technology adoption model

Technology adoption model anda road map to successfulimplementation of ITIL

Norita Ahmad, Noha Tarek Amer, Faten Qutaifan andAzza Alhilali

American University of Sharjah, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to propose the use of technology adoption model UTAUT asan adoption model of IT governance frameworks, specifically Information Technology andInfrastructure Library (ITIL). The aim is to help the decision maker to better map ITIL processeswith business performance, to make a better decision on what processes to implement, and how toimplement them.Design/methodology/approach – The paper uses a literature review detailing critical successfactors of ITIL implementation. The proposed model was then implemented by applying it to a casestudy of a company in the United Arab Emirates where the ITIL implementation project failed.Findings – The proposed model gives ITIL the flexibility to work for a wide variety of industries andbusinesses, but it also introduces many challenges. One of the most apparent challenges is to map ITILprocesses to the real world. As a result to analyzing the case study in light of the adoption model, aroad map to successful implementation of ITIL is proposed.Research limitations/implications – This research is targeted more toward practitioners such asthe IT experts; therefore further studies need be conducted to understand the views of the business inrespect to the challenges and benefits of the ITIL implementation.Originality/value – The paper proposed an adoption model for ITIL based on UTAUT which isevidently absent from the current literature. The research findings lead us to a proposal of a roadmapfor ITIL implementing.

Keywords United Arab Emirates, Critical success factors, Implementation road map,Information Technology Infrastructure Library, ITIL, ITIL adoption, UTAUT

Paper type Research paper

1. IntroductionAs managements begin to recognize the importance of information technology (IT)to the core business, demand for a governance model or a quality improvementframework such as Six Sigma, total quality management (TQM), or business processreengineering (BPR) also increases. However, two problems lie when adoptingconventional quality models. The first problem is due to the fact that most models aredesigned for products not services; the second is due to the limited scope of coverage.These two issues were addressed by researchers and governmental bodies resulting inthe development of governance frameworks targeting IT, such as Capability MaturityModel Integration (CMMI), ITIL and Control Objectives for Information and relatedTechnology (COBIT). Among these three IT governance models, ITIL proved bestadherence to Information Technology Service Management (ITSM) (Cater-Steel, 2006;Iden and Langeland, 2010; Kabachinski, 2011; Kanapathy and Khan, 2012).

ITIL was developed by the Central Computer and Telecommunications Agency(CCTA), which later merged with the Office of Government Commerce (OGC) of the UKGovernment in the middle of 1980s. ITIL is a set of service management standardlibrary that focusses on the IT industry and has been constantly updated and renewed.

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available atwww.emeraldinsight.com/1741-0398.htm

Received 18 July 2012Revised 31 October 2012

26 December 2012Accepted 15 February 2013

Journal of Enterprise InformationManagement

Vol. 26 No. 5, 2013pp. 553-576

r Emerald Group Publishing Limited1741-0398

DOI 10.1108/JEIM-07-2013-0041

553

Technologyadoption model

The latest version of ITIL enacted by the OGC is ITIL 3.0 (ITIL Official web site, 2011).Even though ITIL has been around for more than 20 years now and has gainsignificant popularity among IT practitioner, there has been little academicresearch published to date about issues related to ITIL adoption and implementation.In addition, the limited research found on ITIL implementation concentrates ondescribing success factors and best implementation practices. Implementing ITIL,however, has proven to be challenging because it depends on various criticalfactors each of which might compromise the overall implementation of the project.This statement might seem a bit generic and pessimistic; however, many papers(Sarvenaz Mehravani and Haghighinasab, 2011; Pollard, 2009; Pedersen et al., 2010;Cater-Steel and Tan, 2005; Shang and Lin, 2010) concluded very similar sets of criticalsuccess factors (CFSs) which imply that each of them have equal contribution weight tothe success of ITIL implementation. Accordingly, it was found that a large number ofthe CSFs are not technology based, that is, they do not depend on the vendor orapplication selected to aid in implementing ITIL. On the contrary, most of the CSFsrelate to user acceptance of the framework. In addition, most adoption models such asTechnology Acceptance Model (TAM) and Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use ofTechnology (UTAUT) are proposed for adopting new technologies but not frameworks.

Therefore in this paper we applied the UTAUT model to the implementation of theITIL framework. In order to enhance the implementation and adoption process of ITIL,a thorough review of CSFs is performed and linked to the UTAUT model. UTAUT wasselected because it considers a unified view of user acceptance. As previouslyindicated, ITIL popularity has much to do with the fact that it is not based on academicview but purely on what has been proven to work effectively. In order to test ourproposed model, it is applied to a case study at a developing stock exchange firm in theUnited Arab Emirates (UAE). The case study confirmed the factors that determinewhether an ITIL project succeeds or fails. It also revealed some challenges that the firmfaced during ITIL implementation. The findings lead us to a proposal of a roadmap forITIL implementation. The suggested roadmap provides guidance for organizationstoward a successful ITIL deployment. The contribution of this work is to helpthe decision maker to better connect or map ITIL processes with businessperformance, to make a better decision on “what” processes to implement, and“how” to implement them.

