Team members: Kelsey Ffrench, Xiangbo He, Amanda King, Yue Su, Luying Wang, Yandan Wang
Project mentor: Alexis Shore
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Abstract
With the pandemic forcing a monumental shift to working from home, many organizations have turned to technology to find new ways to communicate. Unlike larger organizations, municipal governments may not have as well-established internal communication channels, resulting in an unprecedented challenge for smaller organizations transitioning to remote work. Internal communication not only improves efficiency within an organization but also builds and strengthens employee relationships. We investigated the influences of established factors (relative advantage, complexity, observability, and perceived usefulness) on the adoption of innovations by applying the Diffusion of Innovation Theory and the Technology Acceptance Model. An online survey was used to collect data on this topic, and multiple regression analyses were run to uncover the relationships between these study variables.
Keywords
working from home; municipal governments, communication technologies, diffusion of innovation theory, technology acceptance model
Team Bio
Our group includes six Master’s students in the Emerging Media Studies program at Boston University. Our team collaborated from all over the world, navigating a number of different time zones to work together in conducting research on behalf of Boston University for our client. With the guidance of our team lead, Ph.D. student Alexis Shore, we worked to understand the adoption of a technology in the workplace that would help improve organizational communication and foster a sense of community within a newly distributed workforce.
Client Bio
The City of Melrose is located about 7 miles north of Boston and has a population of 28,000 people. The Mayor of Melrose, Paul Brodeur, was elected in November 2019 and quickly faced the challenge of managing a newly distributed workforce due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Knowing the importance of fostering a sense of community and building trust within an organization, the Mayor sought out Boston University to find the best way to achieve this during these unprecedented times.