Contextual factors influencing managers in AI-enabled product adoption
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2024-08-23
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en
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One of the fastest growing technologies within industry 4.0 is artificial intelligence. Despite being such a fast-growing technology, managers face problems when implementing this technology within its firms, especially AI-enabled products. Current literature primarily focusses on the B2C side while research about the B2B side is lacking. Also, it remains unclear which factors are relevant for the adoption process. This leads to a gap and a limited understanding of the underlying factors that influence the decisions that managers make when it comes to AI-enabled product adoption. This thesis investigates the influence of contextual factors on managers in the Dutch B2B manufacturing industry for the adoption of AI-enabled products. Making use of the TOE framework, this study examines how factors from the technological, organizational and environmental dimension impact managerial decision-making.
Seven different case studies with nine different interviews have been performed to gather the data for this research. In total, eleven different contextual factors have been found to be influential for the adoption process of AI-enabled products. Technological factors include relative advantage, complexity and compatibility; organizational factors include the top management support and the organizational readiness; and environmental factors include competitive pressures and regulatory environment. Also, some additional factors have been found to be influential, these include: acceptation within the firm, culture, data privacy and the ethical aspect.
Based on these results, some theoretical and practical implications can be drawn. The results of this research will eventually be particularly useful for managers in manufacturing firms, policymakers and Fieldlab Industrial Robotics.
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Faculteit der Managementwetenschappen