The impact of top management support on the behavioural intention to adopt information systems

The impact of top management support on the behavioural intention to adopt
Information systems: a literature review
Lena Frau
University of Belgrade, Industrial Engineering Department
Abstract
Purpose - The purpose of this study is to enhance the existing state-of-the-art literature on the
impact of top management support on the behavioural intention to adopt information systems
(IS) by examining the antecedents of top management support on the IS adoption process.
Methodology- published articles over a 46-year period (1973-2019) from the most influential
management research journals in the field of top management support and IS adoption were
reviewed comprehensively.
Findings- the literature suggests three different relationships between TMS and IS adoption
including an immediate linear connection, a relationship mediated by other variables, and more
complicated relationship. Furthermore, different ways in which top managers affect IS
adoption including changing the culture, motivating employees, and building an appropriate
atmosphere to facilitate adoption have been presented. Studies related to influencing factors of
top management support present two fundamental psychological attributes influencing their
strategic decisions including cognitive base and values.
Research limitations/ implications- The results of this study are a value to organizations that
are in the process of adopting IS or in the process of thinking about adopting IS to improve the
decision-making process.
Originality/ value- While the majority of management area research employ a variety of
organizational theories to empirically quantify research topics, the body of the literature so far
lacks an academic work to systematize influencing factors of top managers’ behaviour
supporting IS adoption. This work concludes by presenting some research gaps for further
research in this area.
Keywords Top management support; IS adoption; Behavioural intention; Literature review
Paper type literature review

The impact of top management support on the behavioural intention to adopt Information
systems: a literature review
Introduction
Information technology adoption is important for organizations (Sun and Jeyaraj, 2013)
because information systems improve firm performance via decision enhancing (Mithas,
Ramasubbu and Sambamurthy, 2011; Melville, Kraemer and Gurbaxani, 2004). Information
systems support well-timed decisions, innovation promotion, and help to business environment
uncertainty management (Melville, Kraemer and Gurbaxani, 2004; Dewett and Jones, 2001).
Raghunathan (1999) claims that firms invest in information systems to benefit from high-
quality information (i.e. reliable, accurate, and relevant information) (Popovič et al., 2012).
Rogers (2003) defines adoption as the first time that an individual decides to use an innovation.
Behavioural intentions models are used in past studies to explain information technologies
adoption (Agarwal and Prasad, 1997; Davis, 1989). According to Lam, Cho and Qu (2007),
behavioural intentions have a positive correlation with actual behaviour. The authors assert that
if information technology is used effectively, it has a positive influence on IT adoption. Ajzen
and Fishbein (1977) claim that a person’s behavioural intention is related to the individual’s
subjective norm. Subjective norm is a factor of attitude (Ajzen and Fishbein, 1977); that is to
say, how an individual perceives social pressures to do or not to do a particular act. Individuals
more likely do an act if they believe that there is greater social pressure on them. For example,
in hotels, managers are the social pressure on operative employees. Therefore, managers’
opinion influences IT adoption in hotels (Lam, Cho and Qu, 2007).
In this paper, a general review on the relationship between top management support and the
behavioural intention to adopt information systems is presented. The main contributions of this
work are: (a) it provides a general review on top management support and IS adoption from
the last 46 years; (b) it addresses the relationship between top management support and IS
adoption; (c) it presents the ways top managers affect the adoption process; (d) it offers the
influencing variables of top management in IS adoption process.
The following section presents a background. The next section reviews the methodology of
this study followed by a taxonomy for the reviewed works based on their context and

objectives, methods and methodology. Section 4 presents the main findings. Section 5 presents
a thorough discussion of the evolution of the literature during half a century. The last section
provides conclusions, limitations, and suggestions for future studies.
1. Background
Studies related to influencing determinants of IT adoption have different viewpoints including
organizational determinants (Law and Ngai, 2007; Premkumar and Roberts, 1999),
environmental determinants (Liang et al., 2007), individual’s behavioural intention (Davis,
1989; Venkatesh et al., 2003), innovation diffusion (Premkumar, Ramamurthy and Nilakanta,
1994), and top management support (Bassellier, Benbasat and Reich, 2003; Li et al., 2006;
Liang et al., 2007). A few studies (Dong, Neufeld and Higgins, 2009; Ragu-Nathan et al., 2004)
investigate the relationship between top management and advanced technologies adoption
which consequently influences the capabilities of an organization. Not only do top
management offer a vision and strategies, but also it is in charge of supporting the change in
business processes due to new technologies adoption, decreasing user resistance, and showing
commitment via actions to ensure a successful adoption (Kulkarni, Robles-Flores and Popovic,
2017). Furthermore, previous studies propose different theories and models to explain how
successful IT implementation is achieved (Baker, 2012; Jeyaraj, Rottman and Lacity, 2006).
The theories and models are explained in the following paragraphs.
Technology acceptance model (TAM) (Davis, 1989) was developed to predict the behaviour
of using a computer. The model has two significant elements including perceived usefulness
and perceived ease of use, which have relation with forming an attitude (Davis, 1989). The
theory of planned behaviour (TPB) demonstrates that two factors of intention and actual
behavioural control (i.e. existing resources) influence individuals’ behaviour. The intention can
be illustrated by the attitude of an individual, which is individuals’ beliefs about the outcomes
of the behaviour, subjective norm, which is individuals’ beliefs regarding the significance of
the behaviour in others’ eyes, and perceived behavioral control, which is individuals’ beliefs
about the actual behavioural control (Ajzen, 1991). The main difference between the theory of
planned behaviour and technology acceptance model is that TPB explains or foresees any kind
of behaviour whereas TAM only explains or foresees users’ behaviour to use or not to use
technology (Ajzen, 2002). In a study conducted by (Riemenschneider, Harrison and Mykytyn

