A STUDY OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY ADOPTION IN HONG-KONG

As one of the four 'little dragons' of Asia, Hong Kong is one of the f astest growing areas in the world. It is the eleventh largest trading economy in the world and is the world's second busiest container port. Information technology (IT) is considered to have contributed to its success, although there have been no recent studies to date which docu ment of investigate this contribution. This study explores: (i) the ex tent of IT adoption in Hong Kong; (ii) the perceived benefits of using IT; and (iii) the problems encountered in adopting IT. A postal surve y was conducted of 438 companies, with 116 complete and useful returns . Results show that all 116 companies are using IT in accounting and f inance. IT is also used, although to a much lesser extent, in other ar eas such as human resources, sales and production. Most of the softwar e is developed in-house, Standard word-processing and spreadsheet pack ages are the most popular purchased software. All companies acknowledg e the usefulness of IT in helping to improve the efficiency and effect iveness of their companies, The major problems encountered are: (i) la ck of funds; (ii) lack of top management support; and (iii) end-user r esistance.