2. Literature review2.1 ITILITIL is a framework of best practices collected from public and private sectororganizations worldwide intended to accomplish the delivery of high quality ITservices, essentially for ITSM (ITIL Official web site, 2011). Researchers concluded twomajor reasons explaining the move toward implementing ITIL; one being the increasedfocus on customer service (Sarvenaz Mehravani and Haghighinasab, 2011; Pollard,2009; Pedersen et al., 2010; Cater-Steel and Tan, 2005; Shang and Lin, 2010). Anotherreason is the increased interest in effective and transparent IT governance (Cater-Steeland Tan, 2005). Being a quality improvement framework, ITIL is similar to otherquality frameworks in the aspect that it “reorganizes work, not staff” (Marquis, 2006).Hence, reduction in IT operational cost will not be a short-term achievement.

Even though ITIL has many benefits such as cost savings, risk management, andstreamlining of IT operations (Marquis, 2006), ITIL also faces several implementationchallenges. It is not well spelled out in documentations, and it provides only general

554

JEIM26,5

guidance on what processes to implement; leaving managers in doubt about the bestpractice to implement ITIL (Shang and Lin, 2010). Therefore consultants, vendors, andin depth training are essential in order for an organization to successfully implementITIL. Another unappealing trait of ITIL is the resistance it receives by staff due to poorchange management. A study even showed that an organization opted against ITILafter assessing their ability to implement it; the reason stated was “Not enough of theorganization would participate” (Marquis, 2006). In order to overcome, or at leastreduce ITIL implementation limitations and setbacks, researchers studied CSFs andhow users perceive IT frameworks.

ITIL implementations is discussed in several aspects in the literature. For example,there is an increase need to implement concrete IT processes in health care systems.This is mainly because of the financial pressure on healthcare sectors and the need tominimize the cost and increase efficiency. A recent study conducted on 75 hospitals inthe Europe on the knowledge and acceptance of ITIL shows that more than two-thirdsof the participants were aware of ITSM and ITIL (Hoerbst et al., 2011). However, onlyfive hospitals have implemented ITIL while eight were planning to implement ITILwithin the next two years. Even though many are aware of ITIL, many are still unclearon how to go about it. The authors concluded that advocates of ITIL still have muchwork to do in sending a clear message to the IT management in the health sectors.

A more recent study looked at the relationship between ITIL implementationprogress and firm sizes in Malaysia (Kanapathy and Khan, 2012). A questionnairesurvey was distributed to 84 firms. The results show that 24 percent of large firmswere aware of ITIL as opposed to 17 percent in small and medium firms. In addition,41 percent of respondents have largely implemented ITIL while 14 percent had noplans of doing so.

2.2 CSFs for ITIL implementationITIL has become a global standard of best practices in IT service, but many companies,which have already gone through a full implementation of ITIL processes have realizedthat, not all ITIL processes are of equal importance and value to them – in fact manyagreed that ITIL implementation was challenging (Cater-Steel and Tan, 2005; Marquis,2006; Shang and Lin, 2010). It is therefore important for companies to understand thefactors that would help to determine whether ITIL implementation would besuccessful. In this study, an extensive literature review was conducted to identifycritical factors for successful implementation of ITIL.

The first paper used was a meta-analysis of previous studies on CSFs(Sarvenaz Mehravani and Haghighinasab, 2011). An ITIL expert, Marquis (2006),gave a list of CSFs that provides concise, non-technical best practices for each ITILimplementation based on his experience about ITIL. Another paper used to identifyCSFs was based on results of a questionnaire completed by itSMF National Conferencedelegates (Cater-Steel and Tan, 2005). Most of the papers reviewed were multi-casestudies of organizations that have implemented ITIL where the authors interviewedITIL stakeholders in the studied organizations (Cater-Steel, 2006; Iden and Langeland,2010; Kabachinski, 2011; Pedersen et al., 2010; Pollard, 2009; Tan et al., 2009).For example, Cater-Steel (2006) studied key success factors for ITIL implementation bystudying five Australian organizations that have successfully transformed their ITSMby implementing ITIL. In another paper, Iden and Langeland (2010) studied theadoption of ITIL in the Nordic countries where they managed to get 446 responsesfrom firms in the four Nordic countries. The final paper studied was also a multi-case

555


study where authors interviewed ITIL projects stakeholders (Shang and Lin, 2010).However, the findings of this paper present barriers instead of success factors tosuccessfully implement ITIL. Hence, these factors were negated to their positivecounterpoints in order for us to use them as CSFs in our paper. In total, 18 factors wereidentified and their significance is briefly explained in Table I.

