Institutional Initiatives for Technological Change: From Issue Interpretation to Strategic Choice
研究了美国税务服务企业如何解读电子报税制度变革，发现对问题的紧迫性、可理解性和可控性的认知决定了战略承诺水平，且内部策略优先于外部策略。
To test a managerial cognition model of organizational adaptation to technolo gical change, we examine strategic responses to the introduction of electronic filing of individual income-tax returns by the U.S. Internal Revenue Service. Based on data from over four hundred tax-return preparation businesses in the United States, we analyzed the effects of issue interpretation on two dimen sions of response strategy — the target (intra-organizational versus inter- organizational) and the magnitude (level of commitment). Results of structural equation analyses support the usefulness of a managerial cognition approach for explaining different response patterns to institutional initiatives for techno logical change. Our findings indicate that three dimensions of issue interpreta tion — urgency, understandability and manageability — shape the level of commitment devoted to actions designed to resolve the issue. Our results also support the sequential nature of response consideration with respect to target, namely that intra-organizational strategies were considered before inter- organizational strategies.