(2003), it is stated that TPB and TAM combination would explain IT adoption better. The
authors argued that more integration of TPB and TAM results in better understanding of IT
adoption phenomenon.
The unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) (Venkatesh et al., 2003) has
four elements including intention and usage. The model gives insights to managers to evaluate
new technology adoption and user acceptance (Venkatesh et al., 2003). The Technology–
Organization–Environment framework (TOE framework) (Lin, Ku and Huang cited
Tornatzky, Fleischer, Chakrabarti (1990), 2014), in which the three elements of technology,
organization, and environment impact how a firm realizes the need for a new technology and
adopts it (Baker, 2011). The innovation diffusion theory (IDT) investigates the reason new
technologies are adopted (Rogers, 2003). According to IDT, self-efficacy and innovation
characteristics influence technology adoption (Venkatesh et al., 2003).
After a careful review of the literature, top management support was found to be a critical
factor for organizational behaviour (Colwell and Joshi, 2013; Lin, 2010). According to
Jarvenpaa and Ives (1991), among success factors of IT implementation, top management
support is considered a critical factor for firms. Additionally, researchers (Dong, Neufeld and
Higgins, 2009a; Purvis, Sambamurthy and Zmud, 2001) argue that commitment of top
management to a complex technology ends in successful implementation and assimilation of
that technology. Hambrick and Mason (1984) suggest upper echelon theory, in which top
managers are reflectors of their firms. According to the theory (Hambrick and Mason, 1984),
organizational strategic decisions are made based on their top managers’ values and cognitive
base. Hence, it is important to investigate the influencing factors of top managers’ behaviour
to perceive how top management support can be improved for big data implementations.
Upper echelon theory states that top management impacts a firm in various ways including
strategic decision-making, planning procedure, etc. During the implementation process, top
managers must act as leaders. Therefore, it is essential to improve top managers’ intentions to
implement an innovation successfully (Jeyaraj, Rottman and Lacity, 2006b). Previous studies
about influencing determinants of top managers’ intention mostly refer to demographic aspects
of top managers including age, gender, and education (Bantel and Jackson, 1989; Barker and
Mueller, 2002; Li et al., 2006).
Although these demographic variables may impact top managers, some authors (Bassellier,
Benbasat and Reich, 2003; Haley and Stumpf, 1989) argue that strategic procedures are not

consequences of top managers’ demographic characteristics. Therefore, it is essential to
investigate other determinants influencing top managers’ behavioural intention because the
demographic characteristics of top managers such as age and gender cannot be controlled by
firms. Chuang, Nakatani and Zhuo (2011) employ upper echelon theory to find the relationship
between compositions of demographic characteristics of the top management team and IT
adoption in SMEs. They show that age and education have a remarkable positive influence on
the IT adoption in SMEs, while group heterogeneity especially ethnic and gender diversity
have a negative influence on IT adoption in SMEs.
2. Methodology
Reviewing existing research on top management support and Is adoption comprehensively, a
search for articles published over a 46-year period (1973-2019) was undertaken. The choice of
journals was based on the ranking of the most influential management research journals.
Keywords are ‘top management’, top management support’, ‘TMT’, ‘innovation’; ‘adoption’;
‘implementation’; ‘information technology’; ‘information system’; ‘IS adoption’. The articles
were analysed based on the relationship between top management support and IS adoption,
limitations of studies, and details of methodology.
2.1. Taxonomy
The reviewed papers are classified based on their objectives, application context, and
methodology.
Application context and objectives
The application context and objectives of the reviewed works are summarised in Table 1
research objectives and application contextTable 1.
Year Author(s) Objectives Application context
1973 Hage and Dewar Investigating the usefulness of
elite values
Health and welfare
organizations
1984 Hambrick and Mason To study the influence of upper
echelon characteristics on
organizational outcome
General
organizations

1984 Maidique and Zirger Success and failure factors in
product innovation
US electronics
industry
1986 Dewar and Dutton To explore the difference
between correlates of radical
and incremental innovations
Footwear industry
1988 Leonard-Barton and
Deschamps
To study management impact on
new technology implementation
Multinational
computer
manufacturer
1989 Davis To develop multi-item scales for
perceived ease of use and
perceived usefulness in using
computer
Computer usage
1989 Bantel and Jackson To investigate the relationship
between innovation adoptions
and social composition of the
top management team
Financial services
industry
1989 Haley and Stumpf To examine the links of
personality theories and
cognitions
General
organizations
1991 Jarvenpaa and Ives To propose three model of
executive support in IT adoption
General
organizations
1993 Hoffman and Hegarty To analyse executive
characteristics impact on two
types of innovations including
product/markets and
administrative structures/system
Multinational
organizations
1995 Keil To determine reasons of
escalation occurrence in an
actual IT project
IT projects
1995 Ramamurthy and
Premkumar
To examine the relationship
between organizational factors
and key innovation in electronic
data interchange diffusion
American companies
1996 Newman and
Sabherwal
To study influencing factors of
the commitment to IS project
IS development
1996 Ekvall To propose an instrument to
measure climate and structure of
an organization for innovation
General
organizations
1996 West and Anderson To examine the relationship
between organizational factors
and team innovation
UK health industry
1997 Guimaraes and Igbaria To study the influence of four
major factors including the
degree of end-user involvement,
end-user characteristics,
developer skills, and
management support on the CSS
project
Client/server
systems (CSS)
implementation

1997 Igbaria, Zinatelli, Cragg Investigating personal
computing acceptance model
Small firms in New
Zealand
1997 Markóczy Gaining an understanding of
relationship between individual
characteristics and beliefs
International
organizations
1997 Agarwal and Prasad To propose a model illustrating
the relationship between the
innovation perceived
characteristics and adoption
behaviour
Web innovation
1999 Chattopadhyay et al. To develop and validate a
theory explaining antecedents of
top managers based on social
influence
General
organizations
1999 Armstrong and
Sambamurthy
To shed light on impact of top
managers and IT infrastructures
on IT assimilation
IT assimilation
2000 Mumford Literature review on creativity
nature to identify influencing
factor on innovation
General
organizations
2001 Purvis, Sambamurthy
and Zmud
To provide empirical evidence
of the forces influencing the
assimilation of CASE
technologies
Organization
adopting CASE
platform
2001 Wixom and Watson To propose and validate a model
of data warehousing
implementation factors
Data warehousing
projects
2002 Akkermans and Van
Helden
To provide a list of critical
success factors in ERP
implementation via a case study
ERP implementation
2002 Barker and Mueller to empirically examine the
impact of CEOs’ characteristics
on R&D spending
Firms from
industries with R&D
budget
2003 Sharma and Yetton To propose a contingent model
to illustrate influence of top
management support and task
interdependence of IS
implementation via meta-
analysis
IS implementation
2003 Bassellier, Benbasat
and Reich
To explore the relationship
between IT knowledge, IT
experience, and championing IT
using structural equation
modelling
Insurance
organizations
2003 Nah, Zuckweiler and
Lau
A literature review of critical
success factors for successful
ERP implementation
ERP implementation
2003 Chen and Popovich To propose a CRM
implementation model that
Customer
relationship