The 18 identified CSFs for implementing ITIL are then grouped into seven keyclasses of factors. The seven key CSFs were originally proposed by SarvenazMehravani and Haghighinasab (2011) as the main CSF relevant to ITIL implementationafter conducting a qualitative meta-analysis of available ITIL research. These factorswere then used as input influencing the TAM, which is explained in Section 2.3. The 18factors are then mapped to the seven key factors in order to have a comprehensive anddetailed list of CSFs (see Table II). Table II also summarizes the conducted comparisonbetween ten most prominent research papers in terms of reported CSFs.

As can be noted from Table II, and as was suspected, only two classes mapped one-to-one to the identified CSFs: top management support and monitoring and evaluation.The remaining five key factors are expanded into more specific and differentiatedfactors. Organization culture along with conventional change management includesthe ability of individual members in an organization to accept and then adapt tochange. Communication and cooperation factor is achieved by interdepartmentalcollaboration and further supported by means of benefits realization plans. Projectmanagement and governance suggest two critical factors to be considered; assigning aproject champion and following customer-oriented strategy when definingimplementation scope of ITIL. As for the training factor, two CSFs are involved fora successful implementation. The first factor is the ITIL knowledge which covers theflow of ITIL knowledge throughout the project (starting from stakeholders acquiringappropriate training, to spreading awareness among staff through workshops togaining first-hand knowledge from completed implementation phases). The secondpart is quality of IT staff allocated to ITIL initiative. Lastly, the factor of ITIL processimplementation and applied technology is constructed of four CSF: implementationstrategy and design, process priority, tool selection, and finally, the use of consultantsand consultant selection, each of which were discussed above.

2.3 Adoption of ITILWe found only few studies that study the success factors that affect the implementationof ITIL; even fewer researchers studied the adoption of ITIL. Sarvenaz Mehravaniand Haghighinasab (2011) is one of the very few studies which examined the effectof CSFs of implementing ITIL on the adoption factors represented by the TAM. Thisstudy had synthesized seven key success factors for implementing ITIL including: topmanagement support, communication and cooperation, training and competence ofinvolved stakeholder in ITIL project, change management and organizational culture,project management and governance, ITIL process implementation and appliedtechnology, monitoring and evaluation. The study had used TAM to study theadoption of ITIL. TAM was developed by Davis (1989) and Davis et al. (1989) andit simply posits that perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use are majordeterminants for a user’s intention to use a technology.

Sarvenaz Mehravani and Haghighinasab (2011) did not only examine the CSFs andtheir effect on adoption drivers but it also explored the relationship between the CSFsthemselves. The study concluded that in terms of CSFs, top management support hasan impact on communication and cooperation, change project and governance,

556

JEIM26,5

Cri

tica

lsu

cces

sfa

ctor

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nif

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ce

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ent

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nd

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gn

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ente

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and

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al.,

2009

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nd

ing

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ded

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sult

ancy

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ols,

and

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nin

g(P

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)T

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ger

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mm

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ion

bet

wee

nst

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(Sar

ven

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)IT

ILA

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ve

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nic

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,20

11)

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owle

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ick

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and

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tion

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ven

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ian

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terd

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tal

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abor

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nM

axim

izes

kn

owle

dg

esh

arin

gan

dco

mm

un

icat

ion

(Sar

ven

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van

ian

dH

agh

igh

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2011

;P

olla

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2009

)M

akes

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ify

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the

risk

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roje

ctim

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men

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tim

e(C

erv

one,

2008

)P

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ity

Acc

ura

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efin

itio

nh

asp

rior

ity

over

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sele

ctio

n(P

olla

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ool

sele

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ds

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der

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lize

dto

ols

(Pol

lard

,20

09)

All

ows

easi

erco

nfi

gu

rati

onof

the

pro

cess

es(P

olla

rd,

2009

)In

flu

ence

sp

erce

ived

use

fuln

ess

(PU

)(S

arv

enaz

Meh

rav

ani

and

Hag

hig

hin

asab

,20

11)

Ch

ang

em

anag

emen

tC

riti

cal

insi

tuat

ion

sw

ith

big

ban

g(r

evol

uti

onar

y)

(Ped

erse

net

al.,

2010

;S

han

gan

dL

in,

2010

)C

ust

omer

orie

nta

tion

Pro

vid

esp

roac

tiv

eIT

pro

cess

rath

erth

anfi

refi

gh

tin

g(S

han

gan

dL

in,

2010

)U

seof

con

sult

ants

and

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sult

ant

sele

ctio

nK

now

led

ge

tran

sfer

top

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anen

tst

aff

iscr

itic

alon

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ple

men

tati

onis

com

ple

ted

(Pol

lard

,20

09)

Imp

lem

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teg

yan

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ides

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per

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lica

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teg

ies

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erse

net

al.

