Computers in Human Behavior 29 (2013) 772–790

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Computers in Human Behavior

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/comphumbeh

Why aren’t organizations adopting virtual worlds?

Tom E. Yoon a, , Joey F. George b,1
⁄

a
CIS Department, School of Business, Metropolitan State College of Denver, Denver, CO 80217-3362, United States
b
SCIS Department, College of Business, Iowa State University, Ames, IA 50011-1350, United States

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The purpose of this study was to understand why organizational adoption of virtual worlds much has
Available online 16 January 2013 been much slower than expected, by empirically identifying factors that influence organizational intent
to adopt virtual worlds. To do so, we developed a model of factors that influence organizational adoption
Keywords: of virtual worlds, based on the Technology–Organization–Environment framework. The model was tested
Virtual worlds using survey data from organizations, as well as secondary data. Interestingly, mimetic pressures and
Organizational adoption normative pressures exhibit the strongest effects on organizational intent to adopt virtual worlds. Con-
Technology–Organization–Environment
trary to expectations, none of the technical factors were to be found significant. These findings provide
(TOE) Framework
Institutional theory
insights into why the organizational adoption rate of virtual worlds is much slower than expected. First,
organizations are intended to adopt virtual worlds if other organizations are adopting virtual worlds.
However, organizations are not adopting virtual worlds. Second, because respective competitors that
have adopted virtual worlds are not benefiting or succeeding, organizations are not induced to adopt.
Last, technological factors, such as relative advantage and compatibility, do not currently have a signifi-
cant impact on an organization’s intent to adopt virtual worlds.
Ó 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction would have established a virtual world presence by the end of

Virtual worlds are computer-simulated three-dimensional (3-
D) environments that incorporate representations of real-world
elements, such as human beings, landscapes, and product brands
(Barnes, 2007; Lui, Piccoli, & Ives, 2007; Walling, 2009; Wasko,
Teigland, Leidner, & Jarvenpaa, 2011). In virtual worlds, through
their avatars (a digital simulated representation of virtual world
users), participants can navigate freely in space, create and manip-
ulate objects, and interact and collaborate with other avatars (Nah,
Eschenbrenner, & DeWester, 2011).
The academic literature suggests that virtual worlds might pro-
vide organizational potential in many ways, including marketing
and branding (Hemp, 2006; Nah et al., 2011), collaboration (Kahai,
Caroll, & Jestice, 2007; Nevo, Nevo, & Carmel, 2011), meeting (Bray
& Konsynski, 2007), education (Eschenbrenner, Nah, & Siau, 2008),
training (Karlsson, 2008), and research and development (Lui et al.,
2007; Nambisan & Nambisan, 2008).
Considering virtual worlds’ organizational potential, organiza-
tional adoption of virtual worlds had been expected to grow at a
rapid rate (Barnes, 2007; Lui et al., 2007). In 2008, Gartner, a rep-
utable market research firm, estimated that 70% of businesses
⁄
Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 303 556 3005.
E-mail addresses: tyoon@mscd.edu (T.E. Yoon), jfgeorge@iastate.edu
(J.F. George).
1
Tel.: +1 515 294 7162.
2012 (Gartner, 2008). In addition, according to Barnes (2007) and
Lui et al. (2007), virtual worlds were expected to follow a similar
adoption curve to that of the Internet (Rogers, 1995, S-shaped
curve). Furthermore, in 2008, another reputable market research
firm, Forrester, predicted virtual worlds would be as important as
the Web to organizations in just 5 years (Havenstein, 2008).
However, the organizational adoption rate of virtual worlds
seems to have occurred at a much slower than initially expected
(Cremorne, 2010; Nevo et al., 2011; OECD, 2011). The Gartner’s
(2009) hype cycle report originally forecasted that virtual worlds
would reach widespread adoption within 2–5 years (Gartner,
2009), but their 2010 report forecasted that virtual worlds would
reach widespread adoption within 5–10 years (Gartner, 2010). In
addition, a report by Forrester indicated that despite the virtual
worlds hype, only 11% of organizations have adopted virtual
worlds to augment their works (Walling, 2009). Furthermore,
many major organizations (i.e., Coca-Cola, Wells Fargo, Mercedes,
and Reuters) closed their sites in virtual worlds in the past couple
of years (Foreshew, 2008).
In order to understand why the organizational adoption rate has
been much slower than expected, it is important to develop a bet-
ter understanding of what factors influence organizational adop-
tion of virtual worlds. Several trade publications frequently have
mentioned that organizations adopt virtual worlds partly because
their competitors had adopted virtual worlds (Blowers, 2010;
Gonsalves, 2008). The conceptual study by Fuller, Hardin, and Scott

0747-5632/$ - see front matter Ó 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2012.12.003
 T.E. Yoon, J.F. George / Computers in Human Behavior 29 (2013) 772–790
(2007) suggested organizational adoption of virtual worlds could
be influenced by some of the factors found in prior studies on
organizational adoption of IT innovation. However, there are no
empirical studies investigating the potential factors involved in
organizational adoption. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to
understand why organizational adoption of virtual worlds has
been much slower than expected by empirically identifying
factors that influence organizational intent to adopt virtual
worlds.
We developed a model for the organizational adoption of virtual
worlds based on the Technology–Organization–Environment (TOE)
framework (Tornatzky & Fleischer, 1990). The factors included in
the contexts of the model were adoption factors that were most
frequently found significant in prior studies on organizational
adoption of IT innovation. The model was tested using data ob-
tained through a survey, and from a secondary data source.
The following section reviews the relevant literature on which
our model was developed. Our model and the associated
hypotheses are then presented, followed by the methodology, data
analysis, and results. The paper concludes with a discussion
of the findings, implications, limitations, and future research
directions.
2. Literature review
To assist in developing a model for the organizational adoption
of virtual worlds, the relevant literature on the TOE framework,
Innovation Diffusion Theory, Institutional Theory, and organiza-
tional Internet adoption were examined.
2.1. Technology–Organization–Environment (TOE) framework
Tornatzky and Fleischer (1990) developed the TOE framework,
which identifies three aspects of an organization’s context that
influences its adoption of a technological innovation, including
technological context, organizational context, and environmental
context. According to Tornatzky and Fleischer (1990), technologi-
cal context consists of both existing technologies, as well as a tech-
nology to be adopted. The primary focus of the technological
context is on how technological characteristics can influence the
adoption. The organizational context describes the characteristics
of an organization that constrain or facilitate the adoption of tech-
nological innovations. The external environmental context is the
arena in which a firm conducts its business, such as the industry
it belongs to, its competitors, regulations, access to resources sup-
plied by others, and governments with which it interacts.
Tornatzky and Fleischer (1990) suggest that the technological
innovation adoption that takes place at the organization-level
may be influenced by factors that pertain to those contexts. A num-
ber of empirical studies have employed the TOE framework to
study the organizational adoption of IT innovation. Those studies
identify many significant adoption factors that pertain to the three
contexts of the TOE framework. The adoption factors are summa-
rized in Table 1. In Table 1, the first column lists the factors that
pertain to the three contexts. The second column reflects the num-
ber of studies in which the factors are found to influence organiza-
tional adoption and also shows whether the influences are positive
or negative.
As can be seen in Table 1, factors that pertain to the technology
context are IT innovation characteristics that influence the organi-
zational adoption of IT innovation. This is consistent with the dif-
fusion of innovation theory, which argues that innovation
characteristics influence adoption of innovation (Rogers, 1995).
Among those factors, the most frequently found significant factors
773
are perceived benefits (or relative advantages) and compatibility
that positively influence organizational adoption of IT innovation.
Table 1 also illustrates that factors pertaining to the organiza-
tional context are organizational characteristics that influence
the adoption of IT innovation. Among those factors, firm size is
the most frequently found significant adoption factor. The next
most frequently found significant factor is organizational readi-
ness, which refers to an organization’s levels of available techno-
logical and financial resource for IT innovation adoption
(Gonsalves, 2008). According to Kuan and Chau (2001), organiza-
tional readiness comprises two primary dimensions: technological
readiness and financial readiness. We found that several significant
adoption factors are similar to either technological readiness (i.e.,
IT expertise and IT resources, technical competence, employee’s
IS knowledge) or financial readiness (i.e., financial resource avail-
ability).Thus, those factors were grouped under technological read-
iness or financial readiness. These similar factors strengthen the
importance of an organization’s readiness with regard to organiza-
tional adoption of IT innovation. In addition to firm size and orga-
nizational readiness, top management support is frequently found
to be a significant factor.
As can be seen in Table 1, factors that pertain to the environ-
mental context are environmental characteristics that influence
organizational adoption of IT innovation. The most frequently
found significant environmental factors are various kinds of exter-
nal pressure to adopt IT innovation, including competitive pres-
sures, intensity of competition, imposition by trading partners,
government policies, and market uncertainty. This is consistent
with institutional theory concerning the influence of external pres-
sures (DiMaggio & Powell, 1983). External pressure to adopt IT
innovation refers to ‘‘influences from the organizational environ-
ment (Iacovou, Charalambos, Benbasat, & Dexter, 1995)’’. Thus,
the studies examined in Table 1 suggest competitors, trading part-
ners and government can exert pressures on organizations to adopt
IT innovation. In addition, they suggest that organizational envi-
ronmental conditions, such as intensity of competition and market
uncertainty, can push organizations to adopt IT innovation.
Although specific factors that pertain to three contexts vary
across different studies included in Table 1, the TOE framework
has consistent empirical support (Chau & Tam, 1997; Thong,
1999; Zhu, Kraemer, & Xu, 2003). In addition, the reviews of IT
innovation adoption literature by Jeyaraj, Rottman, and Lacity
(2006) and Fichman (1992) suggest that the organizational adop-
tion of IT innovation is influenced by IT innovation characteristics,
organizational characteristics and environmental characteristics.
Therefore, we adopted the TOE framework and extended it to the
virtual world domain.
2.2. Diffusion of Innovation Theory (DOI)
DOI (Rogers, 1995) argues that innovation characteristics, such
as relative advantage, compatibility, complexity, trialability, and
observability, influence the adoption of an innovation. Also, those
innovation characteristics influence the adoption rate of an innova-
tion. A meta-analysis by Tornatzky and Klein (1982) identified
other innovation characteristics: costs, communicability, divisibil-
ity, profitability and social approval. They also found that compat-
ibility, relative advantage and complexity were consistently
significant characteristics throughout the studies they reviewed.
Moore and Benbasat (1991) suggested that it is a useful theory
for studying a variety of IT innovations. Many studies used DOI the-
ory to study the impact of IT innovation characteristics on the
organizational adoption IT innovation (Jeyaraj et al., 2006). In addi-
tion, DOI theory received consistent empirical support from prior
studies on the organizational adoption of IT innovation (Beatty,
Shim, & Jones, 2001; Zhu, Dong, Xu, & Kraemer, 2006).
774 T.E. Yoon, J.F. George / Computers in Human Behavior 29 (2013) 772–790
Table 1
IT innovation adoption studies using the TOE framework.
Factors within TOE contexts
Technical context
Perceived benefits or relative advantages
Compatibility
Complexity
Trialability
Perceived barriers
Perceived risks
Perceived ease of use
Perceived importance of compliance
Organizational context
Firm size
Organizational readiness
Technological readiness: (IT expertise and IT resources, Technical competence, technical competence, existence of IT department,
employee’s IS knowledge)
Financial readiness: (financial resource availability)
Top management support
Internal needs
Proactive technical orientation
Firm scope
Satisfaction with existing systems
Environmental context
External pressures: (competitive pressures, intensity of competition, imposition by trading partners, government policies, market
uncertainty)
Third party sponsorship (i.e. vendors)
Customer readiness
Participation level in a professional and trade association
Note: Only factors that were statistically significant are listed in this table.
2.3. Institutional theory
Table 1 illustrates the significance of external pressure in the
organizational adoption of IT innovation. Recent studies on the
organizational adoption of IT innovation adopt institutional theory
to better understand the impact of external pressure on the orga-
nizational adoption of IT innovation (Khalifa & Davison, 2006;
Liu, Ke, Wei, Gu, & Chen, 2010; Pearson & Keller, 2009; Son &
Benbasat, 2007). Institutional theory is concerned with external
institutional pressures that lead firms that reside in an organiza-
tion field to increasingly resemble each other, resulting in institu-
tional isomorphism.
DiMaggio and Powell (1983) introduced three types of external
institutional pressures that lead organizations to adopt processes,
structures and strategies that others have already adopted, and
thus, make them more similar (institutional isomorphism): mi-
metic, coercive, and normative pressures (Table 2). Organizations
conform to pressures, not to improve organizational effectiveness
and efficiency, but rather to achieve organizational legitimacy,
and thus, ensure their long-term survival. Prior studies on organiza-
tional adoption of IT innovation found those institutional pressures
as significant adoption factors (see Table 2). Table 2 also suggests
that different pressures seem to arise from different institutions in
the context of organizational IT innovation adoption. Mimetic pres-
sures primarily arise from competitors, while coercive pressures
primarily arise from customers and suppliers. Normative pressures
primarily arise from professional and trade associations, but these
pressures can also be exerted from customers and suppliers.
2.4. Organizational adoption of internet literature
We reviewed the organizational adoption of Internet literature,
because we believe that virtual worlds are similar to the Internet,
in some respects. The Internet broadly refers to an underlying plat-
form for having a ‘‘Web presence,’’ communication and doing busi-
ness (Vadapalli & Ramamurthy, 1997–1998). Similarly, virtual
Frequency and relationship
direction
9 (+)
5 (+)
2 ( )
1 (+)
1 ( )
1 ( )
1 (+)
1 (+)
6 (+)
5 (+)
3 (+)
2 (+)
2 (+)
1 (+)
1 ( )
14 (+)
3 (+)
1 (+)
1 (+)
worlds can be considered platforms for having a ‘‘virtual world
presence,’’ communication and doing business. Organizations gain
a presence in virtual worlds by creating company products and ser-
vices as 3-D objects (Lui et al., 2007). Individuals within an organi-
zation communicate with one another through their avatars in the
virtual worlds (Kahai et al., 2007). Furthermore, organizations are
able to communicate with customers and other organizations in
virtual worlds (Goel & Mousavidin, 2007; Lui et al., 2007). There-
fore, the Internet and virtual worlds are similar IT innovations.
Accordingly, we expect that some of the same factors that affect
the organizational adoption of the Internet may also affect the
organizational adoption of virtual worlds.
Prior studies have identified many factors that facilitate and in-
hibit the organizational adoption of the Internet. Based on careful
examination of the factors found in prior studies and our review
of extant IT adoption studies that employ the TOE framework (Ta-
ble 1), we found that these factors can be organized into the three
contexts of the TOE framework (see Table 3). In Table 3, the first
column lists the factors that pertain to the three contexts. The sec-
ond column reflects the number of studies in which the factors are
found to influence organizational adoption and also shows
whether the influences are positive or negative.
As can be seen in Table 3, several characteristics of the Internet
(perceived benefits/relative advantages, perceived compatibility,
security concern and perceived ease of use) are included in the
technological context because, as Table 1 shows, the technological
context subsumes IT innovation characteristics in prior IT adoption
studies that employ the TOE framework. Among those Internet
characteristics, the most frequently found significant factors are
relative advantage (perceived benefits) and compatibility (see Ta-
ble 1). Prior Internet adoption studies also frequently find that
security concern is a unique Internet characteristic that negatively
influences its organizational adoption.
As can be seen in Table 3, various organizational characteristics
(firm size, firm scope, top management, organizational readiness,
etc.) are included in the organizational context. Among those
 T.E. Yoon, J.F. George / Computers in Human Behavior 29 (2013) 772–790 775

