Understanding the Adoption of Wearable Technology in South African Organisations

Wearable technology (WT) provides new ways of performing tasks by enabling easy access to valuable information regarding the wearer and their environment. Organisations are seeking to innovate in order to gain a competitive advantage and WT has the potential to improve an organisation’s processes as well as their product/service offering. This research looks at the factors that influence an organisation’s adoption of WT. The research was performed within the South African context with a focus on organisations in the healthcare, emergency services and education industries. The results of the research were obtained using a thematic coding analysis of the qualitative data gathered through semi-structured interviews with stakeholders from six different organisations. The structure of the interview questions was based on the TOETI theoretical model, a compound model using constructs from the TOE and TTF models. Of these factors, the cost of the technology itself and the level of technological readiness of the adopting organisation were revealed as the most influential negative factors, while competitive pressure and the relative advantage enabled by the technology were identified as the most influential positive factors. Some new factors were added to the model.