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roje

ctch

amp

ion

Adv

ocat

esan

dp

rom

otes

ITIL

(Cat

er-S

teel

and

Tan

,20

05)

(con

tinu

ed)

Table I.Identified CSF for

successful ITILimplementation

557


Cri

tica

lsu

cces

sfa

ctor

Sig

nif

ican

ce

Ab

ilit

yof

ITst

aff

toad

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vol

vin

gth

est

aff

inth

eIT

ILim

ple

men

tati

onp

roce

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omth

eb

egin

nin

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llth

een

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alto

hel

pth

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aff

adap

tto

the

chan

ge

(Cat

er-S

teel

and

Tan

,20

05)

Qu

alit

yof

ITst

aff

allo

cate

dfo

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ITIL

trai

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Hag

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,201

1),i

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imp

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imat

ely

affe

cts

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war

ds

use

(AT

U)

(Sar

ven

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ehra

van

ian

dH

agh

igh

inas

ab20

11)

Ess

enti

alfo

rco

nti

nu

ous

imp

rov

emen

tp

rog

ram

that

isa

mu

stfo

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ILim

ple

men

tati

on(M

arq

uis

,20

06)

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sib

ilit

yst

ud

yb

efor

eth

eac

tual

imp

lem

enta

tion

Hel

ps

pla

nn

ing

the

imp

lem

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pro

cess

(Kab

ach

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11)

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man

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aly

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ang

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,20

06)

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Hel

ps

com

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kn

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and

wh

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lem

enti

ng

ITIL

(Mar

qu

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2006

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stab

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esan

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der

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y’s

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sure

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pcl

ose

eye

anal

ysi

sof

the

imp

lem

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tion

pro

cess

ofIT

IL(M

arq

uis

,20

06)

Table I.

558

JEIM26,5

Ref

eren

ces

CS

Fs

key

clas

ses

Iden

tifi

ed

crit

ical

succ

ess

fact

or

Pap

er(S

arv

enaz

Meh

rav

ani

and

Hag

hig

hin

asab

,

2011

)

Pap

er

(Pol

lard

,

2009

)

Pap

er

(Ped

erse

n

etal,

2010

)

Pap

er

(Pet

erso

n,

2003

)

Pap

er

(Sh

ang

and

Lin

,20

10)

Pap

er

(Id

enan

d

Lan

gel

and

(201

0)

Pap

er(T

an

etal,

2009

)

Pap

er

(Cat

er-S

teel

,

2006

)

Pap

er

(Kab

ach

insk

i,

2011

)

Pap

er

(Mar

qu

is,

2006

)

1T

op

man

agem

ent

sup

po

rt

Man

agem

ent

sup

po

rt

||

||

||

|

2C

han

ge

man

agem

ent

and

org

aniz

atio

nal

cult

ure

Ch

ang

e

man

agem

ent

||

||

|

Ab

ilit

yof

ITst

aff

toad

apt

toch

ang

e

|

3M

onit

orin

gan

d

eval

uat

ion

Mon

itor

ing

and

eval

uat

ion

ofIT

IL

imp

lem

enta

tion

||

4C

omm

un

icat

ion

and

coop

erat

ion

Inte

rdep

artm

enta

l

coll

abor

atio

n

||

|

Rea

liza

tion

pla

n|

||

5P

roje

ct

man

agem

ent

and

gov

ern

ance

Pro

ject

man

agem

ent

and

con

tin

uou

sse

rvic

e

imp

rov

emen

t

pro

gra

m

|

Goa

lse

ttin

g

thro

ug

hp

roce

ss

mat

uri

ty

fram

ewor

k

|

Pro

ject

cham

pio

n|

||

Cu

stom

er

orie

nta

tion

||

||

(con

tinu

ed)

Table II.Identified CSF for

successful ITILimplementation and

classification ofidentified CSFs

559


Ref

eren

ces

CS

Fs

key

clas

ses

Iden

tifi

ed

crit

ical

succ

ess

fact

or

Pap

er(S

arv

enaz

Meh

rav

ani

and

Hag

hig

hin

asab

,

2011

)

Pap

er

(Pol

lard

,

2009

)

Pap

er

(Ped

erse

n

etal,

2010

)

Pap

er

(Pet

erso

n,

2003

)

Pap

er

(Sh

ang

and

Lin

,20

10)

Pap

er

(Id

enan

d

Lan

gel

and

(201

0)

Pap

er(T

an

etal,

2009

)

Pap

er

(Cat

er-S

teel

,

2006

)