integrates people, process, and
technology
management (CRM)
implementation
2004 Ragu-Nathan et al. To propose and empirically
validate a conceptual model
demonstrating the influence of
top management support on IS
performance
IS implementation
2004 Bruque-Cámara,
Vargas-Sánchez and
Hernández-Ortiz
To propose new organizational
factors explaining the speed and
extent of IT adoption
Pharmaceutical
distribution sector in
Spain
2005 Smith and Tushman To develop a model of strategic
contradictions management
related to paradoxical cognition
General
organizations
2005 Elenkov, Judge and
Wright
To shed light on influence of
strategic leadership behaviours
on innovation
International multi-
cluster organizations
2005 Kim, Lee and Gosain To study critical obstacles that
large companies face in the
implementation of ERP
systems
ERP implementation
2006 Damanpour and
Schneider
To investigate the impact of
environmental, organizational
and top managers’
characteristics on innovation
implementation process
Public organizations
in USA
2006 Li et al To study the relationship
between the individual
characteristics of the Chief
Information Officer (CIO) and
organizational innovative usage
of information technology (IT)
IT usage in
Singapore
organizations
2006 Jeyaraj, Rottman and
Lacity
To review and analysis
empirical studies on the IT
innovation adoption by
individuals and organizations
IT innovation
adoption
2006 Mitchell To explore two dimensions of
management’s integrative
capability including access to
internal and external knowledge
Medical sector
2007 Liang et al To propose and validate a
theoretical model to study the
influence of institutional
pressures and role of top
management on ERP
assimilation
ERP assimilation
2007 Lam, Cho and Qu Gaining an understanding of
relationship between the
behavioural intention and IT
adoption
Hotel industry in
China

2007 Law and Ngai To examine the organizational
factor influencing successful
ERP adoption
ERP adoption
2008 Jung, Wu and Chow To propose a model
demonstrating both direct and
indirect impacts of CEOs’
transformational leadership on
organizational innovation
Taiwanese
electronics and
telecommunications
companies
2009 Dong, Neufeld and
Higgins
To analyse case studies to study
the impact of top managers on
implementation outcomes
IS implementation at
two Canadian
universities
2009 Chong et al. To examine the influencing
factors of c-commerce adoption
C-commerce
adoption in Malaysia
2010 Lin To develop and test an empirical
model to investigate the
influence of IS quality and top
management support on ERP
usage
ERP implementation
2010 Wang, Wang and Yang Investigating the influencing
factors of RFID adoption in
manufacturers in Taiwan
Radio frequency
identification
(RFID) adoption
2011 Chuang, Nakatani and
Zhuo
To gain an understanding on
managerial/demographic
characteristics of top
management team on IT
adoption in SMEs
IS adoption in SMEs
2011 Elbashir, Collier and
Sutton
To examine the relationship
between absorptive capacity of
an organization in strategic use
of BI
Business intelligence
(BI) systems usage
2012 Baker To present a description of
Technology–Organization–
Environment (TOE)
Innovation adoption
2012 Damanpour and
Aravind
To provide insights of
antecedents of managerial
innovation on organizational
conduct
Managerial
innovation adoption
2013 Colwell and Joshi To propose a conceptual model
to address two limitations of
institutional theory including
ignoring the role of top
management and survival
concentration only
Manufacturing firms
2013 Alshamaila,
Papagiannidis and Li
To explore influencing factors
in SME adoption of cloud
services
Cloud computing
adoption by SMEs in
north east of
England
2015 Kraiczy, Hack and
Kellermanns
To propose firm innovativeness
as a mediator between
SMEs

organizational growth and top
management team innovation
2015 Huang To investigate influential factors
of top management support on
IT implementation from hospital
stakeholder point of view
Hospital’s cloud
computing IT
implementation
2017 Sperber To investigate the influence of
top managers on culture of
organization to innovation
“fashion and
accessories” and
“watch and
jewellery” industries
2017 Kulkarni, Robles-Flores
and Popovic
To study the relationship
between top management and
organizational business
intelligence capability
General
organizations
2018 Evert et al To examine the impact of top
management team
characteristics on organizational
virtue orientation (OVO)
firms that declared
IPOs in US equity
markets between
2009 and 2012
Table 1 research objectives and application context
2.2. Research methodology
A variety of research methodologies were used in the reviewed papers. Dangayach and
Deshmukh (2001) classify research methodologies into five categories based on Malhotra and
Grover (1998) work: (1) conceptual, fundamental concepts; (2) descriptive, explaining the
process or content; (3) empirical, existing data, review, or case study are used for research; (4)
exploratory cross-sectional, survey sampling population at a given point of time; (5)
exploratory longitudinal, data is collected at two or more points to see changes over a period
of time. Research methods used in the reviewed papers are summarized in Table 2.
Year Author(s) Research
methodology
Methods
1973 Hage and Dewar Exploratory Interviews at two times, in 1964 and
1967
1984 Hambrick and Mason Empirical A literature review on upper echelon
perspectives
1984 Maidique and Zirger Empirical Two surveys were conducted in the
electronics industry using a pairwise
comparison methodology followed
by a preliminary model on new
product process
1986 Dewar and Dutton Empirical Data collection from a random
sample of footwear manufacturers
from 1973 to 1977 followed by
comparison of key variables of
similar research conducted in food
processing industry

1988 Leonard-Barton and
Deschamps
Empirical A telephone survey to test the impact
of management on new technology
adoption
1989 Davis Exploratory New scales for perceived usefulness
and perceived ease of use were
developed and validated by two field
studies using a questionnaire
1989 Bantel and Jackson Exploratory Seven aspects of team composition
were tested via interviews and
questionnaires
1989 Haley and Stumpf Empirical An empirical survey was conducted
to exmine the relationship between
top managers’ individual differences
and innovative IT championship
1991 Jarvenpaa and Ives Empirical Three models were tested by a
survey and collecting independent
secondary data from industry
handbooks followed by interviews
with CEOs
1993 Hoffman and Hegarty Exploratory A questionnaire was used to
investigate the extent of top
managers’ influence on innovations
1995 Keil Exploratory A longitudinal case study approach
was used via interview and
observations to determine if the
escalation phenomenon can be
observed in an IT project
1995 Ramamurthy and
Premkumar
Empirical Field survey using structured
questionnaire was used and pilot test
was done prior to the large-scale
survey to test the past research in
innovation adoption
1996 Newman and
Sabherwal
Exploratory
longitudinal
A longitudinal case study of the level
of commitment to an IS project
during 17-year period via interviews
1996 West and Anderson Exploratory
longitudinal
A longitudinal study to investigate
the relationships between team
innovation and organizational and
group determinants via questionnaire
1997 Guimaraes and Igbaria Empirical A questionnaire was developed and
pilot tested to investigate the
determinants of user acceptance of
computer technology
1997 Igbaria, Zinatelli, Cragg Empirical Results of a survey in small
companies was used to test a
structural model to examine personal
acceptance determinants in small
firms
1997 Markóczy Empirical To test the existence of a relationship
between managers’ beliefs and their