Table 2
Organizational IT adoption and institutional pressures.

Empirical studies Types of institutional pressures Institutions from which pressures arise
Son and Benbasat (2007) Coercive Suppliers
Normative Suppliers; professional and trade associations
Mimetic Competitors
Khalifa and Davison (2006) Coercive Customers
Normative Employees
Mimetic Competitors
Gibbs and Kraemer (2004) Coercive Customers; government
Mimetic Competitors
Teo et al. (2003) Coercive Parent corporation, customers and suppliers
Normative Customers and suppliers, professional and trade associations, business bodies
Mimetic Competitors
Tan and Fichman (2002) Mimetic Organizations of similar size or location
Silva and Figueroa (2002) Normative Government

Note: The first column lists prior studies that examine the impact of institutional pressures on organizational adoption of IT innovation. The second column shows the types of
institution pressures that are examined in prior studies. The last column indicates the institutions from which these pressures arise.

Table 3
Summary of factors affecting organizational adoption of the internet in the context of the TOE framework.

Factors within TOE contexts Frequency and relationship

direction
Technological Context
Perceived benefits (including relative advantage, perceived business value of the Internet, and perceived usefulness) 15 (+)
Perceived compatibility 4 (+)
Security concerns 3( )
Perceived ease of use 1 (+)
Organizational Context
Firm size 8 (+)
Firm scope (number of establishments and geographical dispersion of employees) 5 (+)
Top management support 4 (+)
Organizational readiness 2 (+)
Technological Readiness: (technological resource availability, technology competence, prior use of related technologies, availability of
knowledgeable IT staff, existence of IT support unit)
Financial readiness: (financial resources availability)
Proactive (aggressive) business technology strategy 2 (+)
Market orientation 1 (+)
Existence of champion 1 (+)
Environmental Context
External Pressures: (Customer pressures, Competitive pressures, Government policies, Intensity of competition, Normative pressure) 19 (+)
Consumer readiness 1 (+)

Note: Only factors that were statistically significant are listed in this table.

organizational characteristics, the most frequently found signifi-
cant factors are firm size, firm scope, and top management support,
which all positively influence organizational adoption of the Inter-
net. Although only two studies found organizational readiness as a
significant factor that positively influences organizational adoption
of the Internet, many other factors measure either dimension of
organizational readiness, technological readiness or financial read-
iness. Thus, those factors are grouped under technological readi-
ness or financial readiness. Those factors strengthen the
significance of organizational readiness in the organizational adop-
tion of the Internet.
As can be seen in Table 3, environmental characteristics (exter-
nal pressures and consumer readiness) are included in the environ-
mental context. Just like Table 1, the most frequently found
significant factors are various kinds of external pressure that pos-
itively influence organizational adoption of the Internet (customer
pressures, competitive pressures, intensity of competition, and
normative pressure).
3. Research model and hypotheses
Consistent with the TOE framework, the model (Fig. 1) posits
factors that may influence the organizational adoption of virtual
worlds within three contexts of the TOE framework: (1) technolog-
ical; (2) organizational; and (3) environmental. The factors were
identified based on our review of DOI theory, institutional theory,
organizational Internet adoption studies, and organizational IT
innovation adoption studies using the TOE framework.
The model proposes the level of intent an organization has to
adopt virtual worlds as a dependent variable. In this study, virtual
world adoption is defined as an organization that participates in
some way in a virtual world. Organizational IT adoption has been
operationalized as an intent to adopt in past research (Chewlos,
Benbasat, & Dexter, 2001; Khalifa & Davison, 2006; Teo, Wei, &
Benbasat, 2003; Zhu et al., 2003).
3.1. Technological context
Based on prior IT innovation adoption studies using the TOE
framework (Table 1), most factors pertaining to technical context
are IT innovation characteristics. This is consistent with the diffu-
sion of innovation (DOI) theory. Although DOI theory suggests five
innovation characteristics as factors that can influence the organi-
zational adoption of an innovation, our review of prior Internet
adoption studies (Table 3) and prior IT adoption studies based on
the TOE framework (Table 2) suggests that relative advantages
and compatibility are most frequently found to be significant
adoption factors. Thus, among the five innovation characteristics
776 T.E. Yoon, J.F. George / Computers in Human Behavior 29 (2013) 772–790

Technological Context

H1(+)
Relative Advantage

H2(+)
Compatibility

H3(-)
Security Concern

Organizational Context

H4(+)
Top Management
Support

H5(+)
Organization Size
Intent to Adopt
Virtual Worlds
H6(+)
Organization
Readiness

H7(+)
Firm Scope

Environmental Context

H8(+)
Mimetic Pressure -
Competitors
Controls
H9(+) Social Desirability
Coercive Pressure -
Customers

H10(+ ) Firm Age

Normative Pressure

H11(+) Industry Effect

Intensity of
Competition

Fig. 1. Research model for virtual world adoption.

suggested by DOI theory, the present study considers only relative
advantages and compatibility. The third factor, security concern, is
included because prior Internet adoption studies frequently found
security concern as a factor that inhibits organizations from adopt-
ing the Internet. Additionally, several trade magazines suggest that
virtual worlds are deemed insecure for conducting business activ-
ities (Long, 2010; Lynch, 2008).
3.1.1. Relative advantage of virtual worlds
According to DOI theory (Rogers, 1995), relative advantage re-
fers to the degree to which potential adopters perceive the innova-
tion as superior to the precursor and positively influence its
adoption. In the IT adoption literature, the degree of relative
advantage is generally expressed as the degree of perceived bene-
fits that IT innovation may provide to the organization (Iacovou
et al., 1995). Consistent with DOI theory, prior studies on the orga-
nizational adoption of IT innovation frequently found that the rel-
ative advantage of IT innovation positively influenced the
organizational adoption of the innovation (Chewlos et al., 2001;
Mehrtens, Cragg, & Mills, 2001; Tornatzky & Klein, 1982).
Based on the review of the virtual world literature, virtual
worlds might provide a number of potential benefits to organiza-
tions in terms of the dimensions of collaboration, marketing, and
training. With regard to collaboration, virtual worlds can serve as
a low-cost means for distance collaboration (Fuller et al., 2007).
In virtual worlds, individuals can interact with one another in real
time, regardless of their location, via avatars. Organizations can use
virtual worlds to reduce the costs associated with distance collab-
oration, such as travel costs and costs for purchasing video confer-
ence equipment (Bray & Konsynski, 2007).
 T.E. Yoon, J.F. George / Computers in Human Behavior 29 (2013) 772–790 777

