Intention to Adopt Digital Technology in Businesses: Promoted by Early and Recent Digitalization and Embedded in Societal and Temporal Contexts

Abstract

How, in a business, is intention to adopt digital technology shaped by early and recent digitalization and by embeddedness in socio-temporal contexts? A representative sample of 8,031 businesses in Spain and non-European Colombia, Egypt, Iran, Israel, Morocco, Sudan, Turkey, and United Arab Emirates, was surveyed in 2021. Intention to adopt digital technology is promoted by past digitalization, especially digitalization during the pandemic, coupled with pursuit of opportunities emerging with the pandemic. Non-European societies have been catching up during the pandemic and high intention to adopt digital technology may position them to forge ahead. Findings contribute to accounting for digitalization as an ongoing process in which past digitalization begets intention to adopt new technology. Findings contribute to understanding the coupling of digitalization with motives for businesses. Findings also account for embeddedness of digitalization in societal and temporal contexts, specifically the pandemic as an external enabler of digitalization for pursuing new opportunities.