Theory suggests that coworkers may influence individuals' technology use behaviors, but there is limited research in the technology diffusion literature that explicates how such social influence processes operate after initial adoption. We investigate how two key social influence mechanisms (identification and internalization) may explain the growth over time in individuals' use of knowledge management systems (KMS)-a technology that because of its publicly visible use provides a rich context for investigating social influence. We test our hypotheses using longitudinal KMS usage data on over 80,000 employees of a management consulting firm. Our approach infers the presence of identification and internalization from associations between actual system use behaviors by a focal individual and prior system use by a range of reference groups. Evidence of these kinds of associations between system use behaviors helps construct a more complete picture of social influence mechanisms, and is to our knowledge novel to the technology diffusion literature. Our results confirm the utility of this approach for understanding social influence effects and reveal a fine-grained pattern of influence across different social groups: we found strong support for bottom-up social influence across hierarchical levels, limited support for peer-level influence within levels, and no support for top-down influence.
Witnessing both opportunities and challenges in virtual work arrangements, researchers have explored a number of technological, social, and organizational factors in order to improve virtual work effectiveness. However, there is limited understanding of an important element of virtual work—the individuals. Our review of the literature indicates that the composition of individual knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs) required to work virtually would benefit from further research. In this study, we theoretically and empirically develop the construct of individual virtual competence that captures the key KSAs required to perform effectively in today’s virtualized workplace, within a parsimonious nomological network. Substantiated by its explanatory power on individual perceived performance and satisfaction, individual virtual competence contributes to the literature by acknowledging a distinct workplace competency that can be incorporated in future individual-level studies of virtual phenomena. This research provides managers with a lens to understand differences in individual work outcomes and provides a lever to developing individuals’ capabilities so as to improve work outcomes.