With regard to marketing, a virtual world environment enables 3.2. Organizational context
customers to have similar experiences that they can have at real
stores because real-life brands and services can be recreated in Four organizational characteristics are most frequently found to
the form of 3-D objects with which customers can interact through be significant factors in adopting the Internet and other IT innova-
avatars in a virtual environment (Barnes, 2007). Hence, product tions: top management support, organization size, organizational
knowledge, attitude, and customer purchase intentions might be readiness and firm scope (see Tables 1 and 3). Consequently, these
improved (Lui et al., 2007). With regard to corporate training, orga- factors are included in the organizational context.
nizations can reduce employee training costs by offering training
sessions in virtual worlds (Marshall, 2008). 3.2.1. Top management support
Based on DOI theory and the findings of prior IT adoption stud- Top management support has frequently been found to exhibit
ies, it is highly possible that when organizations perceive the ben- a positive relationship with the organizational adoption of IT inno-
efits mentioned above, they are more willing to adopt virtual vation (Beatty et al., 2001). Jeyaraj et al. (2006) suggested that top
worlds. The hypothesis is therefore formulated as follows: management support is one of the best predictors for IT innovation
adoption by organizations. There are two common rationales be-
Hypothesis 1. Perceived higher relative advantages of virtual hind the positive relationship shown to exist between top manage-
worlds lead to greater intent to adopt virtual worlds. ment support and IT innovation adoption. First, strong top
management support ensures the sufficient allocation of organiza-
tional resources (financial, technical, and human) for the smooth
3.1.2. Compatibility of virtual worlds
adoption and implementation of an IT innovation. Secondly, strong
According to DOI theory (Rogers, 1995), compatibility is the de-
management support reduces the organizational resistance to
gree to which an innovation is perceived as being consistent with
adopt IT innovation, because top management can provide long-
past experiences, existing values, and the needs of potential adopt-
term strategic vision, initiatives, support and a commitment to cre-
ers. It has a positive relationship with its adoption. Consistent with
ating a positive environment for the IT innovation (Quinn, 1985).
the DOI theory, prior IT adoption studies found that a high level of
To adopt and implement virtual world technologies, organizations
IT innovation compatibility motivates an organization to adopt the
may require financial, human and technical resources. In addition,
IT innovation (Beatty et al., 2001; Thong, 1999). Fuller et al. (2007)
organizations may face user resistance in adopting virtual world
proposed that compatibility may influence an organization’s will-
technologies. Hence, it is highly likely that organizations with
ingness to adopt a virtual world. Compatibility is important be-
strong top management support for virtual world technologies
cause, with a high level of compatibility, the organization only
are more willing to adopt these technologies than those organiza-
needs to make minimal adjustments and changes (Thong, 1999).
tions that lack such support. The following hypothesis is therefore
Compatibility also suggests lower risk to the potential adopter
formulated:
and makes the innovation more meaningful to the organization
(Grover, 1993). For similar reasons, we propose the following
H4. Greater top management support leads to greater intent to
hypothesis:
adopt virtual worlds.
H2. Greater compatibility leads to greater intent to adopt virtual
worlds. 3.2.2. Organization size
Organization size has repeatedly been found to be positively re-
lated to an organization’s propensity to adopt IT innovation (Zhu
3.1.3. Security concern
et al., 2003). One possible explanation for the significantly positive
In this study, security concern is defined as the degree to
relationship between organization size and IT innovation adoption
which virtual worlds are deemed insecure for conducting busi-
is that, in general, larger organizations have greater slack in re-
ness activities, such as exchanging corporate data, meetings
sources and are therefore able to allocate greater organizational re-
and collaboration activities (Zhu et al., 2006). According to trade
sources (e.g., financial, technical and human resources) to the
magazines (Lynch, 2008; Naone, 2008), virtual worlds are
adoption of new technology (Montazemi, 1988).
deemed insecure for conducting business activities. Today, most
The adoption of virtual worlds may require organizational re-
virtual worlds are run on public, or externally-hosted, platforms,
sources. Small organizations may need to upgrade employees’
and therefore, organizations have limited options to protect their
computers to high-performance computers and create a virtual
corporate data in virtual worlds. In addition, in virtual worlds,
world project team. Large organizations, on the other hand,
collaboration and meetings that involve sensitive corporate
may already have high-performance computers and a sufficient
information cannot be kept confidential (Naone, 2008). As a re-
number of employees to create a team to focus on a virtual
sult, organizations may be concerned about the lack of security
world project.
in virtual worlds.
Another possible explanation for the positive relationship
Several Internet adoption studies found the security concern to
may be that, as an organization increases in size, its task coordi-
be a factor that inhibits the organizational adoption of the Internet
nation may become more complex, and its reliance on the move-
for business purposes. Walczuch, Braven, and Lundgren (2000) and
ment of information may increase, hence increasing the need for
Vadapalli and Ramamurthy (1997–1998) found that if organiza-
technologies, such as the Internet (Stair & Reynolds, 1998). The
tions have greater security concerns about the Internet, such as
virtual world literature suggests that virtual worlds have a great
unauthorized access to internal networks, insecure information ex-
potential to support distance collaboration and meetings (Kahai
change, and insecure platforms, they are less willing to adopt the
et al., 2007). Thus, larger organizations may be more willing to
Internet. As virtual worlds are similar, in some respects, to the
adopt virtual worlds. The discussion above leads to the following
Internet, we expect similar effects in the case of virtual world
hypothesis:
adoption and hypothesize accordingly:
H5. Larger organizational size leads to greater intent to adopt
H3. Greater organizational security concerns leads to lower intent
virtual worlds.
to adopt virtual worlds.
778 T.E. Yoon, J.F. George / Computers in Human Behavior 29 (2013) 772–790
3.2.3. Organizational readiness
In this study, organizational readiness refers to the level of the
available financial and technical resources of the organization to
undertake the adoption of virtual worlds (adapted from Iacovou
et al. (1995)). Prior studies on the organizational adoption of IT
innovation found that organizational readiness positively influ-
ences an organization’s intent to adopt IT innovations (Chewlos
et al., 2001; Khalifa & Davison, 2006). Our review of the extant IT
adoption literature suggests that organizational readiness incorpo-
rate two dimensions: financial and technical readiness (Iacovou
et al., 1995; Kuan & Chau, 2001). Financial readiness refers to the
level of financial resources available to pay for installation costs,
implementation of any subsequent enhancements, and ongoing
expenses during usage. Technical readiness refers to the level of
IT sophistication within an organization. IT sophistication encapsu-
lates an organization’s access to tangible and intangible technical
resources for successful IT innovation adoption (i.e., hardware,
technical skills, developers and a competent project leader) as well
as, the level of management understanding of, and support for,
using IT to achieve organizational objectives (Chewlos et al.,
2001; Iacovou et al., 1995).
To undertake the adoption of virtual worlds, organizations must
have both financial and technical readiness. The adoption of virtual
worlds also requires high-performance computers to use the vir-
tual worlds for collaboration and meetings. If the firm does not
have high performance computers, they may need to upgrade
them to enhance audio and video capabilities. In addition, organi-
zations may need to provide training for employees unfamiliar
with virtual worlds. Furthermore, adoption may require the hiring
of developers with the proper skills to work in virtual worlds, such
as 3-D developers (Long, 2010). Therefore, we propose the follow-
ing hypothesis:
H6. Higher organizational readiness leads to greater intent to
adopt virtual worlds.
3.2.4. Firm scope
Firm scope refers to the horizontal extent of a firm’s operations.
The role of firm scope as an adoption predictor can be explained in
terms of internal coordination costs and communication costs.
It has long been accepted that coordination costs increase with
the geographical dispersion of organizational establishments
(Williamson, 1975). In particular, internal coordination costs in-
crease with firm scope due to increased administration complexity
and information processing (Gurbaxani & Whang, 1991). This
study revealed that coordination costs can be reduced by investing
in IT, especially in the Internet, to reduce communication costs
over time (Boudreau, Loch, Roby, & Straub, 1998). Prior studies
on the organizational adoption of the Internet found firm scope
as a significant driver for Internet adoption (Zhu et al., 2003).
It is widely recognized that Internet-based virtual worlds can be
a low-cost means for collaboration and meetings (Fuller et al.,
2007; Nevo et al., 2011). Also, due to the results of prior Internet
adoption studies, it is reasonable to hypothesize:
H7. Greater firm scope leads to a greater intent to adopt virtual
worlds.
3.3. Environmental context
Pressures that have arisen from an organization’s external envi-
ronment are most frequently found to be significant factors that af-
fect an organization’s adoption of IT innovation (Tables 1 and 3).
This is consistent with institutional theory concerning the influ-
ence of external environmental pressures (DiMaggio & Powell,
1983). Thus, this study considers three types of external environ-
mental pressures: coercive pressures, mimetic pressures and nor-
mative pressures. This study also includes the intensity of
competition, because the intensity of competition is one of the fac-
tors most frequently found to be a significant driver for the organi-
zational adoption of IT innovation (Grover, 1993).
3.3.1. Mimetic pressure – competitors
Institutional theory suggests that mimetic pressures are those
that push organizations to imitate actions of other organizations
in their environments (DiMaggio & Powell, 1983). In this study,
this action is the adoption of virtual worlds. Prior IT innovation
adoption studies found mimetic pressures to be a significant driver
for organizational adoption of IT innovation (Son & Benbasat, 2007;
Teo et al., 2003). Our review suggests that mimetic pressures pri-
marily arise from competitors (Table 2). Thus, this study focuses
on mimetic pressures from competitors.
According to Haveman (1993), organizations can face mimetic
pressures in two ways. The first occurs when the number of orga-
nizations in its environment that have taken the same action in-
creases. The second is when an organization perceives that the
actions of the other organizations in its environment are successful
and beneficial. When an organization faces mimetic pressures, the
organization conforms to these mimetic pressures by imitating the
actions of other organizations in its environment, because it does
not want to be seen as a laggard to its stakeholders, or competitors,
because imitation reduces uncertainty of the action, or because the
organization’s management believe that it should follow the action
in order to reduce fears of losing competitive advantages. Conse-
quently, it is highly possible that potential adopters of virtual
worlds are subject to mimetic pressures from competitors; as a re-
sult, we propose the following hypothesis:
H8. Greater mimetic pressure from competitors leads to greater
intent to adopt virtual worlds.
3.3.2. Coercive pressure – customers
According to institutional theory, when an organization is
dependent on its stakeholders (e.g., customers, suppliers and gov-
ernment regulatory bodies), the stakeholders can exert pressures
on the organization to adopt new business practices. Such pres-
sures are called coercive pressures (DiMaggio & Powell, 1983).
DiMaggio and Powell (1983) suggest that organizations conform
to these pressures by adopting business practices, because these
organizations might otherwise appear to be illegitimate to their
stakeholders (Deephouse, 1996).
In the context of organizational IT adoption, coercive pressures
from powerful and dominant customers appear to have significant
effects on an organization’s intent to adopt an IT innovation (Liu
et al., 2010; Son & Benbasat, 2007; Teo et al., 2003). When organi-
zations perceive that important customers expect, demand, or
encourage them to adopt IT innovation, they adopt it so as not to
lose organizational legitimacy from their customers (Khalifa &
Davison, 2006). In addition, as powerful and dominant customers
adopt IT innovation, organizations face pressures to adopt the
same IT innovation and become willing to adopt it because they
fear that they may lose organizational legitimacy from their cus-
tomers (Son & Benbasat, 2007; Teo et al., 2003). Based on the dis-
cussion above, we propose the following hypothesis:
H9. Greater coercive pressures from customers lead to greater
intent to adopt virtual worlds.
 T.E. Yoon, J.F. George / Computers in Human Behavior 29 (2013) 772–790
3.3.3. Normative pressures
According to DiMaggio and Powell (1983), normative pressures
can lead organizations to adopt new business practices that others
have already adopted. Normative pressures can stem from a vari-
ety of sources, such as media, trade partners and business and pro-
fessional associations (Deephouse, 1996). When organizations
learn positive norms and values from these sources regarding
adopting particular business practices, they face normative pres-
sures to adopt the particular business practice and conform to
these normative pressures by adopting it, because they perceive
that adoption is an appropriate action (Scott, 2003).
An organization’s intent to adopt IT innovation is found to be
positively influenced by normative pressures that arise primarily
from customers, suppliers, professional associations and business
associations (Liu et al., 2010; Son & Benbasat, 2007; Teo et al.,
2003). Therefore, these pressures are also our focus. It is highly
possible that potential adopters of virtual worlds may also be sub-
ject to normative pressures. Fuller et al. (2007) proposed that nor-
mative pressures may influence the organizational adoption of
virtual worlds. Therefore, we propose the following hypothesis:
H10. Greater normative pressures lead to greater intent to adopt
virtual worlds.
3.3.4. Intensity of competition
IT adoption literature suggests that great intensity of competi-
tion in the adopter’s industry can pressure organizations to adopt
an innovation (Thong, 1999; Zhu et al., 2003). In highly competi-
tive markets, IT innovation adoption is necessary to maintain and
achieve a competitive advantage (Gatignon & Robertson, 1989).
Porter and Miller (1985) argue that IT adoption can enable an orga-
nization to achieve competitive advantage in either cost, or differ-
entiation, from competitors. This argument can be applied to the
context of virtual world adoption. Adopting virtual worlds may en-
able organizations to lower costs associated with distance collabo-
ration and meetings (Bray & Konsynski, 2007; Jeyaraj et al., 2006),
training (Karlsson, 2008), and advertising (Barnes, 2007). Adopting
virtual worlds may also enable an organization to differentiate it-
self in several ways from its competitors who have not adopted vir-
tual worlds. For example, aided by the interactivity features of
virtual worlds, a firm can test new product and service concepts,
as well as gather customer data, such as new ideas, feedback and
potential demand for new products and services (Lui et al.,
2007). Thus, with such customer data, a firm can customize its
products and services to meet customer needs and expectations
(Lui et al., 2007; Nambisan & Nambisan, 2008), which will help
them to differentiate their products and services from those of
its competitors. Thus, we propose the following hypothesis:
H 11. Greater intensity of competition leads to a greater intent to
adopt virtual worlds.
3.4. Control variables
To ensure that the variances observed can be attributed to the
theoretical variables included in the study, we include three con-
trol variables: industry type, organization age, and social desirabil-
ity. Organization age (Goode & Steven, 2000) and industry types
(Yap, 1990) have been found to directly influence the organiza-
tional adoption of IT innovation, so this study includes them as
control variables. According to Thompson and Phua (2005),
researchers who use self-report surveys need to control for social
desirability. Social desirability is the tendency to present oneself
in a socially desirable manner (Schwab, 1999). Due to social desir-
779
ability, rather than providing truthful responses, respondents may
portray a more attractive image of themselves and the organiza-
tion they represent (Schwab, 1999). Social desirability is thus prob-
lematic, because of its potential to bias the answers given by
respondents. It may also mask the true relationships between
two or more variables (Ganster, Hennessey, & Luthans, 1983).
Therefore, social desirability is included as a control variable.
4. Research methodology
4.1. Sample and data collection
A questionnaire survey method was used to collect most of the
data in this study, while a secondary data source (Hoovers Com-
pany Information Database) was used to collect data regarding
firm size and two control variables (firm age and industry type).
The Hoovers Company Information Database includes various
information on more than 85 million companies within 900 indus-
try segments (i.e., company overview, company history, financials,
and operations).
Since the dependent construct in this study was an organiza-
tion’s intention to adopt virtual worlds, the unit of analysis was
the organization that had not yet adopted virtual worlds. In this
study, the population was US-based organizations that had not
yet adopted virtual worlds. The sampling strategy involved draw-
ing a sample from the members of IS professional associations.
We contacted the Association for Managers of Innovation (AMI),
four regional chapters of the Society for Information Management
(SIM), and the Association of Information Technology Professionals
(AITPs) and asked them to distribute our survey questionnaires to
their members. AMI is an association of approximately 50 business
professionals responsible for the creativity and innovation efforts
in their organizations. SIM is an association of more than 3500 se-
nior IT executives in ether public of private sector organizations. It
consists of many local chapters. AITP is the leading worldwide soci-
ety of professionals in IT. With approximately 200 local chapters, it
consists of many professional and enterprise members.
These associations have been distributed the newsletters or
articles about virtual worlds to their members, through their web
site and email. Therefore, we believed that the members of these
associations might be familiar with virtual worlds. In addition,
most members in these associations are top-or mid-level manag-
ers. Since responding to some of the questions in our survey ques-
tionnaire required knowledge of both IS activities and business
operations within organizations, the inclusion of top-or mid-level
managers was suitable for this study.
Before the questionnaire was sent out, it was reviewed by four
academics knowledgeable in virtual worlds to check if the survey
items captured the essence of the constructs being operationalized.
They were also asked to check the wording and sequence of the
items in the questionnaire as well as overall presentation of the
questionnaire. Only the overall presentation of the questionnaire
needed to be changed.
An online version of the questionnaire was then developed. The
online questionnaire was pilot-tested by eight IS managers to en-
sure that the items were being interpreted properly, that the sur-
vey format was appropriate, and that the survey questionnaire
captured the phenomena desired. The results of the pilot test re-
vealed that no changes were necessary.
The associations then emailed the online questionnaire link to
their members. To help the respondents better understand the
concepts of virtual worlds, the online questionnaire included the
definition, description, and potential organizational use of Virtual
Worlds, as well as a screenshot of virtual worlds. Of the 2289 po-
tential respondents, 178 responses were received, which reflects
780 T.E. Yoon, J.F. George / Computers in Human Behavior 29 (2013) 772–790

