Ahmed Azzam

Abstract

Construction companies often face resistance from some employees when adopting a new Information and Communication Technology “ICT” at the workplace. Technology Acceptance Models in the literature indicated the factors affecting the employees’ behavior. However, none of these models were applied in the Egyptian Construction Industry context to test their validity. In this thesis, 10 factors were collected from different Technology Acceptance models and their validity were tested in the Egyptian Construction Industry context through questionnaires survey. The behavior of employees in Egyptian Construction companies was validated to be consistent with the described behavior in the literature. The 10 factors were synthesized to develop a simple “Evaluation tool”, consisting of a series of easy to comprehend questions, to be used by managers to evaluate each employee’s likelihood to accept or reject a new ICT. The Evaluation tool was validated through interviewing experts who indicated its usefulness in detecting obstacles standing in the way of ICT acceptance. Then the validated factors were represented in the form of logical causal chains. The causal chains were further extended by adding more “causes of the causes” to develop a “Causal Loop Diagram Model”. In order to extend the causal chains, knowledge from psychology, communication and management domains had to be added to the model. The added pieces of knowledge enriched the model with new aspects of the ICT acceptance problem that were not explored in the traditional widely used technology acceptance models. The model was validated through expert interviews. By careful analysis of the big picture of the ICT acceptance problem, three analogies were concluded that compared employees’ behavior in reaction to new ICT to “Investors”, “Kids” and “Cavemen”. It is concluded that employees resist new ICT if it didn’t provide a technical advantage (saving time or effort) or a psychological advantage (making the employee have higher social or importance rank inside the company). It is recommended that managers give more attention to the psychological implications of a new ICT rather than focusing most of their efforts on improving technical aspects of the new ICT.

Department

Construction Engineering Department

Degree Name

MS in Construction Engineering

Graduation Date

2-1-2019

Submission Date

January 2019

First Advisor

Ezeldin, Samer

Committee Member 1

Hosny, Ossama

Committee Member 2

Elhosseiny, Ossama

Extent

80 p.

Document Type

Master's Thesis

Rights

The author retains all rights with regard to copyright. The author certifies that written permission from the owner(s) of third-party copyrighted matter included in the thesis, dissertation, paper, or record of study has been obtained. The author further certifies that IRB approval has been obtained for this thesis, or that IRB approval is not necessary for this thesis. Insofar as this thesis, dissertation, paper, or record of study is an educational record as defined in the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) (20 USC 1232g), the author has granted consent to disclosure of it to anyone who requests a copy.

Institutional Review Board (IRB) Approval

Not necessary for this item

Comments

University Fellowship

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