VARIETIES OF SOCIAL-INFLUENCE - THE ROLE OF UTILITY AND NORMS IN THE SUCCESS OF A NEW COMMUNICATION MEDIUM

This natural experiment investigates the introduction and use of a pai r of competing video telephone systems in a company over a period of I s months. Both quantitative, time-series analyses and in-depth intervi ews demonstrate that employees adopted and used the video systems for both utility and normative reasons. Consistent with utility explanatio ns, people in the most communication-intensive jobs were the most like ly to use video telephony. Consistent with social influence explanatio ns, people used a particular system more when more people in general w ere using it and when more people in their work group were using it. T here were two conceptually distinct, but empirically entangled, types of social influence. First, use by other people changed the objective benefits and costs associated with using the systems, and thus their u tility. Second, use by others changed the normative environment surrou nding the new technology. Both utility and normative influences were s tronger in one's primary work group. Implementers, users, and research ers should consider both utility and normative factors influencing bot h the success and failure of new organizational communication systems.