Table 4
Profile of organizations in the samples and titles of respondents.

Category Frequency (N = 130) % Category Frequency (N = 130) %

Industry Number of employees
Manufacturing 33 25.4 Less than 100 39 30.0
Service-oriented 95 73.1 101–500 25 19.2
Missing 2 1.5 501–1000 8 6.2
Annual sales revenue 1001–5000 24 18.5
Less than $1 million 25 19.2 5001–10,000 6 4.6
$1–5 million 14 10.8 More than 10,000 26 20.0
$6–10 million 6 4.6 Missing 2 1.5
$11–50 million 19 14.6
$51–200 million 12 9.2 Organization age (years)
$201–500 million 7 5.4 Less than 20 33 25.4
$501–1billion 8 6.2 21–40 30 23.1
More than $1 billion 37 28.5 more than 40 65 50.0
Missing 2 1.5 Missing 2 1.5
Titles of respondents
CEO, Founder, CIO, and VP 33 25.38 Others 9 6.92
IT Director and Other Director 36 27.69 Missing 3 2.31
IT Manager and Other Manager 49 37.69

a 7.8% response rate. This low response rate may be attributed to
potential respondents’ lack of knowledge about virtual worlds.
Hence, they may consider this study irrelevant to their organiza-
tions. In addition, the low response rate may be due to lack of
interest in virtual world adoption. Thus, the low response rate
may explain why organizational adoption rate is much slower than
expected. Of 178 responses, 146 were from organizations that had
not adopted virtual worlds (32 responses were from virtual world
adopter organizations). After discarding the responses that had too
much missing data, 130 responses were found to be usable for the
data analysis.
Over 90% of respondents had titles of ‘‘manager’’ or higher (See
Table 4). This suggests that data were collected from the appropri-
ate respondents. Table 4 also profiles the organizations that re-
sponded. Table 4 illustrates the industry, annual sales revenue,
employee number, and firm age of the organizations.
4.2. Operationalization of constructs
To measure all theoretical constructs, existing measures proven
to be reliable and valid were adapted. Table 5 lists each construct
with the corresponding references. Some measures were modified
to fit the virtual world context. All constructs were measured with
multiple items (refer to Appendix B for more detail). While most
constructs are reflective, organization readiness, mimetic pressure
and normative pressure are operationalized as formative, emer-
gent constructs formed from first-order reflective sub-constructs
to be consistent with prior studies (See Table 5).
Existing measures were also adapted to measure three control
variables. Social desirability was measured using a six-item scale
(Form X2) developed by Strahan and Gerbasi (1972). The scale
was administered in a true or false format, and the results were
summed over all six items, and a high score on the scale indicates
the respondent’s tendency to present him/herself in a socially
favorable manner. A respondent’s scores for those items were
summed to get a total score, and then used the total score to mea-
sure social desirability (Fisher & Tellis, 1998). Following Chatterjee,
Grewal, and Sambamurthy (2002), organizational age was mea-
sured by subtracting the founding year from 2009. Industry type
was coded as a dummy variable by identifying the nature of an
organization’s business (service and manufacturing), coding it as
0 for service and 1 for manufacturing. The data for organization
size and industry type was gathered from the Hoover Company
Information Database. To confirm the data, we asked respondents
to indicate the founding year and primary industry of their
organizations.
5. Data analysis and results
Following two-stage analytical procedures recommended by
Anderson and Gerbing (1988), the measurement model was first
assessed and then the hypotheses were tested. The partial least
squares (PLS) approach to structural equation modeling was used
to access the measurement model and test the hypotheses using
SmartPLS 2.0 M3, as the PLS approach can handle formative con-
structs (Teo et al., 2003).
5.1. Measurement model assessment
To assess the measurement model, we used a confirmatory fac-
tor analysis conducted in PLS. The confirmatory factor analysis was
appropriate for this study because we are using the adoption factors
that were frequently found significant in prior studies on organiza-
tional adoption of IS innovations and also because our measures
were proven to be reliable and valid in the prior studies included
in Table 5. All multiple-item theoretical constructs, except the con-
trol constructs (single item constructs), were subject to the confir-
matory factor analysis. In an initial confirmatory factor analysis, the
loadings of three items on their respective constructs were below
the threshold value of 0.60 (Chin, 1998a). Thus, they were dropped.
After we performed a second PLS confirmatory factor analysis,
the measurement model was assessed in terms of convergent
validity, discriminant validity, and internal consistency.
Convergent validity is established when each measurement
item loads with a significant t-value (P0.05 significance level) on
its assumed theoretical construct (Gefen & Straub, 2005). Table 6
presents the item loadings and t-statistics for all constructs and
sub-constructs. Most of the item loadings were greater than 0.7
(Chin, 1998b) and were significant at least at the 0.05 level. In
addition, all constructs had an average variance extracted (AVE)
of at least 0.50 (Table 6) (Fornell & Larcker, 1981). Therefore, con-
vergent validity was adequate. Table 6 shows that all Cronbach’s
alpha and composite reliabilities exceeded the suggested mini-
mum level of 0.70 (Hair, Anderson, & Tatham, 1998). This suggests
that all constructs displayed adequate internal consistency.
Discriminant validity was verified by examining the square root
of the average variance extracted (AVE), as recommend by (Chin,
1998a; Fornell & Larcker, 1981). For a construct to have sufficient
 T.E. Yoon, J.F. George / Computers in Human Behavior 29 (2013) 772–790 781

Table 5
Summary of construct operationalization.