Pap

er

(Kab

ach

insk

i,

2011

)

Pap

er

(Mar

qu

is,

2006

)

6T

rain

ing

and

com

pet

ence

of

inv

olv

ed

stak

ehol

der

in

ITIL

pro

ject

Fea

sib

ilit

yst

ud

y

bef

ore

the

actu

al

imp

lem

enta

tion

|

ITIL

Tra

inin

g,

Aw

aren

ess

and

Kn

owle

dg

e

man

agem

ent

||

||

||

|

Qu

alit

yof

ITst

aff

allo

cate

dfo

rIT

IL

||

7IT

ILp

roce

ss

imp

lem

enta

tion

and

app

lied

tech

nol

ogy

Imp

lem

enta

tion

stra

teg

yan

dd

esig

n

||

||

|

Con

tin

uou

s

rep

orti

ng

and

aud

itin

gth

rou

gh

a

qu

alit

ym

anag

emen

t

fram

ewor

k

|

Pro

cess

pri

orit

y|

|T

ool

sele

ctio

n|

||

Use

ofco

nsu

ltan

ts

and

con

sult

ant

sele

ctio

n

|

Table II.

560

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monitoring and evaluation, change management, organizational culture, as well as anindirect influence on IT staffs’ acceptance. The study also reported that trainingand competence of involved stakeholders influence change management andorganizational culture. In addition, the study found out that project managementand governance is affected by communication and cooperation and it has an impact onITIL process implementation and applied technology and also monitoring andevaluation. On the other hand Sarvenaz Mehravani and Haghighinasab (2011)indicated that in terms of adoption factors, perceived ease of use is affected by trainingand competence of involved stakeholders and change management and organizationalculture. Besides, perceived usefulness is impacted by competence of involvedstakeholders, top management support, project management and governance and alsochange management and organizational culture. Moreover Sarvenaz Mehravani andHaghighinasab (2011) reported that monitoring and evaluation has an impact onattitude toward use.

Despite being the most widely applied technology adoption model, TAM has somelimitations and according to (Lee et al., n.d.) the most common criticism of TAM is thelack of actionable guidance or interventions to practitioners. Therefore this paperwill use a revised version of TAM, which considers a unified view of user acceptance,to study the adoption of ITIL. The adoption model of choice is the UTAUT modeldeveloped in (Venkatesh et al., 2003). The UTAUT model is a result of synthesizing andreviewing eight different TAMs and it presents a unified view of user acceptance whichhas four main constructs: performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence,and facilitating conditions (Venkatesh et al., 2003). Also, the study in Venkatesh et al.(2003) had compared the synthesized UTAUT model to all of the individual modelswhich were used in developing this model and the results of the empirical studiesshowed that UTAUT did better than any of the models in explaining the variance inuser acceptance. Also, the UTAUT model considers four moderators for the keyrelationships: age, gender, experience, and voluntariness of use (Venkatesh et al., 2003).

In this study, we use UTAUT theory qualitatively due to the perceived ability ofqualitative analysis to meet the purpose of our study. In addition, we believe thatqualitative approach could raise new insights around success factors that affect theimplementation of ITIL and lead to meaningful understanding of ITIL adoption.

3. MethodologyIn this paper, extensive literature reviews were performed to identify the CSFs for theimplementation of ITIL. As indicated in Section 2.2, the 18 identified CSFs forimplementing ITIL are then grouped into seven key classes of CSFs. We then use acombination of comprehensive review of the literature and logical reasoning to linkthe seven key factors to the four main constructs of the UTAUT adoption model.The proposed links between the seven synthesized CSFs and the UTAUT constructsare summarized in Table III.

Based on the relationship defined in Table III we then proposed the following model.The following illustrates how each of the implementation CSFs are linked to the

adoption constructs.

Performance expectancyPerformance expectancy is the degree to which an individual believes that thenew system is helping him/her in performing the tasks in an easy and efficientway (Venkatesh et al., 2003). Performance expectancy is often affected by project

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management and governance, communication and cooperation, and change managementand organizational culture (Sarvenaz Mehravani and Haghighinasab, 2011).

Project management is essential for a successful implementation of IT projects(Keil et al., 2003) and can be considered as one of the “real” success factors of aproject (Cooke-Davies, 2002). Applying proper tools and techniques of projectmanagement would help employees realize the benefits of the new system (Atkinson,1999), thus, increasing the perceived usefulness of ITIL. In addition, incrementalimplementation of ITIL would help employees experience the benefits of the systemover a shorter period of time (Pollard, 2009).

Communication and cooperation is also considered as one of the most CSF of ITprojects (Peterson, 2003). ITIL, like all IT projects, have communication and cooperationin the sixth rank of the list of its CSFs for project implementation (Pollard, 2009).Communication is important between management and employees where it should be atwo-way communications between the management and employees in order to makethem realize the usefulness of ITIL (Sarvenaz Mehravani and Haghighinasab, 2011).

