Making Investment Decisions on RFID Technology: An Evaluation of Key Adoption Factors in Construction Firms

Abstract

The importance of RFID technology is increasing as a means of enhancing productivity and efficiency, and reducing costs. The purpose of this research paper is to study the influence of technological, organizational, environmental, and innovation factors on the adoption of RFID technology by construction companies in Australia. With the growth of Australia's economy, in particular, the construction sector, the logistics departments in construction companies should pay attention to the adoption of more efficient technologies to provide better services for their customers. This paper provides a consolidated framework of RFID technology adoption based on studies on RFID technology adoption in particular from an IS perspective. The paper combines an integrated model of the Technology-Organization-Environment framework, the Diffusion of Innovation theory, and Actor-Network Theory to establish a more comprehensive innovation adoption framework for RFID technology. The data gathered to study the factors affecting the adoption of RFID technology are analysed from the results of a survey of construction companies in Australia, in which 297 Information Technology (IT) staff were participants in this research. The research results show that the factors which had a statistically significant and positive impact on the adoption of RFID services in construction companies were: relative advantage, compatibility, cost, expected benefits, top management support, external support and organization size. The findings from this research study have the potential to provide insights to firms seeking to make investment decisions on the adoption of RFID technology.

Keywords

• RFID technology
• adoption
• technology-organization-environment (TOE) framework
• diffusion of innovation (DOI) theory
• actor-network theory
• construction companies