Social Support for the Successful Implementation of Technologies in the Workplace: An Examination of Theories and Meta-Analysis of Research

Social support provided by organizational actors responsible for designing the change is promoted to achieve technology implementation success (TIS). However, how these support interventions exert their effects remains unclear. We examine interdisciplinary literature on social support provided to employees and identify interventions we frame as organizational support strategies (OSS). Drawing on theories of social support and technology acceptance, we develop and test our social support model of technology implementation. Using meta-analysis, we examine the relationship between OSS—emotional support (e.g., participation, management support), instrumental support (e.g., training, technical support), and informational support (e.g., information provision, change vision)—and TIS outcomes (e.g., technology acceptance, user satisfaction, performance, positive change attitude, computer self-efficacy, reduced strain). Meta-analytic structural equation modeling based on k = 108 unique samples ( N = 23,005) showed a moderate relationship between OSS and TIS ( r = .30). A closer examination revealed that informational support ( r = .38) was the strongest predictor of overall TIS. Further analyses showed that each kind of support was most strongly related to a specific indicator of TIS. These findings help explain how OSS function and offer guidance for aligning support interventions with targeted implementation outcomes.