Finally change management and organizational culture counts towardperformance expectancy of the employee. The organization is better off representingITIL as a project rather than a usual business (Cater-Steel, 2006). This means that ITILimplementation should go through a business case representing benefits, risks, costs,and schedule, a solution development and a service design for continuous improvement(Cater-Steel, 2006). The highlighted benefits of ITIL in the business case shall bealigned with the employees’ interests. Alignment of ITIL benefits with the employees’interests shall help them better realize the benefits of the execution of their daily dutiesthrough ITIL (Cater-Steel and McBride, 2007).

Effort expectancyEffort expectancy is defined as the degree to which an individual believes the newsystem is easy to use (Venkatesh et al., 2003). In the proposed model, effort expectancyis affected by three main factors; training and competence of stakeholders, change

UTAUTs constructs Definition Related key classes of factors

Performanceexpectancy

The degree to which an individualbelieves that using the system willhelp him or her to attain gains injob performance

Communication and cooperationProject management and governanceChange management andorganizational culture

Effort expectancy The degree of ease associated with theuse of the system

Change management andorganizational cultureTraining and competence of involvedstakeholder in ITIL projectITIL process implementation andapplied technology

Social influence The degree to which an individualperceives that important others believehe or she should use the new system

Top management supportMonitoring and evaluation

Facilitatingconditions

The degree to which an individualbelieves that an organizational andtechnical infrastructure exists tosupport use of the system

Top management supportTraining and competence of involvedstakeholder in ITIL projectITIL process implementation andapplied technology

Table III.Relationship between theseven key classes of CSFsand the UTAUT model

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management and organizational culture, and ITIL process implementation and toolselection. Implementing ITIL implies major organizational change and thereforefaces the challenge of overcoming the obstacle of organizational culture acceptance(Grewal, 2006). Therefore change management is quite essential for facilitating theacceptance of ITIL implementation by the employees. In fact, giving proper training tothe stakeholders is an important part of proper change management process. Trainingand awareness of stakeholders is also ranked as the second most important factor aftertop management support to gain the interest of stakeholders (Pollard, 2009). Trainingdoes not only help employees to cope with the new system, in addition, it providesthem with a sense of involvement throughout the implementation journey (Pollard,2009). In other words, training will help employees learn what ITIL means, how it willimpact their jobs and consequently affecting their idea of how easy is it to use/followITIL processes and standards.

ITIL process implementation and tool selection, like other success factors is criticalfor a proper implementation of ITIL. Proper tool selection criteria will ensure that theselected tool for implementing ITIL is user friendly and therefore users will notview the system as hard to use. Also, it is important to study the current IT criticalprocesses and conduct a gap analysis between their current status and the desiredITIL adherence status. This will eventually result in a simplified focussed processthat is easy to perform thus requiring less effort (Sarvenaz Mehravani andHaghighinasab, 2011).

Social influenceSocial influence is defined as the degree to which an individual perceives theimportance of others to believe he or she should use the new system (Venkatesh et al.,2003). According to the model proposed in this paper, social influence is affected bytwo of the synthesized CSFs namely, top management support, and monitoringand evaluation.

Usually, top management controls the communication activities in informationtechnology/information system (IT/IS) projects (Bueno Salvador, 2008). Consequentlytop management support will show evidence that the project is important, thus gainingemployees’ commitment in a hope for leaving a good impression at the managementside. In addition, if the project succeeds the employees would want the topmanagement to acknowledge their efforts and in the case of a failed or delayed project,they do not want to be blamed for not being cooperative.

Likewise, when the employees become aware that their feedback will be solicited forthe evaluation and monitoring process to review the implementation performance ofITIL and determine whether or not it is achieving the business goals (Sarvenaz Mehravaniand Haghighinasab, 2011); the employees will feel more obliged to cooperate and supportthe implementation of the project.

Facilitating conditionsFacilitating conditions is defined as the degree to which an individual believes that anorganizational and technical infrastructure exists to support use of the system(Venkatesh et al., 2003). According to the proposed model in this paper, this construct isinfluenced by three of the synthesized CSFs; top management support, training andcompetence of involved stakeholder in ITIL, and ITIL process implementation andapplied technology. As a matter of fact, the reason why the aforementioned CSFs mayhave an effect on the construct, i.e. facilitating conditions, is that they actually makeup

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this construct. In other words, the above-mentioned CSFs resemble the technical andorganizational aspects of the work environment that if they were made available willhelp eliminating barriers to use the system.

