Organizations as Adopters of It Standards: What Can Standards Research Learn From Organization Theory?

Current research on IT standards is mainly focused on the lifecycle from the development, selection to their implementation and use. As organizations are the core entities to adopt standards, we suggest an interdisciplinary perspective on the adoption process with a strong basis in organization theory. Based on a review of existing adopter studies, the level of analysis is identified and contextualized with different organizational theories. The core argument is built on social constructivist perspectives of technologies as they provide the most explanatory power for the adoption of standards. This perspective delivers new insights and can be further developed in empirical research settings.