Drivers for the Adoption of Mobile Device Management in Organizations

The diffusion of mobile devices rapidly increased in the last decade. Nowadays, smartphones are part of our daily lives, both with respect to private and professional use. This leads to several challenges for enterprises, like the trend to “Bring Your Own Device” or IT consumerization. IT executives are forced to ensure a high level of security, provide services for employees and support the enterprise productivity. In this context, several software solutions have been introduced to manage the mobile IT, one of which are mobile device management (MDM) systems. However, until now, there is a lack of research concerning possible factors that may influence the adoption of MDM systems in enterprises. Based on the well-established Technology Organization Environment (TOE) Framework a model for MDM adoption in enterprises is constructed and tested using partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM). Data was gathered by means of an online survey, in which 95 IT executives from German enterprises participated. Overall, it could be found that perceived security benefits, costs, firm-size, and the BYOD culture significantly influence MDM adoption, while regulations, business partners, employees’ innovativeness with IT and the amount of mobile device usage have no significant influence.