Graduation Semester and Year
Summer 2026
Language
English
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy in Business Administration
Department
Information Systems and Operations Management
First Advisor
Jayarajan Samuel
Second Advisor
Sridhar Panchapakesan Nerur
Third Advisor
Shouyi Wang
Abstract
The democratization of digital technologies has positioned information systems (IS) as core sociotechnical forces shaping how individuals, organizations, and societies function and evolve. Technology adoption operates and influences across multiple levels: individuals adopt and use technologies to achieve beneficial outcomes; groups and communities develop shared norms and patterns of adoption; and the aggregation of these patterns contributes to broader paradigm shifts within disciplines. This dissertation, Technology Adoption Across Levels: Essays on Users, Platforms, and Paradigms in the Age of AI, advances the view through three connected studies. The first essay examines adoption at the micro level by investigating how individuals use AI-collaboration tools in data-science work. Using an experimental design and through the lens of distributed cognition, we examine how AI-collaboration affects task performance and cognitive processes in complex data science project. The findings show that while AI-collaboration can improve overall performance, its effects are contingent on task type and nuanced by human expertise. The second essay shifts to the meso level of platform dynamics and examines adoption patterns of deep-learning artifacts on the open-source platform Hugging Face. This essay extends DeLone and McLean’s Information Systems Success model to the context of model adoption and investigates how quality signals and relational dynamics affect use and endorsement. The third essay addresses the macro level by examining paradigm shifts and disciplinary evolution in operations management and information systems. Using bibliometric and bibliographic analyses, this essay investigates how the disciplinary status of operations management journals has evolved over time. Combined, these three essays paint a holistic landscape of adoption in the age of AI, spanning AI collaboration and cognition, quality signals and platform ecosystems, and disciplinary influence and evolution. Ultimately, this dissertation highlights how technology use shapes people, platforms, and society across multiple levels.
Keywords
Human-AI collaboration, distributed cognition, information system success, technology adoption, disciplinary status
Disciplines
Management Information Systems
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Recommended Citation
Liu, Kaiyue, "Technology Adoption Across Levels: Essays on Users, Platforms, and Paradigms in the Age of AI" (2026). Information Systems & Operations Management Dissertations. 3.
https://mavmatrix.uta.edu/infosystemsopmanage_dissertations2/3