| This dissertation examines the spread of web-based transaction technology and usage in small organizations and the strategic technology planning practices of those organizations. This dissertation views organizations as capable, desirous, and self-motivated in the performance of accurate self examination in the form of strategic planning and strategic technology planning. It views strategic planning and strategic technology planning as organizationally advantageous while recognizing that planning strategically can take various forms, use different processes, and utilize diverse resources depending on the individual planning organization's needs analysis, resourcefulness, and experience. Additionally, this dissertation views information technology as the nucleus from which the organization derives the ability to execute and measure its technical, core, mission-critical and strategic actions.;The study sample consisted of small nonprofit organizations in North Florida, selected to provide geographic, economic, political and social diversity from the study population (Brower and Berry, 2004). The study utilized two separate types of analyses and data collection efforts of the same population at two different time intervals, 2003 and 2006. The first analysis consisted of a survey of 262 nonprofit organizations in Northern Florida, spanning the Panhandle from Jackson County on the West to St. Johns County on the East coast. A variety of statistical tests, including descriptive statistics, bivariate correlations, and logistic regression, were performed to explore factors that elucidate relationships among technology choices in the population. The empirical results revealed a statistically significant relationship -- that is, an organizations' use of web-based transaction technology increases as software becomes more specialized and organizational technology infrastructure becomes more complex.;The second analysis consisted of a series of interview questions posed to managers in a specific, targeted subset of the original population. The data was collected by using a telephone interview of a high level IT staff member. The purpose of the interview was to extend the knowledge base of how small nonprofits plan for and come to select the technology in use. This was done by asking a series of questions about the planning methods and technologies in use. Specific questions were asked about when web-based transaction technologies were introduced in the organization, and what impacts the technology and the act of planning have on the organization.;Conclusions showed strategic technology planning (68%) and web-based transaction technology (68%) were used in a high percentage of the nonprofit organizations that were interviewed, strategic technology planning is strongly linked to organizational planning, and nonprofit organizations undertake strategic technology planning because of its valuable contributions to technology infrastructure and management.;This study was undertaken to examine the extent to which web-based transaction technology has diffused in small North Florida nonprofit organizations and to study what, if any, relationship exists between the adoption of web-based transaction technology and the adoption of other technologies in these organizations. The study also examined the nature and frequency of strategic technology planning in these organizations, and their relationship to the adoption of web-based transaction technology. This work is important and necessary as a means of understanding how popular, useful, and potentially powerful technologies are introduced and used in small organizations, to understand what, if any, technological complexities may be associated with the adoption of this potentially powerful technology. We also seek to understand the different formal and informal means by which these nonprofit organizations consider, then move to introduce and set permanently into organizational habit patterns, new technologies. |