Constructs Type Sub-constructs Type Source Items

Intent to adopt (ADOPT)
Technological context
Relative Advantage (RA)
Compatibility (COM)
Security Concern (SEC)
Organizational context
Top Management Support (TOPM)
Organization Size (SIZE)
Organization Readiness (OR)
Firm Scope (SCOPE)
Environmental context
Mimetic Pressure – Competitors (MP)
Coercive Pressure – Customers (CP)
Normative Pressure (NP)
Intensity of competition (COMPE)
Control variables
Social desirability (SOCIAL)
Organization age (AGE)
Industry type (INDUSTRY)
R Son and Benbasat (2007) 3
R Lee and Kim (2007) 5
R Teo and Pian (2003) 4
R Goodhue and Straub (1991) 3
R Grover (1993) 3
R Son and Benbasat (2007) 2
F IT sophistication (ITS) R Chewlos et al. (2001) 8
Financial Resources (FR) R Zhu and Kraemer (2005) 2
R Zhu and Kraemer (2005) 2
F Perceived Extent of Adoption by Competitors (MP_E) R Son and Benbasat (2007) 3
Perceived Success of Adopted Competitors (NP_S) R 3
R Khalifa and Davison (2006) 3
F Perceived Extent of Adoption by Customers (NP_EC) R Son and Benbasat (2007) 2
Perceived Extent of Adoption by Suppliers (NP_ES) R Son and Benbasat (2007) 2
Participation in Professional and Trade Associations (NP_ASS) R Son and Benbasat (2007) 3
R Thong (1999) 3
R Strahan and Gerbasi (1972) 6
R Chatterjee et al. (2002) 1
R Chatterjee et al. (2002) 1

R = Reflective; F = Formative.

discriminant validity, the square root of its AVE should be greater
than the correlation between all constructs. Table 7 illustrates that
the square root of the AVE for each construct (diagonal elements) is
greater than the correlation of the specific construct with any of
the other constructs. Also, each item loaded higher on its associ-
ated construct than on any other construct (see Appendix A). Fur-
thermore, Table 7 shows that correlations between constructs are
under 0.71(Andreev, Heart, Maoz, & Pliskin, 2009). Therefore, all
reflective constructs and sub-constructs of formative constructs
in the model displayed adequate discriminant validity.
Overall, the evidence provided suggests that all reflective con-
structs (including sub-constructs of formative constructs) dis-
played adequate convergent validity, internal consistency, and
discriminant validity.
In addition, there was no evidence of significant multicollinear-
ity among the constructs because the Variance Inflation Factors
(VIFs) statistics were less than 3.3 (>2.45), and the Tolerance statis-
tics were greater than 0.1 (Mendenhall & Sincich, 1989). We then
checked for the presence of common method bias using Harman’s
one factor test. Since no dominant factor emerged, there was no
strong evidence suggesting the presence of common method bias
(Podsakoff, MacKenzie, Lee, & Podsakoff, 2003). According to
Podsakoff et al. (2003), social desirability is the primary source of
common method bias. As illustrated in Table 7, social desirability
was not significantly correlated with other constructs at the 0.05
significance level. Therefore, common method biases that may
result from social desirability were not a concern.
In contrast to the reflective constructs, covariance-based esti-
mates such as reliability and AVE are not applicable for evaluating
formative constructs (Chin, 1998a; Son & Benbasat, 2007). Instead,
the path weights of formative indicators need to be examined to
check if they significantly contribute to the formative constructs
(Chewlos et al., 2001; Pare & Raymond, 1991). The weights and
t-statistics for the formative indicators are presented in Table 8.
As shown in that table, all path weights were significant at the
0.01 or 0.05 level, suggesting that they contributed significantly
to their associated formative constructs. Therefore, our formative
constructs displayed adequate construct validity (Petter, Straub,
& Rai, 2007).
To evaluate constructs reliability of our formative constructs,
we examined if there is multicollinarity among the indicators
(sub-constructs) for the formative constructs (Petter et al., 2007).
Therefore, we computed the Variance Inflation Factor (VIF) for
the indicators. The highest VIF was 2.18, which is less than the sug-
gested acceptable value of 3.3. This suggests our formative con-
structs displayed adequate construct reliability.
5.2. Hypothesis testing
As mentioned previously, the hypotheses were tested using a
PLS approach through SmartPLS. A bootstrapping procedure with
200 resamples was used to estimate the significance of the path
coefficients.
As seen in Table 7, social desirability was not significantly cor-
related with the other variables at the 0.01 significance level.
Therefore, the control variable not included in the subsequent
PLS analysis. The other two control variables, firm age and industry
type, were tested to determine if they were a significant predictor
of the dependent variables (Intent to Adopt). To assess this, firm
age and industry type were included in the structural model and
tested using PLS. The paths between those control variables and
the dependent variable were not significant at the 0.05 level of sig-
nificance (firm age path coefficient = 0.020, T = 0.221; industry
type path coefficient = 0.009, T = 0.128). The presence of the con-
trol variable did not significantly affect the path coefficients be-
tween the independent variables and dependent variables. There
was also only a 0.001 difference in R2 values between the structural
model with firm age (R2 = 0.443) and the one without (R2 = 0.442).
These results suggest that excluding firm age and industry type
will not lead to biased conclusions (Liang, Saraf, Hu, & Xue, 2007).
Fig. 2 illustrates the results of the hypotheses testing, including
standardized path coefficients, their significance, and the amount
of variance explained (R2). As seen in Fig. 2, the R2 value of 0.442
demonstrates that the model explains an appropriate amount of
variance for organizational intent to adopt Virtual Worlds. All
hypotheses were tested based on the significance of the path
coefficients.
782 T.E. Yoon, J.F. George / Computers in Human Behavior 29 (2013) 772–790

Table 6
Item loadings, internal consistency and convergent validity for the constructs.

Indicators Loading t-Value (AVE) Composite reliability Cronbachs Alpha

Relative Advantage (RA) 0.7384 0.9441 0.9288
RA1 0.889** 45.43
RA2 0.882** 41.167
RA3 0.858** 26.187
RA4 0.853** 30.31
RA5 0.782** 18.026
RA6 0.886** 29.468
Compatibility (COM) 0.8132 0.9457 0.9238
COM1 0.903** 23.485
COM2 0.917** 46.893
COM3 0.892** 30.678
COM4 0.894** 32.665
Security Concern (SEC) 0.8786 0.956 0.9312
SEC2 0.975** 9.112
SEC3 0.94** 5.748
Top Management Support (TOPM) 0.9175 0.957 0.914
TOPM1 0.951** 58.617
TOPM2 0.909** 34.938
TOPM3 0.952** 64.663
Organization Size (SIZE) 0.9134 0.9547 0.9055
SIZE1 0.961** 7.494
SIZE2 0.95** 6.601
Financial Resources (FR) 0.8248 0.904 0.788
FR1 0.917* 2.594
FR2 0.899** 2.739
IT Sophistication (ITS) 0.5307 0.8874 0.8513
ITS1 0.689** 11.821
ITS3 0.631** 6.592
ITS4 0.801** 20.594
ITS5 0.744** 16.262
ITS6 0.733** 11.907
ITS7 0.724** 14.048
Firm Scope (SCOPE) 0.6136 0.8225 0.8083
SCOPE1 0.679* 2.011
SCOPE2 0.954** 2.81
SCOPE4 0.705* 2.162
Perceived extent of adoption by competitors (MP_E) 0.9008 0.9646 0.9449
MP_E1 0.944** 40.446
MP_E2 0.952** 80.958
MP_E3 0.951** 74.078
Perceived success of adopted competitors (MP_S) 0.9028 0.9654 0.9462
MP_S1 0.945** 71.877
MP_S2 0.953** 85.341
MP_S3 0.953** 60.663
Coercive Pressure – Customers (CP) 0.7346 0.8923 0.8219
CP1 0.800** 11.176
CP2 0.908** 37.479
CP3 0.860** 18.062
Perceived extent of adoption by customers (NP_EC) 0.9091 0.9524 0.9001
NP_EC1 0.956** 96.118
NP_EC2 0.951** 81.835
Perceived extent of adoption by suppliers (NP_ES) 0.9376 0.9678 0.9334
NP_ES1 0.969** 138.812
NP_ES2 0.968** 138.201
Participation in Professional and Trade Association (NP_ASS) 0.8244 0.9336 0.893
NP_ASS1 0.867** 20.603
NP_ASS2 0.935** 92.417
NP_ASS3 0.921** 61.206
Intensity of competition (COMPE) 0.6878 0.868 0.7886
COMPE1 0.756** 4.884
COMPE2 0.901** 6.475
COMPE3 0.825** 5.764
Intent to adopt (ADOPT) 0.7752 0.9118 0.8552
ADOPT1 0.915** 63.82
ADOPT2 0.873** 34.795
ADOPT3 0.853** 29.506
*
Significant at 0.01 level of significance.
**
Significant at 0.01 level of significance.

As for the three hypothesis regarding technological factors (per- H2 and H3). Perceived relative advantages (H1), compatibility (H2),
ceived characteristics of virtual worlds), none were supported (H1, and security concerns (H3) were not significantly associated with
 T.E. Yoon, J.F. George / Computers in Human Behavior 29 (2013) 772–790 783

Table 7
Correlation matrix with square roots of AVE.

MEAN STD RA COM SEC TOPM SIZE FR ITS SCOPE MP_E MP_S CP NP_EC NP_ES NP_ASS COMPE INDUSTRY AGE SOCIAL ADOPT
RA 4.20 1.38 0.86
COM 4.21 1.51 .38** 0.90
SECUIRTY 3.70 1.41 .404** .298** 0.94
TOPM 3.71 1.68 .572** .362** .357** 0.96
SIZE 5.48 2.73 .157 .086 .110 .091 0.96
FR 6.16 4.57 .205* .133 .164 .215* .053 0.91
ITS 5.64 0.99 .265** .167 .276** .353** .077 .108 0.73
SCOPE 1.27 1.48 .119 .087 .090 .110 .442** .174** .108 0.78
MP_E 3.52 1.41 .532** .210* .249** .440** .210* .337** .102 .049 0.95
MP_S 3.60 1.46 .501** .416** .446** .300** .197* .164 .184* .063 .445** 0.95
CP 3.03 1.43 .517** .228** .233** .450** .018 .143 .224* .008 .382** .250** 0.86
NP_EC 3.32 1.41 .370** .122 .226** .247** .074 .126 .071 .068 .418** .273** .271** 0,95
NP_ES 3.09 1.40 .404** .222* .249** .314** .081 .111 .160 .049 .329** .254** .258** .300** 0,.97
NP_ASS 2.79 1.35 .533** .402** .355** .444** .086 .173* .127 .066 .370** .400** .335** .393** .462** 0.91
COMPE 4.10 1.56 .205* .056 .048 .073 .134 .105 .167 .049 .216* .183* .229** .249** .066 .117 0.83
INDUSTRY 0.75 0.44 .033 .028 .015 .039 .004 .137 .035 .223* .116 .026 .020 .118 .083 .040 .078 NA
AGE 3.65 0.99 .106 .050 .084 .067 .495** .002 .128 .111 .271** .121 .002 .072 .046 .049 .196* .040 NA
SOCIAL 6.73 1.26 .027 .101 .065 .031 .067 .050 .062 .154 .066 .035 .049 .092 .001 .037 .126 .031 .091 NA
ADOPT 3.35 1.35 .512** .295** .342** .445** .157 .350** .291** .051 .559** .372** .343** .395** .339** .458** .193* .063 .016 .041 0.88

Diagonal elements (bold value) display the square root of AVE.

*
Significant at the 0.05 level.
**
Significant at the 0.01 level.