If top management commitment were present it would result in granting a projectthe required funding for resources, consultants, employee training, and acquiringrequired technology (Sarvenaz Mehravani and Haghighinasab, 2011). The presence ofthese CSFs turns the environment into one that fosters a sense of urgency amongthe employees to be part of the wheel, which is pushing the project forward.

4. Applying the proposed UTAUT adoption model to the case studyAs an illustration, the proposed ITIL adoption model based on UTAUT (Figure 1) wasapplied to a developing stock exchange in the UAE. This particular firm was chosenfor the case study because it has the financial, and human resources necessary tomanage a variety of activities; it has service management professionals within thecompany; and it has the ability to acquire differentiated knowledge about best practiceadoption through various cooperative strategies with other organizations experiencedin ITSM. At the time of first approaching the company, the firm had just finishedits ITIL implementation. This situation provided an excellent opportunity to test ourproposed model in an attempt to identify the factors that drive success of ITILimplementation and highlight the pitfalls that could impede the adoption ofITIL framework.

4.1 How ITIL implementation was initiatedThe stock exchange of interest is fairly young; it was established about twelve yearsago. From the conception of the idea to the launching date in 2000, one year passedduring which the exchange was set up and ad hoc processes emerged and evolvedbased on the constantly changing business needs; there was no formal planning forbusiness processes in general and for the IT processes in particular. Consequently,none of the processes reached maturity level; scoring low on efficiency and servicequality. At first, the lack of properly planned and defined processes had no significantimpact on the performance of the daily activities, but not until the year 2004 when thestock market had experienced a strong economic growth. During the boom period,which started in 2004 and had stretched throughout the year 2005, the stock marketbecame active. There were a large number of trading activities with large tradingvolumes, which added an extra load on the trading system and increased the networktraffic. This rapid increase in the number of active traders, and their trading activities,rendered the trading engine inoperative and caused the network to experience sometechnical glitches during the critical trading hours. Interrupting a trading session isconsidered disastrous for a stock market as a split of a second can mean a loss ofinvaluable trades and therefore a downtime during trading hours is deemed extremelycostly. Unfortunately, the disruption of the trading service does not only translate tomonetary losses but it can easily shake the investors’ confidence in the reliability ofthe exchange as well.

When the trading session was suspended due to the technical problems, everybodyon the IT team was literally running around trying to resolve the issue. No one had aclear idea of where to start from or how to tackle the problem, as no defined procedureswere available. This major event caused a fuss, which made its way to the pressespecially when the investors panicked over losing deals while brokers complainedabout losing connection to the trading system. The whole situation was a big mess; top

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management was dissatisfied while investors and trading members were frustrated.The helpdesk was showered with phone calls and even office phones and personalmobile phones of the IT team did not stop ringing. All of this had added up to the lackof defined processes and aggravated the pressure placed on the IT personnel, whichmade it even harder for them to solve the problem in a timely manner. Eventually,the issue was resolved but immediately after that top management started posingquestions as in what had caused the issue? Why did it take so long to solve theproblem? Was it a temporary fix or a permanent solution? Will the same issue everoccur again? The operational manager, who happened to be the IT manager as well,was bombarded with so many questions – none was answered.

The IT section was listed under the Market Operations Department and consisted offive units namely the Trading and Clearing, Settlement and Depository System unit,Maintenance and Development Unit, Technical support unit, System Support unit, andNetwork and Security unit. The heads of the five aforementioned units report directlyto the head of the Market Operations Department.

The operational manager got an interesting advice from his assistant manager whoused to be the chief information officer (CIO) at HSBC bank, UAE, which at that timehad already implemented ITIL. The operations assistant manager suggested that ITILshould be implemented as it will not only fix the current situation but it will alsoimprove future performances. He promised the operational manager that ITIL wouldhelp increase the efficiency, minimize the downtime, cut the operational cost, andimprove the service quality. The operational manager who knew nothing about ITILacted upon this recommendation and appointed one of the IT team members to beresponsible for the implementation of ITIL. This was how the ITIL initiativestarted at this firm.

4.2 The implementation journeyThe employee who was nominated to lead the ITIL implementation also knewnothing about ITIL – what ITIL is, what it does and how it can be deployed. He had nochoice but to contact a consultancy company to help with the implementation of ITILin the exchange.

During that time period, the year of 2005, only ITIL-V2 was available. The ITILimplementation coordinator along with the consultancy company planned for theimplementation of ITIL. As part of the plan, the consultancy recommended sendingthe employees for ITIL training courses. The IT team was assigned to three days crashcourse training for ITIL. Afterwards, they were asked to take the ITIL certificationexam. Unfortunately, the IT team did not take the training seriously and as a resultmajority of them failed the exam and some of them requested for extra trainingsessions from the consultancy company. One of the main reasons why the IT team tookthe training lightly was because they were not involved in the decision-makingprocess of ITIL implementation. In addition, the IT team was not informed of thepursued goals of ITIL implementation. As a result, no clear or defined roles wereidentified leaving all of them even more disconnected from the project.

