Development of a scale for measuring software diffusion

Existing research on diffusion of information technology in firms focuses on the factors that effect the diffusion with little study of diffusion itself. Most of the diffusion research also focuses on hardware diffusion and fails to consider the inter-related area of software diffusion. Consequently, robust measures of the software diffusion construct have not been developed. This paper addresses these omissions by developing a scale for the measurement of software diffusion. Software diffusion is the degree of dispersion of software throughout the firm. The questionnaire used incorporated features designed to increase the validity and reliability of the responses while also maximising the response rate. The resultant 3-item scale satisfies the critical validity and reliability benchmarks normally associated with these types of scales. The scale incorporates both the adoption and implementation aspects of diffusion