TECHNOLOGY ADOPTION AND EMBEDDEDNESS Propositions on a four facet framework

The purpose of this paper is to propose and discuss a framework to study the embeddedness of technology adoption. This paper embraces the view expressed under the notion ‘no business is an island’, here labeled and discussed as the embeddedness argument. The view emphasizes that firms and firm decisions and technology need to be studied with reference to the context, e.g., forces and constraints, which they are embedded in. If the phenomenon is studied in isolation, scholars might be misled. The proposed framework is sorted under the following four facets: relational embeddedness, structural embeddedness, institutional embeddedness and temporal embeddedness. The idea is that, based on prevalent studies, we can structure our conceptualization around four different facets of embeddedness. The framework builds heavily on the Granovetterian delineation of structural and relational embeddedness, and adds to that an institutional dimension and a temporal dimension. These facets differ quite extensively in terms of analytical foci, level of analysis and disciplinary background. Therefore, the paper is concluded with a discussion on applicability and separability of the facets of the framework and if the concept of embeddedness could not easily become empty if applied with to much broadness?