Table 8 competitors, path coefficient = 0.302, p < 0.01) and Hypothesis 10

Formative constructs: weights and t-statistics.
Formative constructs/sub-constructs
Mimetic pressure – competitors
Sub-constructs
Perceived extent of adoption by competitors (MP_E)
Perceived success of adopted competitors (MP_S)
Normative pressure
Sub-constructs
Perceived extent of adoption by customers (NP_EC)
Perceived extent of adoption by suppliers (NP_ES)
Participation in professional and trade association
(NP_ASS)
Organization readiness
Sub-constructs
Financial resources (FR)
IT sophistication (ITS)
*
Significant at the 0.05 level.
**
Significant at the 0.01 level.
organizational intent to adopt virtual worlds. Among the four
hypotheses related to organizational factors (organizational char-
acteristics), only Hypothesis 6 was supported. In other words, only
organizational readiness (path coefficient = 0.164; p < 0.05) signifi-
cantly influenced organizational intent to adopt virtual worlds
while top management support, organization size, and firm scope
did not.
According to prior IT innovation adoption studies (Chewlos
et al., 2001; Son & Benbasat, 2007; Teo et al., 2003), the significance
of the sub-construct weights can display significance of their im-
pact on the organizational intent to adopt if their associated forma-
tive constructs are found to be significant. Therefore, the weights of
the sub-constructs of organizational readiness were examined to
assess the significance of their impact on the organizational intent
to adopt virtual worlds, although no formal hypotheses were pro-
posed regarding those sub-constructs. According to Table 8, finan-
cial resources (weight = 0.15; p < 0.05) and IT sophistication
(weight = 0.97; p < 0.01) positively and significantly influenced
organizational intent to adopt virtual worlds.
As for the four hypotheses regarding the environmental factors
(environmental characteristics), Hypothesis 8 (mimetic pressure –
(normative pressure, path coefficient = 0.237, p < 0.05) were
supported. Mimetic pressure and normative pressure are formative
Weights t-Value
constructs and were found to be significant. Thus, we examined the
weights of the sub-constructs in Table 8 to assess the significance
0.63** 14.268 of their impact on the organizational intent to adopt virtual worlds.
0.55** 19.851 Two sub-constructs of mimetic pressures were positive and signif-
icantly influenced organizational intent to adopt virtual worlds.
Perceived extent of adoption by competitors had a weight of 0.63
0.34** 11.02 and was significant (p < 0.01). Perceived success of adopted com-
0.36** 13.302
petitors had a weight of 0.55 and was significant (p < 0.01).
0.58** 15.597
The three sub-constructs of normative pressures, perceived ex-
tent of adoption by customers (weight = 0.34; p < 0.01), perceived
extent of adoption by suppliers (weight = 0.36; p < 0.01) and par-
0.15* 2.257 ticipation in professional and trade associations (weight = 0.58;
0.97** 36.504 p < 0.01), positively and significantly influenced organizational in-
tent to adopt virtual worlds. In addition, Table 8 illustrates that
two sub-constructs of mimetic pressures were positive and signif-
icantly influenced organizational intent to adopt virtual worlds.
Perceived extent of adoption by competitors had a weight of 0.63
and was significant (p < 0.01). Perceived success of adopted com-
petitors had a weight of 0.55 and was significant (p < 0.01).
6. Discussion of the findings
We empirically tested a model incorporated with factors influ-
encing organizational adoption of virtual worlds. The model was
developed based on the TOE framework, and the factors included
in the contexts of the model were adoption factors that were most
frequently found significant in prior studies on organizational
adoption of IT innovation. Our results provide insight on why orga-
nizational adoption of virtual worlds is much slower than ex-
pected, by addressing our research question: What factors
influence organizational intent to adopt virtual worlds?
With respect to the characteristics of external environment,
organizational intent to adopt virtual worlds was positively influ-
enced by two of the three external pressures based on institutional
theory: perceived mimetic pressures from competitors; and, per-
ceived normative pressures from trading partners, professional
and trade associations. Based on the comparison of the path coef-
ficients of the significant factors, mimetic pressures and normative
784 T.E. Yoon, J.F. George / Computers in Human Behavior 29 (2013) 772–790

Technological Context

H1(+)
Relative Advantage

H2(+)
Compatibility

0.075
H3(-)
Security Concern

0.010

Organizational Context R² = 0.442

0.039
H4(+)
Top Management
Support 0.086

H5(+)
Organization Size
0.015
Intent to Adopt
Virtual Worlds
Organization
H6(+) 0.164*
Readiness

0.025
H7(+)
Firm Scope

Environmental Context 0.302**

H8(+) 0.030
Mimetic Pressure -
Competitors
0.025
0.237*
H9(+)
Coercive Pressure -
Customers

H10(+ )
Normative Pressure

H11(+)
Intensity of
Competition

Fig. 2. Results of hypothesis testing from PLS analysis.

pressures were found to have a stronger effect on organizational
intent to adopt virtual worlds than organizational readiness. These
results suggest that characteristics of the external environment
play a key role in influencing organizational intent to adopt virtual
worlds. These results also suggest that the factors rooted in institu-
tional theory are key predictors for the adoption of virtual worlds,
empirically validating institutional theory in the context of virtual
worlds.
More importantly, those results explain why organizational
adoption of virtual worlds is much slower than had been expected
by many analysts. The results regarding mimetic pressures indicate
that if many specific competitors are creating a presence in virtual
worlds and these competitors have created a presence that suc-
ceeded or was otherwise beneficial, organizations will intend to
follow their competitors to create a presence in virtual worlds, pos-
sibly because the imitation allows them to avoid being left behind
their industry, avoid losing their competitive advantage (Hansen,
2009), or avoid risks that are borne by first-movers (Khalifa &
Davison, 2006; Teo et al., 2003). In addition, those results regarding
normative pressures indicate that organizations will create a pres-
ence in virtual worlds if many of their trading partners and mem-
bers of the professional and trade associations in which they
participate create a presence in virtual worlds, probably because
the organizations may consider virtual world adoption as norma-
tively appropriate and valuable for them (Scott, 2003). Overall,
organizations will create a presence in virtual worlds primarily if
many other similar organizations are creating a presence in virtual
worlds.
However, many organizations are not creating a presence in vir-
tual worlds for business purposes. According to Cremorne (2010),
the growth of organizations’ adoption is absolutely not changing.
In addition, in recent years, many early adopters such as American
Apparel and Starwood Hotels and Resorts have closed their sites in
virtual worlds (Foreshew, 2008). The closures by the early adopters
may have helped reduce the level of adoption intention by other
organizations. Furthermore, our review of the Gartner hype cycles
published over the last 3 years (2009–2011) implies the majority
of organizations are not creating presences in virtual worlds. The
hype cycles predict when technologies typically would become
widely accepted by organizations. Those hype cycles show that
the position of virtual worlds in the hype cycles has barely moved
from 2009 to 2011. In addition, the 2009 hype cycle forecasted vir-
tual worlds would follow a widespread adoption trend within
2–5 years. However, the 2010 and 2011 hype cycles predict virtual
 T.E. Yoon, J.F. George / Computers in Human Behavior 29 (2013) 772–790
worlds would reach a widespread adoption within 5–10 years.
Since many organizations are not creating a presence in virtual
worlds, other organizations are likewise not creating virtual
worlds, and thus the organizational adoption rate of virtual worlds
is much slower than expected. Our findings regarding the mimetic
pressures suggest that organizations will create a presence in vir-
tual worlds if their competitors that have created a presence in vir-
tual worlds have benefited and succeeded. However, the vast
majority of virtual world projects launched by organizations have
failed (Gonsalves, 2008; Nevo et al., 2011). Few users explored
the organizations’ sites in virtual worlds, and many early organiza-
tion adopters left virtual worlds as a consequence (Hansen, 2009).
Therefore, organizations may perceive that they do not need to
have a presence in virtual worlds since other organizations signif-
icant to them have not established such a presence. Therefore,
organizational adoption rate of virtual worlds has been much
slower than expected.
With respect to the technological factors, none of them were
found to have a significant influence on organizational intent to
adopt virtual worlds. This is inconsistent with the findings of prior
IT innovation adoption studies (e.g., Grover, 1993; Thong, 1999),
which suggested that technological factors have a significant influ-
ence on organizational adoption of IT innovation. One possible
explanation for this inconsistent finding is that respondents might
have perceived virtual worlds less as a technology and more as a so-
cial community. Therefore, technological factors might have not
play a significant role in the decision to adopt virtual worlds. An-
other possible explanation is that, as this study found, organiza-
tions intended to adopt virtual worlds because of pressures
exerted by their external environment. According to Son and
Benbasat (2007), when organizations face the external pressures,
they are willing to adopt in order to avoid being left out of their
industry or to foster their image and reputation within their
industry, regardless of any technological consideration. Therefore,
organizations might have not considered technological factors in
adoption of virtual worlds.
The results regarding the technological factors can help to ex-
plain why organizational adoption rates of virtual worlds are much
slower than expected. According to the diffusion of innovation the-
ory (Rogers, 1995), when perceived benefits and compatibility play
a significant role in influencing intention to adopt an innovation,
the innovation’s rate of adoption increases. However, our results
show perceived benefits and compatibility do not have a signifi-
cant impact on adoption intention toward virtual worlds. There-
fore, organizational adoption rate of virtual worlds is much slow
than expected.
In addition to the external pressures, organizational readiness
among the organizational factors was found to have a significant
influence on the organizational intent to adopt virtual worlds. Also,
its sub-constructs (financial and technical readiness) were both
found to positively influence the organizational intent to adopt vir-
tual worlds. These findings suggest that while external pressures
may motivate organizations to adopt virtual worlds, organizations
must have sufficient technical resources and financial resources
available before they plan to adopt virtual worlds. These findings
support those of prior studies on organizational IT innovation
adoption, which suggested that financial and technical readiness
play a significant role in organizational intent to adopt IT innova-
tions (Chewlos et al., 2001; Mehrtens et al., 2001). In addition,
among the two sub-constructs, the greater weight on IT sophistica-
tion (0.95) illustrates that it was key in determining the overall le-
vel of organizational readiness to adopt virtual worlds. Thus,
organizations should pay particular attention to the availability
of technical resources (both tangible and intangible) prior to
adopting virtual worlds.
785
7. Theoretical and practical implications
This study has several theoretical implications. First, it reduces
the gap in the virtual worlds literature, as there is currently a lack
of empirical studies on the organizational adoption of virtual
worlds. This study empirically identified factors influencing orga-
nizational intent to adopt virtual worlds in order to explain why
organizational adoption is much slower than had been expected.
Also, this study implies that external environmental characteristics
can be inhibitors for organization adoption of an IT innovation.
Especially, the negative actions of competitors, trading partners,
and peer-organizations can inhibit organizations to adopt the IT
innovation. For example, as this study suggests, if organizations
that have adopted an IT innovation are not benefiting or succeed-
ing, other organizations will not adopt the innovation.
In addition, this study offers strong empirical evidence for the
applicability of institutional theory to the context of virtual worlds,
as a guide to understanding the organizational adoption of virtual
worlds. Notably, in the context of virtual worlds, this study pro-
vides strong support for the concepts of organizational isomor-
phism, which suggests that organizations adopt virtual worlds if
others are adopting them. Moreover, this study implies that insti-
tutional theory can be applicable in IT innovations other than those
that were examined using the theory in prior studies (EDI, ERP, B2B
Marketplace; Khalifa & Davison, 2006; Son & Benbasat, 2007; Teo
et al., 2003). In particular, when we study organizational adoption
of an IT innovation that is experiencing slower adoption than ex-
pected, we need to pay attention to factors rooted in institutional
theory because virtual worlds can be considered an IT innovation
that is experiencing slower adoption than expected.
Furthermore, this study implies that organizational adoption
of virtual worlds can be explained by using some of the signifi-
cant factors that have been most frequently found in prior studies
on organizational adoption of IT innovation. This study empiri-
cally tested a model of significant factors that were most fre-
quently found in prior studies on organizational adoption of IT
innovation, and identified factors influencing organizational in-
tent to adopt virtual worlds. In addition, this study extended
the conceptual study by Fuller et al. (2007) that suggests some
of the factors from prior studies on organizational adoption of
IT innovation can be applicable to examining organizational adop-
tion of virtual worlds. Lastly, this study provided empirical evi-
dence that it is important to examine environmental factors in
studying the organizational adoption of an IT innovation. We
found that environmental factors played a key role in organiza-
tional adoption of virtual worlds.
In addition to the theoretical implications, the findings have
implications for management. The empirical findings suggest that
managers must pay significant attention to their ability to adopt
virtual worlds before they commit to such an action. More specif-
ically, they must bear in mind that their organizations’ ability to
adopt virtual worlds should be evaluated according to two dimen-
sions: (1) their accessibility to tangible and intangible technical re-
sources (i.e., physical IT infrastructure, technical skills, virtual
world know-how like developers and competent project leaders)
must be evaluated; and, (2) they must assess the availability of
financial resources to support their organizations’ adoption of vir-
tual worlds. If organizations intend to adopt virtual worlds, they
must ensure that they have sufficient capability to do so success-
fully. In addition, managers may need to pay attention to institu-
tional factors in their decisions to adopt virtual worlds in order
to avoid being left out of their organizations’ industry, or to foster
their organizations’ image and reputation within the industry. For
example, managers may need to consider whether the extent of
virtual world adoption by competitors increases, and whether
786 T.E. Yoon, J.F. George / Computers in Human Behavior 29 (2013) 772–790