characteristics interviews were
conducted.
1997 Agarwal and Prasad Empirical Literature review on the relationship
between innovation characteristics
and IT acceptance followed by
testing empirically a research model
via 7-point Likert-type scale
1999 Chattopadhyay et al. Empirical To investigate the antecedents of
executives’ beliefs, phone interviews
and surveys were conducted.
1999 Armstrong and
Sambamurthy
Empirical Large-scale survey was conducted to
investigate the impact of top
management and IT infrastructures
on IT assimilation
2000 Mumford Empirical A literature review to determine
determinants of innovation.
2001 Purvis, Sambamurthy
and Zmud
Empirical A large-scale questionnaire was used
to investigate the impact of
institutional forces on the rate of
technology assimilation
2001 Wixom and Watson Empirical A model of successful data
warehousing was proposed by a
cross-sectional survey and another
survey instrument was used to
measure the implementation
determinants followed by structured
interviews
2002 Akkermans and Van
Helden
Empirical A case study was used to investigate
the interrelations between critical
success factors
2002 Barker and Mueller Empirical A sample of publicly traded
companies was used to figure out
how CEOs’ characteristic influence
R&D spending
2003 Sharma and Yetton empirical A meta-analysis of the empirical
literature on the relationship between
management support and successful
implementation via task
interdependence moderator role
2003 Bassellier, Benbasat
and Reich
Empirical pilot questionnaires were sent to the
companies’ managers and then a full-
scale test was conducted to
investigate the impact of managers’
experience and their contribution to
champion IT
2003 Nah, Zuckweiler and
Lau
Empirical A literature review on critical
success factors was done and then a
survey questionnaire was sent to
CIOs to investigate the critical

success factors in ERP
implementation
2003 Chen and Popovich Conceptual Descriptive and conceptual
2004 Ragu-Nathan et al. Empirical To study the impact of top
management support on IS
performance, a questionnaire was
used and the data was analysed by
path analysis
2004 Bruque-Cámara,
Vargas-Sánchez and
Hernández-Ortiz
Empirical Case study analysis and quantitative
research methodologies. Interviews
and questionnaire were used.
2005 Smith and Tushman Empirical A literature review on the role of top
managers in strategic contradictions
2005 Elenkov, Judge and
Wright
Empirical The data was collected from a large
multinational research study
followed by surveys
2005 Kim, Lee and Gosain Empirical A survey based on previous ERP
implementation studies
2006 Damanpour and
Schneider
Empirical Based on the data from a survey in
1997 through questionnaires to
investigate the influential factors at
different stage of innovation
adoption
2006 Li et al Exploratory A field survey to study the influence
of CIOs’ characteristics on IT
innovative usage through online
questionnaire
2006 Jeyaraj, Rottman and
Lacity
Empirical A review of empirical studies on IT
adoption by individuals and
companies
2006 Mitchell Exploratory
longitudinal
Pilot study was followed by a survey
between 1993 and 2003. Phone
interviews were also used
2007 Liang et al Empirical A literature review was conducted as
a basis. A survey data from
companies with ERP systems was
used to test the hypotheses via
questionnaire
2007 Lam, Cho and Qu Empirical Based on the literature review, a
reaserch model was proposed. Self-
administered questionnaires were
used
2007 Law and Ngai Descriptive A literature review of the empirical
studies on critical success factors in
ERP implementation
2008 Jung, Wu and Chow Empirical Three different surveys were used to
collect data

2009 Dong, Neufeld and
Higgins
Exploratory A literature review on innovation
diffusion. In-depth case studies
analysis thorugh semi-structured
interviews, observations, internal
documents, and published sources
2009 Chong et al. Empirical A review of the literature followed
by in-depth case studies. A self-
administered questionnaire was used.
2010 Lin Empirical Based on the IS success literature,an
empirical model was developed and
tested via survey questionnaires
2010 Wang, Wang and Yang Empirical A questionnaire survey was used to
collect data to empirically verify the
applicability of TOE framework
2011 Chuang, Nakatani and
Zhuo
Explortory Four hypotheses were formulated
based on upper echelon theory and
data was analyzed via multiple
regression analysis
2011 Elbashir, Collier and
Sutton
Empirical A field survey method was used to
test research hypotheses
2012 Baker Descriptive Descriptive and conceptual
2012 Damanpour and
Aravind
Conceptual A review of managerial innovation
2013 Colwell and Joshi Empirical A telephone survey was conducted
followed by interviews to test a
conceptual model
2013 Alshamaila,
Papagiannidis and Li
Exploratory A qualitative exploratory study was
conducted through semi-structured
interviews
2015 Kraiczy, Hack and
Kellermanns
Empirical A survey was conducted to collect
data via a single questionnaire
2015 Huang Exploratory Qualitative interviews were
conducted to collect data
2017 Sperber Empirical A qualitative research design via
semi-structured qualitative
interviews; applying an open-ended
question design
2017 Kulkarni, Robles-Flores
and Popovic
Empirical A literature review was conducted on
IT and business intelligence (BI)
capability and a survey was used to
collect data
2018 Evert et al Empirical “Thomson Financial Security Data
Corporation” (SDC) Platinum
database was used to gather financial
controls and “10-Ks—annual
performance summaries filed with
the SEC by publicly-traded
companies” were utilized to gain

