Acceptance Of Service Oriented Computing: What Do IT Professionals Think?

This research aims to identify the critical factors that significantly influence the intention of IT professionals to accept and use the Service Oriented Computing (SOC) paradigm. The study uses an interpretive approach. A series of in-depth exploratory interviews was carried out involving IT experts using or considering using SOC in their professional work yielding interesting insights concerning the process of the acceptance of such a complex paradigm as SOC. These insights were used to formulate an initial SOC acceptance model which includes specific (i.e., first-order) constructs such as applicability, maintainability, technical compatibility or structural flexibility. The research investigating the acceptance and use of tools, technologies and approaches in the IT industry has been less than conclusive up to date. Thus, the current study contributes to the progress towards a substantive view of the IT professionals' individual-level technology acceptance. To the authors' knowledge it is the first study examining the process of individual-level SOC acceptance by senior IT professionals. In addition to that, most studies carried out in this domain have been quantitative in nature in contract to that the current study uses an interpretive approach.