virtual world adoption by competitors is successful and beneficial. our research model, we assumed that the relationships between
However, managers need to ensure that their organizations have predictor variables and adoption observed at the aggregate level
sufficient capability to adopt virtual worlds successfully. Other- (all IT innovations) would be true for the lower level of analysis
wise, the investment necessary for the adoption of virtual worlds (one individual innovation, virtual worlds). According to Robinson
may be wasted. (1950), the relationships observed at one level of analysis are not
necessarily the same as those at another level (often called ecolog-
ical fallacy). Therefore, we might not be able to explain as much
8. Limitations and future research directions
variance as we would have liked. Future efforts might need to con-
sider variables specific to virtual world adoption.
One limitation in this study is that there was no ready way to
Finally, this study may have omitted some factors that might
collect data through a random sample of organizations; instead,
further explain an organizations’ intent to adopt virtual worlds.
all data were collected from members of several IS associations.
Such omissions could include other technical characteristics (i.e.,
Therefore, the ability to generalize the findings of this study may
perceived costs, complexity, and trialability), as well as the deci-
be limited. It is recommended that future studies obtain data from
sion maker’s characteristics (i.e., CEO’s innovativeness and techno-
a random sample, and thus, validate the findings of this study. For
logical knowledge).
example, future studies can select a random sample of organiza-
Future studies can examine several areas to further enhance our
tions from the Hoover Company Information Database and then
understanding of the organizational adoption of virtual worlds.
conduct a survey.
First, since the vast majority of virtual world projects launched
A second limitation is that most of the data were collected from
by organizations have failed within 18 months or less, future stud-
a single respondent in each of the organizations surveyed. Clearly,
ies can investigate why those virtual worlds project failed to iden-
these responses may not be representative of the entire organiza-
tify any adoption barriers. In addition, future studies can conduct a
tion. However, most of our respondents were C-level executives or
case studies on organizations that have implemented virtual
top- and middle-level managers who were familiar with IS activi-
worlds successfully. Specifically, a study could assess the imple-
ties and operations within their organizations (Kankanhalli, Teo,
mentation process and any benefits achieved from implementing
Bernard, & Wei, 2003). In addition, these respondents influenced
virtual worlds. These studies can be beneficial when organizations
the adoption decision process in their organizations (Liang et al.,
are interesting in creating a presence in virtual worlds. Last, future
2007). Therefore, we believe that their responses are representa-
studies could empirically examine the negative effects of the insti-
tive of their organizations.
tutional external pressures on virtual world adoption. For example,
A third limitation is the low response rate. Due to the low re-
future studies could investigate whether an organization would
sponse rate, the ability to generalize the findings of this study is
choose not to adopt a virtual world if it learned of the negative
limited. The low response rate might be a result of potential
norms or values regarding virtual worlds from its customers, or
respondents’ lack of knowledge about virtual worlds. Hence, they
from professional and trade associations.
may consider this study irrelevant to their organizations. In addi-
tion, the low response rate might be due to respondents’ lack of
interest in virtual world adoption. Thus, the low response rate
9. Conclusions
might explain why organizational adoption rate is much slower
than expected. To avoid the low response rate, future study should
This study has provided insights into why the organizational
consider using the case study research methodology.
adoption rate of virtual worlds is much slower than expected, by
The next limitation of this study is associated with some issues
empirically identifying factors that influence organizational intent
that led to the limited amount of variance explained in the model.
to adopt virtual worlds. First, organizations are not adopting vir-
One of the reasons for the limited amount of variance explained is
tual worlds because other organizations are not doing so. Second,
that this study examined only the direct relationships between the
because respective competitors that have adopted virtual worlds
independent variables and the dependent variable. The possibility
are not benefiting or succeeding, organizations are not induced
exists that mediating variables, such as expected costs of virtual
to adopt. Last, technological factors, such as perceived benefits
world adoption and yields of virtual world adoption, can be
and compatibility do not currently have a significant impact on
significant predictors of virtual world adoption and might have
an organization’s intent to adopt virtual worlds.
accounted for a significant amount of variance in the relationships
The data generated from our study enhances our understanding
between some of the independent variables and the dependent
of the organizational adoption of virtual worlds, and more empiri-
variable. As such, these mediators might improve the overall
cal research is necessary to understand it. This improved under-
variance accounted for in the model as well as explain why the
standing may facilitate organizational adoption, and help
dependent variable and the independent variables are related. Fu-
organizations to successfully utilize virtual worlds in their
ture efforts might need to consider including these mediating
businesses.
variables.
In addition, the limited amount of variance explained could be a
result of how we developed our research model, suggesting a
Appendix A. Confirmatory factor analysis results
possible risk of ecological fallacy (Robinson, 1950). In developing

RA COM SEC TOPM SIZE FR ITS SCOPE MP_E MP_S CP NP_EC NP_ES NP_ASS COMPE ADOPT
RA1 0.889 0.339 0.162 0.519 0.193 0.243 0.230 0.150 0.430 0.435 0.440 0.363 0.356 0.497 0.230 0.473
RA2 0.882 0.329 0.281 0.621 0.172 0.250 0.323 0.210 0.512 0.490 0.452 0.366 0.449 0.431 0.167 0.498
RA3 0.858 0.251 0.054 0.427 0.150 0.106 0.179 0.099 0.475 0.359 0.375 0.269 0.279 0.373 0.194 0.382
RA4 0.853 0.315 0.103 0.549 0.195 0.223 0.182 0.057 0.504 0.432 0.505 0.371 0.302 0.390 0.182 0.434
RA5 0.782 0.363 0.318 0.407 0.049 0.175 0.248 0.111 0.420 0.459 0.397 0.310 0.357 0.556 0.226 0.429
RA6 0.887 0.371 0.197 0.448 0.140 0.190 0.181 0.140 0.400 0.414 0.496 0.224 0.345 0.464 0.198 0.445
COM1 0.323 0.903 0.171 0.309 0.066 0.147 0.129 0.072 0.164 0.387 0.141 0.141 0.170 0.414 0.078 0.219
 T.E. Yoon, J.F. George / Computers in Human Behavior 29 (2013) 772–790 787

(continued)

RA COM SEC TOPM SIZE FR ITS SCOPE MP_E MP_S CP NP_EC NP_ES NP_ASS COMPE ADOPT
COM2 0.377 0.918 0.180 0.419 0.066 0.133 0.168 0.143 0.264 0.393 0.215 0.068 0.207 0.344 0.019 0.262
COM3 0.298 0.892 0.193 0.280 0.117 0.119 0.197 0.152 0.113 0.332 0.232 0.135 0.171 0.361 0.029 0.287
COM4 0.382 0.894 0.141 0.334 0.062 0.097 0.098 0.103 0.220 0.388 0.239 0.098 0.251 0.335 0.052 0.297
SEC2 0.216 0.210 0.975 0.238 0.036 0.237 0.086 0.046 0.166 0.424 0.125 0.133 0.211 0.267 0.096 0.202
SEC3 0.208 0.143 0.940 0.144 0.070 0.173 0.096 0.065 0.122 0.319 0.138 0.122 0.175 0.218 0.129 0.130
TOPM1 0.500 0.288 0.213 0.951 0.066 0.193 0.308 0.150 0.399 0.260 0.408 0.198 0.221 0.366 0.071 0.400
TOPM2 0.591 0.445 0.204 0.909 0.072 0.173 0.364 0.168 0.401 0.299 0.461 0.226 0.367 0.490 0.049 0.472
TOPM3 0.532 0.291 0.169 0.952 0.117 0.233 0.327 0.105 0.438 0.283 0.419 0.264 0.292 0.397 0.130 0.385
SIZE1 0.181 0.121 0.024 0.097 0.961 0.127 0.064 0.361 0.217 0.167 0.001 0.100 0.094 0.132 0.213 0.159
SIZE2 0.115 0.041 0.078 0.073 0.950 0.021 0.077 0.428 0.184 0.213 0.062 0.042 0.059 0.028 0.148 0.141
FR1 0.149 0.113 0.242 0.202 0.035 0.917 0.109 0.083 0.291 0.120 0.114 0.104 0.092 0.133 0.080 0.329
FR2 0.284 0.134 0.153 0.184 0.076 0.899 0.089 0.106 0.351 0.212 0.167 0.142 0.124 0.225 0.148 0.312
ITS1 0.308 0.244 0.082 0.298 0.084 0.127 0.689 0.162 0.068 0.231 0.201 0.157 0.109 0.174 0.113 0.314
ITS3 0.224 0.085 0.062 0.210 0.007 0.040 0.631 0.100 0.098 0.118 0.199 0.181 0.254 0.122 0.038 0.191
ITS4 0.172 0.090 0.152 0.273 0.004 0.102 0.801 0.068 0.071 0.136 0.172 0.036 0.152 0.045 0.133 0.191
ITS5 0.215 0.114 0.061 0.342 0.029 0.148 0.744 0.109 0.075 0.123 0.156 0.106 0.075 0.116 0.060 0.222
ITS6 0.055 0.017 0.000 0.095 0.013 0.067 0.733 0.044 0.006 0.039 0.058 0.098 0.036 0.042 0.097 0.193
ITS7 0.174 0.100 0.026 0.241 0.132 0.013 0.724 0.149 0.111 0.113 0.265 0.017 0.064 0.024 0.429 0.143
ITS8 0.209 0.189 0.131 0.357 0.114 0.078 0.765 0.125 0.092 0.161 0.132 0.009 0.126 0.212 0.106 0.234
SCOPE1 0.128 0.003 0.017 0.091 0.372 0.058 0.071 0.659 0.031 0.071 0.052 0.105 0.025 0.046 0.120 0.009
SCOPE2 0.159 0.161 0.057 0.161 0.370 0.076 0.176 0.954 0.010 0.122 0.043 0.048 0.068 0.177 0.104 0.124
SCOPE4 0.063 0.015 0.032 0.068 0.326 0.138 0.010 0.705 0.032 0.010 0.027 0.105 0.001 0.012 0.046 0.045
MP_El 0.484 0.171 0.107 0.408 0.158 0.289 0.098 0.027 0.944 0.413 0.354 0.360 0.313 0.364 0.229 0.500
MP_E2 0.533 0.200 0.135 0.405 0.217 0.338 0.091 0.001 0.952 0.398 0.323 0.396 0.338 0.314 0.184 0.539
MP_E3 0.498 0.230 0.197 0.439 0.225 0.374 0.093 0.015 0.951 0.456 0.386 0.430 0.288 0.382 0.200 0.558
MP_S1 0.502 0.377 0.325 0.272 0.174 0.121 0.112 0.088 0.425 0.945 0.203 0.277 0.232 0.399 0.141 0.384
MP_S2 0.470 0.406 0.365 0.301 0.220 0.172 0.255 0.123 0.447 0.953 0.270 0.284 0.253 0.358 0.247 0.361
MP_S3 0.468 0.399 0.446 0.285 0.168 0.220 0.145 0.069 0.398 0.953 0.230 0.220 0.235 0.389 0.155 0.326
CP1 0.384 0.206 0.127 0.335 0.094 0.237 0.120 0.037 0.389 0.225 0.800 0.256 0.293 0.362 0.242 0.258
CP2 0.472 0.218 0.100 0.460 0.105 0.113 0.292 0.059 0.276 0.204 0.908 0.155 0.226 0.296 0.097 0.377
CP3 0.477 0.172 0.131 0.369 0.030 0.050 0.134 0.011 0.324 0.214 0.860 0.293 0.146 0.214 0.255 0.244
NP_EC1 0.316 0.142 0.124 0.185 0.119 0.152 0.073 0.046 0.377 0.261 0.226 0.956 0.251 0.425 0.240 0.365
NP_EC2 0.394 0.088 0.131 0.285 0.024 0.103 0.052 0.097 0.420 0.263 0.267 0.951 0.321 0.325 0.191 0.380
NP_ES1 0.386 0.191 0.212 0.274 0.078 0.129 0.140 0.034 0.322 0.255 0.251 0.307 0.969 0.449 0.084 0.334
NP_ES2 0.406 0.244 0.184 0.344 0.079 0.100 0.164 0.069 0.315 0.237 0.251 0.272 0.968 0.449 0.056 0.327
NP_ASS1 0.426 0.326 0.191 0.339 0.040 0.023 0.104 0.161 0.225 0.294 0.192 0.360 0.361 0.867 0.032 0.353
NP_ASS2 0.528 0.363 0.300 0.442 0.081 0.244 0.127 0.132 0.348 0.378 0.324 0.320 0.410 0.935 0.072 0.445
NP_ASS3 0.508 0.397 0.210 0.443 0.112 0.250 0.113 0.110 0.431 0.417 0.397 0.394 0.486 0.921 0.187 0.450
COMPE1 0.132 0.075 0.106 0.033 0.035 0.131 0.073 0.107 0.234 0.202 0.195 0.244 0.043 0.153 0.756 0.100
COMPE2 0.232 0.034 0.055 0.124 0.304 0.135 0.267 0.214 0.204 0.214 0.192 0.135 0.081 0.082 0.901 0.233
COMPE3 0.105 0.028 0.155 0.021 0.070 0.039 0.057 0.020 0.113 0.053 0.151 0.247 0.044 0.069 0.825 0.148
ADOPT1 0.513 0.269 0.179 0.398 0.137 0.354 0.279 0.092 0.525 0.394 0.307 0.274 0.333 0.418 0.171 0.915
ADOPT2 0.361 0.203 0.160 0.284 0.088 0.302 0.196 0.066 0.454 0.317 0.264 0.359 0.209 0.343 0.220 0.873
ADOPT3 0.480 0.307 0.138 0.489 0.182 0.275 0.282 0.131 0.495 0.279 0.353 0.401 0.344 0.443 0.174 0.853

