Review by: Schönwald, Ingrid (2004-07-12)

The adoption of eLearning in corporate training and higher education turned out to be slower than expected. While eLearning captured quite a prominently role in corporate training and higher education in the USA, the development in Europe is seen as far behind the expectations. This paper attempts to explain the reasons for the variation in the diffusion process and is principally based on the literature on the absorptive capacity (ACAP) of organisations.

Based on the theory of absorptive capacity and institutional theory the authors develop a model of the adoption and diffusion of technology-based learning. The model proposes that organisations have different capacities for acquiring, assimilating, transforming, and exploiting knowledge on eLearning to achieve innovation and flexibility. After outlining the key elements of the proposed model, the authors formulate ten propositions for the absorptive capacity of organisations regarding eLearning and substantiate them with extensive literature references.

The variation in organisational absorptive capacity is attributed to two factors: First, the capacity of the organisation to assess prior knowledge of eLearning such as their exposure to knowledge sources, the fit of the organisations’ existing models of learning with the new models and their past experiences of eLearning. Second, the nature of eLearning technologies which are available to the organisation. In addition to these two factors there are external and internal contextual factors influencing the absorptive capacity, e. g. the existence of government pressures, or the appointment of eLearning champions. The transformation from a potential absorptive capacity into a realised capacity is influenced by formal and informal social integration mechanisms. The exploitation of the realised capacity into strategic outcomes is influenced by the characteristics of the organisational learners, such as their attitudes to technology-based learning, their motivation and capacity to learn.

The model aims at contributing to the theory building of the adoption, diffusion and exploitation of eLearning in organisations, thus this paper is mainly address to academics. However, the authors state that the model might also help practitioners to learn about the complex of factors to be taken into account when implementing eLearning in their respective organisation.