. Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and full citation on the first page. Copyright for components of this work owned by others than the Association for Information Systems must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, to republish, to post on servers for commercial use, or to redistribute to lists requires prior specific permission and/or fee. Request permission to publish from: AIS Administrative Office, P.O. Box 2712 Atlanta, GA, 30301-2712, Attn: Reprints, or via e-mail from: publications@aisnet.org.