The item loadings for all constructs are in bold.

Appendix B. Measurement items  Allow better communication with our customers (RA1).
 Increase the profitability of our organization (RA2).
B.1. Intention to adopt virtual worlds (adopt)  Create an electronic presence for our brands (RA3).
 Reduce costs (e.g., communication, advertising, marketing, tra-
1-Strongly Disagree; 7-Strongly Agree vel, and R&D) (RA4).
 Allow us to enter new businesses or markets (RA5).
 My organization intends to adopt virtual worlds (Adopt1).  Improve our Web presence (RA6).
 It is likely that my organization will take steps to adopt virtual
worlds in the future (Adopt2). B.3. Compatibility (COM)

Mark where appropriate: 1-Strongly Disagree; 7-Strongly Agree

 How soon do you think your organization will adopt virtual  Virtual world adoption is consistent with my organization’s
worlds? (reversed item) (Adopt3). beliefs and values (COM1).
 The attitude towards virtual world adoption in my organization
[ ]Less than 6 months; [ ]6 to 12 months; [ ]12 to 18 months; [ is favorable (COM2).
]18 to 24 months  Virtual world adoption is compatible with my organization’s
[ ]More than 24 months; [ ]No plan to adopt virtual worlds information technology (IT) infrastructure (COM3).
 Virtual world adoption is consistent with my organization’s
business strategy (COM4).
B.2. Relative advantage (RA)
B.4. Security concerns (SEC)
1-Strongly Disagree; 7-Strongly Agree
Adopting virtual worlds will: 1-Very Unsatisfactory; 11-Very Satisfactory
788 T.E. Yoon, J.F. George / Computers in Human Behavior 29 (2013) 772–790
 Please indicate the extent to which you are satisfied with the
security environment of virtual worlds (SEC1).
1-Strongly Disagree; 7-Strongly Agree
 In virtual worlds, data is safeguarded from unauthorized
changes or use (reversed item) (SEC2).
 In virtual worlds, sensitive data is protected from those who
should not have access to it (reversed item) (SEC3).
B.5. Firm size (SIZE)
 Derived from secondary sources (Hoovers Company Informa-
tion Database).
 Approximately how many employees does your organization
have in total? (SIZE1).
Mark where appropriate:
 What were the approximate annual sales revenues in the last
financial year? (SIZE2).
[ ] Less than $1 million [ ] $1 – 5 million [ ] $6 – 10 million
[ ] $11 – 50 million [ ] $51 – 200 million [ ] $201 – 500 million
[ ] $501 – 1 billion [ ] More than $ 1 billion
B.6. Firm Scope (SCOPE)
 Approximately what percent of your organization’s total assets
are outside of the United States (1–100%)? (SCOPE1).
 Approximately how many countries does your organization
operate in? (SCOPE2).
 Approximately what percent of your organization’s total sales
are from outside of the United States (1–100%)?(SCOPE3).
 Approximately what percent of your organization’s total pro-
curement spending is from outside of the United States (1–
100%)?(SCOPE4).
B.7. Top Management Support (TOPM)
1-Strongly Disagree; 7-Strongly Agree
 Top management in my organization is interested in adopting
virtual worlds (TOPM1).
 Top management in my organization considers virtual world
adoption important (TOPM2).
 Top management in my organization has shown support for vir-
tual world adoption (TOPM3).
B.8. Organization readiness
B.8.1. IT Sophistication (ITS)
1-Very negative; 7-Very positive
 Please rate the attitude of your top management toward the
deployment of information technology in your organization
(ITS1).
1-Not at all Important; 7- Extremely Important
 Information technology can be used for a number of objectives.
To what extent is information technology important for the ful-
fillment of the following objectives in your organization?
 Reduction of Operational Costs (ITS2).
 Productivity Improvement (ITS3).
 Improved Access to Information (ITS4).
 Improved Quality of Decision Making (ITS5).
 Improved Competitiveness (ITS6).
 Improved Service to Customers (ITS7).
 Personnel Reduction (ITS8).
B.8.2. Financial Resources (FR)
 Approximately, what is the annual IT spending of your organi-
zation as percentage of total revenue (1–100%)? (FR1).
 Approximately, what is the annual Web-based spending of your
organization as percentage of total revenue (1–100%)? (FR2).
B.9. Mimetic pressure – competitors
B.9.1. Perceived extent of adoption by competitors (MP_EC)
1-Strongly disagree; 7-Strongly agree
 Many of our competitors are currently adopting virtual worlds
(MP_EC1).
 Many of our competitors will be adopting virtual worlds in the
near future (MP_EC2).
 Our key competitors are currently adopting virtual worlds
(MP_EC3).
B.9.2. Perceived success of adopted competitors (MP_S)
1-Strongly disagree; 7-Strongly agree
 Our competitors that have adopted virtual worlds are benefiting
greatly (MP_S1).
 Our competitors that have adopted virtual worlds are perceived
favorably by others in our industry (MP_S2).
 Our competitors that have adopted virtual worlds are perceived
favorably by their customers (MP_S3).
B.10. Coercive Pressure (CP)
1-Strongly disagree; 7-Strongly agree
 Customers that matter to us expect us to use virtual worlds
(CP1).
 We may not retain our important customers without adopting
virtual worlds (CP2).
 Customers that are crucial to us encourage us to use virtual
worlds (CP3).
B.11. Normative pressure
B.11.1. Perceived extent of adoption by customers (NP_EC)
1-Strongly disagree; 7-Strongly agree
 Many of our customers are currently adopting virtual worlds
(NP_EC1).
 Many of our customers will be adopting virtual worlds
(NP_EC2).
B.11.2. Perceived extent of adoption by suppliers (NP_ES)
1-Strongly disagree; 7-Strongly agree
 Many of our suppliers are currently adopting virtual worlds
(NP_ES1).
 Many of our suppliers will be adopting virtual worlds (NP_ES2).
B.11.3. Participation in Professional and Trade Associations (NP_ASS)
1-Strongly disagree; 7-Strongly agree
 T.E. Yoon, J.F. George / Computers in Human Behavior 29 (2013) 772–790
 Industry sources (e.g., industry or trade associations) are pres-
suring our firm to adopt virtual worlds (NP_ASS1).
 We participate actively in industry, trade, or professional asso-
ciations that promote virtual world adoption (NP_ASS2).
 We often receive information regarding virtual worlds from
sources outside our organization (such as industry associations,
professional associations, or trade newsletters) (NP_ASS3).
B.12. Intensity of Competition (COMPE)
1-Strongly disagree; 7-Strongly agree
 Our customers can switch to another company for similar ser-
vices/products without much difficulty (COMPE1).
 The rivalry among companies in our industry is very intense
(COMPE2).
 There are many products/services in the market that are differ-
ent from ours but perform the same functions (COMPE3).
B.13. Control variable
B.13.1. Firm Age (AGE)
 Derived from secondary sources (Hoovers Company Informa-
tion Database).
 In what year was your organization founded?
B.13.2. Industry type (INDUSTRY)
 Derived from secondary sources (Hoovers Company Informa-
tion Database).
 Please specify the primary industry to which your organization
belongs. Primary industry is defined as the sector that account
for most of your organization’s sales (e.g., food and beverage,
health care, pharmaceutical, consumer electronic, transporta-
tion, distribution and logistics).
B.13.3. Social desirability (SOCIAL)
 I have never intensely disliked anyone. (True, False) (SOCIAL1).
 I sometimes feel resentful when I don’t get my way. (True,
False) (SOCIAL2).
 There have been times when I felt like rebelling against people
in authority even though I knew they were right. (True, False)
(SOCIAL3).
 I am always courteous, even to people who are disagreeable.
(True, False) (SOCIAL4).
 There have been times when I was quite jealous of the good for-
tune of others. (True, False) (SOCIAL5).
 I am sometimes irritated by people who asked favors of me.
(True, False) (SOCIAL6).
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