information and content analysis was
used to get insights
Table 2 research methodologies and methods
3. Findings
3.1. Research synthesis
This paper focuses on summarizing and analysing current theories on the relationship between
top management support and IS adoption, highlighting existing related argument, and
identifying gaps in the literature. Following by presenting the ways that top management
influence implementation. Furthermore, the paper present various influencing factors of top
management support on adopting information systems. The aim of this paper is to provide new
insights for future research. The first part analyses the current literature studying the connection
between TMS and IS adoption, followed by a conclusion. The second part investigates how
top managers impact the implementation process. The third part presents factors influencing
top management support to adopt IS.
3.2. The relationship between top management support and IS adoption
Regardless of outside factors like institutional pressures, it is the top management team (TMT)
that at last decides to innovate or not (Elbashir, Collier and Sutton, 2011). Therefore, TMT is
thought to be the essential human organisation that backings innovation. The literature
characterizes TMT as the group with the most powerful officials like Chief Executive Officer
(CEO), Chief Operating Officer (COO), and Chief Financial Officer (CFO) that have firm's
overall duty (Hambrick and Mason, 1984a; Armstrong and Sambamurthy, 1999; Sanders and
Courtney, 1985; Ramamurthy and Premkumar, 1995). Similarly, according to Green (1995, p.
223), top management consists of "CEO and its direct subordinates responsible for corporate
policy".
There is considerable SUPPORT that top management support ends in effective innovation
(Wang, Wang and Yang, 2010; Chong et al., 2009; Maidique and Zirger, 1984), and fruitful
information systems implementation (Thong, Yap and Raman, 1996b; H. Liang et al., 2007;

Nah, Lau and Kuang, 2001). According to the literature (Iacovou and Nakatsu, 2008a; Liu et
al., 2010; Aloini, Dulmin and Mininno, 2007; Dong, 2008), top management support has been
agreed to be the most fundamental factor for IT project achievement. Administration support
can remove different hindrances that are incompatible with fruitful implementation, for
example, a weak authority of the project team over other practical divisions or memory loads
from past implementation disappointments. Existing research to a great extent concentrates on
the outcomes of management support for IT projects (Dong, 2008; Dong, Neufeld and Higgins,
2009; Liang et al., 2007).
For expansive, cross-functional IT projects, management support is especially essential for two
reasons: in the first place, the administration can mediate to settle debate (Gosain, Lee and
Kim, 2005), order, and facilitate endeavours (Cooper and Zmud, 1990); second, administration
can connect with or make different constituents inside the association to act (Grint and
Willcocks, 1995), and change their approaches to grasp an aggregate identity and aggregate
interests (Shamir, House and Arthur, 1993).
Akkermans and van Helden (2002) drove a case study that ranked top management support as
a standout amongst the essential achievement factors in enterprise resource planning (ERP)
implementation. Kim, Lee and Gosain (2005) portrayed top management as crucial for creating
and elevating a vision to shape the IT implementation and ERP frameworks. Similarly, Ke and
Wei (2008) argued that top management's part modelling could encourage a learning climate
that is a determinant of ERP execution achievement.
h. Liang et al. (2007) demonstrate a theoretical framework comprises of two elements of
institutional theory and the impact of top management. They argue that institutional forces
influence organisational behaviour after top management mediated them. While thinking about
the impact of external conditions on the behaviour of an organisation toward innovation
assimilation, the institutional theory is particularly important. As opposed to transaction cost
financial matters (Williamson, 1981) and theory of resource dependence (Bauer, 1980), the
institutional theory states that basic and behavioural changes in associations are mostly because
of the need for organisational legitimacy rather than efficiency.
Institutional theory has been broadly utilised as a part of the sociology and administration
literature (Mizruchi and Fein, 1999) and has also applied in IS research. Although institutional
theory anticipates isomorphism, organisations are different regarding ERP assimilation degree
under the same conditions. Regarding human agency perspective, top managers translate

external impacts into managerial actions like altering companies' structure. Top managers have
an important role in the performance of IT projects by integrating external and internal
knowledge (Mitchell, 2006). Not only various choices of IT products can affect top managers,
but also business benefits acquired from other organisations. Therefore, it can be stated that
institutional forces may influence ERP assimilation indirectly by top managers' actions.
Nah, Zuckweiler and Lau (2003) surveyed chief information officers and distinguished top
management support as the essential achievement factor affecting ERP implementation
achievement. Likewise, Law and Ngai (2007) proposed a research model to analyse the
accomplishment of ERP adoption. The outcomes exhibited that top management support has a
positive impact on ERP success. Chen and Popovich (2003) demonstrate that top management
support is a crucial achievement factor for customer relationship management (CRM)
implementation. Alshamaila, Papagiannidis and Li (2013) in qualitative research in England
found that top management support alongside other organisational, technological, and
economical pressure and elements favourably affect adopting cloud computing technology.
Huang (2015) argues that top managers’ perception of IT and their commitments to support IT
projects influence the success of implementation.
3.2.1. Top management support and IS implementation success
Top management support (TMS) is accepted to be fundamental for implementing IS
successfully (DeLone, 1988; Doll, 1985; Dong, 2001; Jarvenpaa and Ives, 1991; Kwon and
Zmud, 1987; Leonard-Barton and Deschamps, 1988b). The literature (Liu, Wang and Chua,
2015; Liang et al., 2007) discusses that management support is vital due to the importance of
resources in IS innovation implementation. Management resources are essential to develop IS
applications and foundations, as well as to help end clients during implementation. Such assets
will probably be prospective when the change appreciates management support.
Plenty of studies have analysed the effect of TMS on IS implementation results. It has been
discovered that TMS radically influences client innovation convictions (e.g. perceived
convenience, perceived helpfulness (Lewis, Agarwal and Sambamurthy, 2003), hierarchical
implementation achievement (Wixom and Watson, 2001), dynamic utilization of IT (Jarvenpaa
and Ives, 1991), and adopting IT (Bruque-Cámara, Vargas-Sánchez and Hernández-Ortiz,
2004).

