Factors Affecting the Organizational Adoption of Extended Reality Technologies

Digitalization and the shift toward remote virtual work are pushing organizations to explore the adoption of emerging technologies, including augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR), which are often examined under the umbrella term extended reality (XR). XR technologies have gained increasing interest from organizations due to their disruptive potential in enabling more immersive and engaging remote collaboration, as well as novel interactions with digital content. By adopting XR technologies, organizations can re-engineer their operations and achieve a competitive advantage. As the maturity and sophistication of XR technologies have been increasing due to significant investments in XR technologies by major technology companies and research institutes, the incentives for companies to adopt XR solutions have also risen as more powerful and versatile XR solutions have become available.

However, only the most pioneering companies are currently using XR solutions extensively. XR technologies can be seen as a new interfaces and platforms that enable an organization’s employees to collaborate with each other and engage with the organization’s digital resources in a more immersive fashion. The novelty and unique nature of XR, along with the possibilities to utilize it in a multitude of use cases, make its adoption a complex proposition for organizations. However, as an emerging technology, the most critical factors that can either drive or hinder XR adoption in organizations have received little attention in the literature.

This dissertation will respond to this gap in research by identifying the most important adoption factors for XR technologies and by unveiling the relationships and dynamics between these adoption antecedents and an organization’s intention to adopt XR technologies. In addition, this dissertation also provides prescriptive recommendations that organizations can utilize to adopt and further develop XR solutions more effectively. The main research question of this dissertation is as follows: What are the main factors affecting the organizational adoption of extended reality technologies?

To answer to this main research question, a mixed methods research approach is utilized. Overall, this article-based dissertation consists of five peer-reviewed publications. In the initial explorative phase, a qualitative approach consisting of semi-structured interviews is employed to provide a comprehensive accounting of relevant technological, organizational, and environmental XR adoption factors for organizations. In the following confirmatory stage, an organizational-level XR adoption model is proposed and tested with quantitative survey data using the structural equation modeling approach, with the model being further contextualized in a follow-up qualitative study. Practical insights gained during this process, as well as findings from the extant literature, are used to derive prescriptive recommendations for organizations to assist them in their XR adoption efforts. Lastly, three overarching meta-inferences are developed based on a comparison of the convergent and divergent findings of the qualitative and quantitative results of the individual publications.

Overall, although technological factors emerged as important factors for XR adoption in the explorative phase, the importance of different organizational and environmental factors, such as organizational support capabilities and mimetic pressures, rose to the forefront of the results in the confirmatory stage. The results thus suggest that technological factors, such as XR’s compatibility with organizational information systems and existing hardware install base, should be viewed as necessary initial conditions for adoption but insufficient to drive adoption independently. In contrast, more proximate adoption antecedents, such as expected employee resistance and perceived value, emerged as sufficient conditions for adoption. Moreover, organizations were found to prioritize internal capabilities and skills over external support in XR adoption.

This dissertation contributes to the information systems (IS) and technology adoption literatures with a holistic mixed methods examination and identification of the main factors affecting the adoption of XR in organizations. The dissertation’s findings will be useful for researchers as a basis for further theory development, particularly in the context of XR and other emerging and transformative technologies. Practitioners can make use of the findings in focusing their efforts on the most important identified adoption factors to ensure a smoother adoption of XR technologies in their organization.