The Decision To Adopt A Communication Technology

As stated earlier in this paper, that leadership style (directive or non-directive) goes a long way to determine the outcomes of decisions made on behalf of an organization by its leaders. From her statements, the CEO explained that the decision to adopt a technology lies mainly with her and the chief financial officer whom she refers to as “business partner.” This gives the impression that the type of leadership practice is the closed directive type which does not give room for the opinion of other stakeholders and usually the outcomes of such singlehanded, un- researched decisions end as ‘bad-luck’. But on the contrary, the project manager and the scheduling coordinator both claim that their opinions were sought before the decisions were made. The scheduling coordinator stated that she was asked what she wanted. Therefore, we may infer from this scenario painted by the respondents that style of leadership falls mid-line between the directive and the non-directive because even though the opinions of other team members were sought, the preferences of the two most senior executives hold the ace. Nevertheless, it is established that a communication line exists between the superiors and their subordinates when it comes to decision-making that affects the welfare of the entire organization.

On another note, the CEO stated that though they listened to the demos of different software technologies (the trialability factor in diffusion of innovation model comes to play here), the cost of investment goes a long way in determining the decision to adopt a technology or not. She says, “One of the software like that, it is designed for home care just like the continulink but it is so expensive that I didn’t even bother to get a second quote or to even get a second listening because it was just too expensive. Now that is not perfect for me. A perfect software for me is
the one that I can afford”.

The project manager also stressed the importance of ROI (return on investment) as a key determinant in the sense that the profit margin is also considered even though the quality of service deemed important.
One important thing to note in this actions is the fact that several other technologies were sampled and tested even though in demo form but it stresses the fact that as earlier mentioned in this paper, there is the need for proper research in a decision-making process to avoid regrets, waste of resources and unpleasant outcomes. This suggests to us that at the persuasion stage of the decision-making process (reference to the diffusion of innovations theory), the trial-ability and observability of the software reinforced the decision for the adoption and continued adoption of the ‘continulink’.
Another probable factor that we may identify as reinforcement for the adoption of the software technology is the fact that the vendors have webinars and updates for the technology to enhance its performance to further suit the purposes of the organization.