These investigations are different in their points of view relating to the impact of TMS;
consequently, mixed results have been produced. For instance, a few investigations expect an
immediate and linear connection between TMS and implementation results (Guimaraes and
Igbaria, 1997b; Igbaria, Zinatelli, Cragg, 1997; Wixom and Watson, 2001), some contend that
the relationship is interceded by different variables (Sharma and Yetton, 2003) and some other
accept that a more convoluted relationship exists (Keil, 1995a; Newman and Sabherwal, 1996).
In spite of the fact that a couple of studies have affirmed the significance of TMS (Guimaraes
and Igbaria, 1997b; Igbaria, M., Zinatelli, N., Cragg, P., 1997), it has been discovered that top
management proceeded with help cannot spare an ill-fated project (Keil, 1995c) and an
excessive amount of TMS may really debilitate managers of projects and clients (Mähring,
2002). Without understanding the appropriateness of these points of view, the effect of TMS
on implementing IS results stays obscure.
The above discourse recognises a couple of the conjectured impacts of management support
on implementation achievement. The full literature has built up a vibrant, complex arrangement
of connections between management and implementation achievement. It recognises various
factors that conceivably intercede or direct the connection. Conversely, the empirical
examination is restricted to demonstrating modelling implementation accomplishment as a
straightforward, direct function of management support. This restricts the estimation of the
hypothesis for the researchers and experts. Researchers need exact evidence to assess
contending hypothetical models. Experts need rules to settle on the suitable shape and degree
of top management under various conditions.
3.3. How top management effect IS adoption?
Studies related to organisational leadership demonstrates that top managers impact firms'
capabilities through the culture of organisations, motivation, and building capacity for
innovation (Sperber, 2017; Kraiczy, Hack and Kellermanns, 2015; Daft, 2001; Elenkov, Judge
and Wright, 2005; Yukl, 1999). The literature (Sperber, 2017; Kraiczy, Hack and Kellermanns,
2015; Smith and Tushman, 2005; Elenkov, Judge and Wright, 2005) is in agreement that top
managers are responsible for altering culture and norms in an organisation; consequently,
enables members of a company to adapt to new technologies. The standards, qualities, and
culture caused by the top manager pervade to the individual level as methods, guidelines,

directions, and schedules, which fill in as ground-breaking templates that guide singular
conduct (Purvis, Sambamurthy and Zmud, 2001b).
Adopting Innovation is influenced by top directors because top managers adjust the procedure
of checking the surrounding and figuring strategy to react to environmental change; they
control resources and impact important choices, particularly strategic decisions (Sperber,
2017). Top administrators are an influential power for or against innovation, particularly if
power of decision making is concentrated in their hands (Sperber, 2017; Dewar and Dutton,
1986), and are to a great extent in charge of the cultural values that help innovation inside the
firm (Sperber, 2017; Bantel and Jackson, 1989; Elenkov, Judge and Wright, 2005).
Consequently, top directors' personal and positional attributes, functional and general
administration expertise, and attitude toward change impact firms' atmosphere for innovation
(Evert et al., 2018; Ekvall, 1996; Hoffman and Hegarty, 1993b; West and Anderson, 1996).
Research related to organisational innovation shows that senior managers impact the adoption
of innovation by making an ideal atmosphere (Jung, Wu and Chow, 2008; Dewar and Dutton,
1986; Hage and Dewar, 1973). Studies of leadership behaviour (Ekvall and Arvonen, 1991;
Yukl, 1999) discover change-oriented behaviour in addition to task-oriented and employee-
oriented behaviours. The change-oriented behaviour involves a manager who takes a long-term
view, defines appealing dreams, energises and acknowledges new thoughts and produces
understandings and endorses individuals inside and outside of the association to start and
execute change (Ekvall and Arvonen, 1991; Yukl, 1999). Top managers facilitate innovation
by building sentiments of confidence and offering help to members of a firm for proposing new
thoughts (Mumford, 2000). It likewise eases adoption decision because strategic decision-
makers who are more interested in innovation would more probably choose to embrace creative
thoughts that depart from existing practices, rather than those that are more predictable with
current practices, and assign resources to procure and actualise them (Damanpour and
Schneider, 2006).
Fruitful innovation implementation requires laying the social, specialised and intellectual
preparation, building coalitions among various bodies and helping coordination and conflict
determination among units and individuals (Mumford, 2000). Building and keeping up systems
of firms' connections and settling clashes among units is tedious, and top directors' eagerness
may wind down after some time or may not stream down enough to commit all units and
individuals (Mumford, 2000; Damanpour and Aravind, 2012).

Furthermore, representative activities of help by senior chiefs add to practical implementation.
These activities legitimise developments, flag commitment of the administration to fruitful
implementation, and serve to persuade end clients to exhaust the energy required to receive the
innovation adoption (Leonard-Barton and Deschamps, 1988b; Purvis, Sambamurthy and
Zmud, 2001a). Such activities could be as a noticeable relationship with the project, dynamic
championship, hierarchical communications, or individual utilisation of technologies
(Leonard-Barton and Deschamps, 1988b; Rai and Howard, 1994). Management support is
additionally viewed as fundamental for reconceptualising procedures and for altering existing
schedules and procedures that are basic for implementing fruitfully (Purvis, Sambamurthy and
Zmud, 2001a).
3.4. Antecedents of Top Management Support
3.4.1. Beliefs and Behaviours
TMS has been examined in different research spaces. Earlier research has adopted either an
attitudinal or a behavioural understanding of TMS (Jarvenpaa and Ives, 1991). Attitudinal
interpretations give TMS a role as an arrangement of good attitudes that are showed in such
routes as ‘active and enthusiastic approval' (Sultan and Chan, 2000), association
(‘psychological state of the CEO, reflecting the degree of importance placed on information
technology by the chief executive') (Jarvenpaa and Ives, 1991; Liang et al., 2007), commitment
(Keil, 1995b) and ‘opinions or desires' (Teo and King, 1997). The behavioural interpretation
characterizes TMS as an arrangement of direct administrative behaviours, for example, offering
technical help to tackle software and hardware challenges (Compeau and Higgins, 1995),
taking part in 'exercises or substantive individual interventions' (Jarvenpaa and Ives, 1991),
going up against ‘sponsorship for a project' (Wixom et al., 2001), and ‘facilitating ERP
assimilation' (Liang et al., 2007).
As indicated by Srivastva (1983), firms' strategies, choices, and behaviour are driven by top
managers' psychological image of a desired future state for the firm. Thus, top management's
belief about the advantage of technologies such as cloud computing may result in certain
administrative actions that may raise the level of adopting technologies. Similarly, Wang et
al., (2016) argue that top managers’ characteristics (i.e., education, experience) impact the
future performance of the organization and organization strategic actions.

Past studies discovered proof for the two-stage involvement of top management in the web
technologies' adoption or assimilation (Lefebvre, Mason and Lefebvre, 1997), enterprise
(Huigang Liang et al., 2007), and business intelligence systems (Lee et al., 2014). Besides,
Lefebvre, Mason and Lefebvre (1997) suggest that investment in organisational IT
administration exercises are generally determined by top management beliefs rather than
objective reality, which additionally supports the two-stage model of TMT support.
These interpretations reflect two particular fundamental perspectives on roles that ought to be
played by top administrators. The attitudinal interpretation of TMS supports a ‘back-seat driver'
view (Jarvenpaa and Ives, 1991) in which top administrators are believed to adopt a hands-off
strategy and concentrate on making a supportive atmosphere. The behavioural interpretation
supports an ‘active participant' view (Jarvenpaa and Ives, 1991) in which top managers are
urged to specifically impact the mutual adjustment between the technology and the association
(Leonard-Barton and Deschamps, 1988a). The contrasting points of view of TMS have brought
about conflicting measures of the idea.
Furthermore, there is a disjointedness between the behavioural support measures and their help
definitions. For instance, Guimaraes and Igbaria (1997) characterized administration support
to include ‘top management encouragement and allocation of resources' (p. 859), mirroring a
behavioural interpretation of TMS, yet their scale of five items additionally included attitudinal
items (e.g., ‘management's understanding' and ‘management's interest'). Therefore, while
studies on TMS have created an abundance of valuable discoveries, they have not yet offered
a clear or convincing comprehension of TMS, and the troublesome and conflicting definitions
and measures have brought about mixed empirical findings. For instance, Leonard-Barton and
Deschamps (1988) neglected to find a direct connection between perceived administration
behaviours and utilisation of the LAYOUT (a software package) framework; Thong, Yap and
Raman (1996) found an inconsequential relationship between TMS and client satisfaction; and
Compeau and Higgins (1995) found that support was adversely connected with self-efficacy.
3.4.2. Cognitive Influences IN managerial beliefs
Hambrick (2007) recognised the "cognitive base" and "values" of administrators as major
psychological attributes influencing their strategic decisions. Cognitive base suggests beliefs
about components that officials consider to be strategically important and additionally beliefs

about the causal connections between these elements and performance of the organisation
(Chattopadhyay et al., 1999; Finkelstein, Hambrick and Cannella, 2009; Markóczy, 1997).
These beliefs show explicit and implicit mental models that form causal inferences, for
example, "if X, then Y." Following past work, beliefs related to a cognitive structure are
labelled as top managers' "cause-effect beliefs" (Chattopadhyay et al., 1999; Markóczy, 1997).
What a leader knows (through experience or training) is anticipated to influence what
information he/she notices and how he/she interprets that data (Evert et al., 2018; Lyngsie and
Foss, 2017; Wang et al., 2016; Hambrick, 2007). For instance, a manager with engineering
experience and education more probably searches out and notices data related to products'
technical specifications and assesses the significance of that information uniquely in contrast
to somebody with a marketing background (Hambrick, 2007). Likewise, Datta and Iskandar-
Datta (2014) assert that managers’ experience shapes their values, beliefs and cognitions which
influence their decision making and behaviour remarkably.
In addition to cognitive frameworks, Hambrick (2007) additionally suggested that the
individual values of officials would influence the strategic decision by influencing (or sifting)
the external data that enters an official's field of vision, and how that data is seen and
interpreted. Considering the managerial values' role, scientists have mostly adopted Rokeach's
(1973, p. 5) conception of value as an "enduring belief that a specific mode of conduct or end-
state of existence is personally or socially preferable to an opposite or converse mode of
conduct or end-state of existence." Values are recognised from different sorts of beliefs in
which they have an "oughtness" specification to them that lead directors to carry on in ways
that they accept to be socially desirable or advantageous (Hitlin and Piliavin, 2004a; Rokeach,
1973b; Schwartz, 1992). Values are observed as generally stable parts of a supervisor's
orientation created to some extent through experience and not subject to change frequently
(Meglino and Ravlin, 1998b; Rokeach, 1973b). The managers' values and cause-effect beliefs
are likely to impact strategic decision making (Thomas, Clark and Gioia, 1993).
3.4.3. The effect of TMS point of views
Dong (2008) examines the influence of top management support on IS implementation by
studying three perspectives including deterministic, contingent, and dynamic perspective via a
case study. The author argues that top managers should regularly get feedback from users, and

adjust the level of their support based on the feedback. Furthermore, top managers should show
their support to the employees and top managers should change their management when it is
needed to satisfy users (Dong, 2008)
3.4.3.1. A deterministic point of view
Based on deterministic viewpoint, top management support has a positive influence on
outcomes of implementation such as successful implementation, higher performance of an
organization, and more acceptance by users (Guimaraes and Igbaria, 1997b; Igbaria, M.,
Zinatelli, N., Cragg, P., 1997; Wixom and Watson, 2001). Therefore, Dong (2008) claims that
top management support not only gives insights into implementation success but also their
relationship is often linear.
Top managers support implementation in two ways. Initially, top managers allocate the
necessary financial and human resources (Guimaraes and Igbaria, 1997b). Because deficient
resources can rapidly bring about client lack of interest or implementation cancellation
(Guimaraes and Igbaria, 1997b), and implementation without the help of essential resources
regularly prompts abandoning the system (Ewusi-Mensah and Przasnyski, 1991). Second, top
managers are necessary for the changes in an organization. If changes are not managed
properly, it may fail in commitment to new values (Hall, Wade and Rosenthal, 1993), or an
inability to foresee resistance of a frim to change (Champy, 1995).
The deterministic point of view is clear and instinctive, and, of course, it is broadly adopted by
IS scientists, and has gotten empirical support (Guimaraes and Igbaria, 1997b; Wixom and
Watson, 2001; Bruque-Cámara, Vargas-Sánchez and Hernández-Ortiz, 2004; DeLone, 1988).
3.4.3.2. Contingent viewpoint
The contingent point of view recommends that the impact of TMS is dependent on task
interdependence (the level of the relationship among personnel in "exchanging information and
materials that are essential to perform organisational tasks" (Sharma and Yetton, 2003, p. 537).
As contended by Sharma and Yetton (2003), if a task interdependence is high in an
organization, there needs "significant changes to the existing institutional context" (Sharma

and Yetton, 2003, p. 538). Consequently, management support is important to "institute,
support, and legitimise the required new institutional contexts" (Sharma and Yetton, 2003, p.
538). Analysing 22 studies, Sharma and Yetton (2003) find that when task interdependence is
high, management support has a strong influence on implementation; otherwise, its impact is
weak.
The contingent point of view helps to understand some blended discoveries revealed by the
deterministic point of view. For instance, in their investigation on diffusion of EDI,
Ramamurthy and Premkumar (1995) find that TMS remarkably and positively influences
external diffusion of EDI (degree to which an organization has coordinated its accomplices and
its transactions with them through EDI), however, does not influence the interior EDI
dispersion (degree to which a development "interoperates and is integrated with other key
internal IS applications"). As indicated by the contingent viewpoint, since EDI needs high-
transaction incorporation (i.e. task relationship) for the most part externally (with accomplices),
not internally (with inward IS applications), TMS turns out to be more powerful externally than
internally.
Therefore, it appears that the contingent point of view helps to understand TMS impact
complexity. Like the deterministic point of view, contingent viewpoint shows a linear and
positive relationship between TMS and successful implementation via task interdependence
mediation (Dong, 2008)
3.4.3.3. Dynamic point of view
The dynamic viewpoint of TMS concentrates on how top management support changes during
IS implementation. For instance, top managers may keep giving resources if vital, yet ought to
decrease the resources and look for different measures if the implementation ends up
disorganized. The dynamic point of view is suggested in escalation research (the decision
makers' tendency to endure with failure) (Brockner, 1992, p. 39). These studies show that top
managers could help to failures of projects by proceeding to give resources to doomed projects
(Keil, 1995c), however, can likewise make a disturbed project successful by modifying
resource arrangement and changing implementation authority (Keil and Robey, 1999).
The dynamic point of view features a few critical thoughts. In the first place, the direct and
positive connection between TMS and implementation achievement does not necessarily exist

(Sauer, 1993). If top managers provide too much support, it may influence implementation
outcomes negatively (Mähring, 2002). Furthermore, top managers can get more experience,
and given their learning background, change their states of mind, and support level
consequently (Akkermans and Van Helden, 2002b). In this way, the impact of TMS may
change contingent upon how well top managers modify the level of their support during an IS
implementation (Dong, 2008).
4. Discussion
The evolution of the literature in the field of relationship between TM and IS adoption has
demonstrated that top management support is fundamental for a successful IS implementation.
However, according to different points of view, three types of connection have been reported
in the literature including an immediate and linear connection, influence of other different
variable, and a more complex relationship.
looking at the five-decade period on the ways top managers impact the implementation process,
it can be seen a commonality that top managers make an ideal atmosphere by motivating
individuals to start changes and coming up new thoughts, applying necessary changes to
organization culture and norms, and controlling conflicts among employees. Furthermore, top
managers build the capacity for implementation by allocating necessary resources and
controlling them.
The literature has been evolved during half a century regarding the influencing factors of TMS
to adopt IS. Earlier research suggest two interpretations of TMS including attitudinal and
behavioural. The idea has been evolved into a two-stage involvement of TM. First stage is
attitudinal interpretation in which top managers create a supportive atmosphere followed by
the second stage of behavioural interpretation in which top managers participate in adoption.
However, different studies define behaviour support and help differently. Cognitive base and
values are recognised as major psychological attributes influencing top managers’ strategic
decisions. There is a commonality in the literature that managers’ values and beliefs impact
their decisions.
The literature proposes three points of view that influence top management to support IS
implementation. Deterministic point of view in which top managers allocate essential financial
and human resources and then apply necessary alterations in organization to implement IS.
Contingent viewpoint shows the level of TMS influence on implementation is related to task

interdependence and similar to deterministic viewpoint demonstrates a linear and positive
connection between successful implementation and TMS. Dynamic perspective shows the
evolution of top management support during the implementation. According to This
perspective, direct and positive connection between TMS and successful implementation does
not exist necessarily.
Briefly, the literature demonstrates that analysts hold valid and separated points of view when
they analyse TMS. Each of these points of view has some experimental proof to support;
nevertheless, without looking at the three viewpoints in a single investigation, it stays obscure
whether these points of view are legitimate. Inspecting these points of view is critical as
questionable conclusions could be drawn if fundamental suppositions do not hold, and the
advancement of TMS could be genuinely influenced subsequently.
5. Conclusions, limitations, and suggestions for future research
The purpose of this paper was to present the results of a comprehensive review of the influence
of top management support on the behavioural intention to adopt IS. Based on a review of the
papers from various sources such as Business Source Premier and google scholar, results were
presented in terms of methodological analysis, analysis of major limitations, and theoretical
details.
A comprehensive study of the literature illustrates that top management support influences are
adoption. Nevertheless, due to different points of view, studies on relationship between TMS
and IS adoption suggest three different relationships including an immediate linear connection
(Guimaraes and Igbaria, 1997b; Igbaria, Zinatelli, Cragg, 1997; Wixom and Watson, 2001), a
relationship mediated by other variables (Sharma and Yetton, 2003), and more complicated
relationship (Keil, 1995a; Newman and Sabherwal, 1996).
The literature suggests different ways in which top managers affect IS adoption including
changing culture (Sperber, 2017; Kraiczy, Hack and Kellermanns, 2015; Smith and Tushman,
2005; Elenkov, Judge and Wright, 2005), motivating employees (Sperber, 2017; Dewar and
Dutton, 1986; Leonard-Barton and Deschamps, 1988b; Purvis, Sambamurthy and Zmud,
2001a), and building appropriate atmosphere to facilitate adoption (Evert et al., 2018; Jung,
Wu and Chow, 2008; Damanpour and Schneider, 2006; Dewar and Dutton, 1986; Hage and
Dewar, 1973; Ekvall, 1996; Hoffman and Hegarty, 1993b; West and Anderson, 1996)..

The thirds purpose of this paper was finding variables that impact top management support to
adopt IS. Studies related to influencing factors of top management support present two
fundamental psychological attributes influencing their strategic decisions including cognitive
base and values (Chattopadhyay et al., 1999; Finkelstein, Hambrick and Cannella, 2009;
Markóczy, 1997). Furthermore, the literature suggests top managers' three different points of
views including deterministic, contingent, and dynamic (Akkermans and Van Helden, 2002b;
Dong, 2008; Ramamurthy and Premkumar, 1995; Sharma and Yetton, 2003).
This study has some limitations regarding its scope. First, although the authors used strict
criteria to include highly distinguished papers in the data bases, it may not include all the latest
research on the subject. Secondly, even though the terms that were used to find related papers
in their title, abstract, keywords, or body provide a better understanding of the related papers,
studies without this exact wording were filtered out.
Future research should focus on investigating the differences between the influence of top
management support on the behavioural intention to adopt IS in LEs and SMEs. The authors
recognize the need for more research in more distinctive contexts (e.g. influence of cultural
contexts and different industries) to assure broader applicability.

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