As the implementation plan progressed, the appointed ITIL implementationcoordinator and consultancy team reached to a stage where the IT processes neededto be tailored to have them adhere to ITIL-V2 standards. That was when theimplementation team realized that no clearly defined processes exist and nodocumentation was available on any of the processes. Consequently, the projectcoordinator decided to start a reengineering initiative with the help of the internal IT

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quality officer in which they made two major mistakes. The first mistake was that theyhave not sorted out all of the available processes nor did they prioritize their needfor reengineering. Instead they went ahead reengineering every possible process.The second mistake was lack of communication and involvement from those who workon these processes. None of them were involved during the reengineering phase andwere not even consulted by the ITIL team. As a result, the reengineering initiative tooka lot of time and effort leading to a further delay in ITIL implementation.

4.3 ITIL tool selectionAfter the bases of the ITIL implementation was laid down and all the processes weredefined and tailored to comply with the ITIL-V2 standards, the actual ITILimplementation was carried out. However, the team realized that the defined processesaccording to ITIL are somehow very complex and time consuming to be implementedwithout an underlying system to streamline the processes. Thus, the ITIL team decidedto purchase a service desk tool that has ITIL compliant processes. The team chose twoof the available suppliers in the market, namely: Hewlett-Packard (HP) andComputer Associate (CA) to evaluate their service desk management tools. Like allother processes there were no defined procedures for tool or supplier selection in thecompany. The team who was nominated to recommend the tool consisted of two peoplewho could not reach consensus so they had to go back to the IT manager to help breakthe tie. The IT manager recommended HP for its reputation.

4.4 ITIL tool implementationWhile implementing the ITIL compliant service desk tool, vendor related issuessurfaced. The main problem with HP was that their technical team lacked the skillsrequired to customize the new version of the tool to be implemented at the exchange.The HP technical team could not tailor the system to fit the processes as required bythe exchange. This forced the exchange to redesign most of the processes so that it canbe implemented by the tool. The changes started as minimal and then started to buildup until it reached a stage where the processes became complex and almost entirelychanged. At that point, the firm got into a conflict with HP, which resulted in asuspension of the ITIL implementation for an entire year. The need for documentingand implementing standardized processes persisted, forcing the exchange to resumeITIL implementation. However, the firm decided to limit the implementation to onlyincident management, problem management and change management and chose to gowith HP open view.

4.5 ITIL adoptionAfter the HP open view was rolled out, implementing only limited processes; the ITemployees and the other business employees did not welcome it. Users initially refusedto use the system and it took a lot of patience and planning to make them start usingthe system. At some point, the ITIL implementation coordinator requested all IT staffto deny any request that does not get through the defined processes. However, the ITmembers themselves did not follow the newly imposed procedures, for example,firewalls and anti-virus software would be updated and network switches would beupgraded without following the proper change management process. The IT managerhad to discuss such cases during the IT team’s weekly meetings and had to ask theresponsible people for justification on why changes were made without followingthe defined procedures. Consequently, the IT team had finally started to follow the new

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procedures as no one wants to answer to the manager. However, the softwarecustomization was poorly tested and most of the bugs started to appear during theactual usage of the system. Users viewed it as unreliable and were discouraged tocontinue using the system. Moreover, the new changes that were applied to processesduring ITIL implementation seemed to be too long and complex for users to follow.In addition to the process complexity introduced by the system inability to map theprocesses as is, the user experience of HP open view can be described as poor becausethe system was complex and not user friendly.

4.6 Implementation resultAt the end, it took the company a total of five years to implement few selectedprocesses of ITIL. One of the reasons was the poor way the ITIL implementation washandled as the company does not have any project management strategies nor followsany project management methodologies. If we were to apply the proposed model(Figure 1) to the case study, we can see how the four main constructs were affected.

Performance expectancy. As shown in Table IV, all the three corresponding CSFs(communication and cooperation, project management and governance, and changemanagement and organizational culture) were missing. It is obvious that there was noproper project management involved in the ITIL implementation. The absence ofproject management highly contributes to the failure of projects (Keil et al., 2003). Inaddition, the management neither communicated nor chased feedback from employeesthroughout the implementation process of ITIL. Finally, the management did notaccount for the stable organizational culture and attempted to implement ITIL as partof the business not as a project. This resulted in the employees looking at it as an extraworkload. Therefore, handling ITIL as a project may help the employees realize itsbenefits (Cater-Steel, 2006).

Effort expectancy. As for effort expectancy, we can also see that the related CSFswere not properly implemented. First, training was not made mandatory by themanagement. In addition, the goals of the training were not communicated properlyresulting in many employees not taking it seriously. Second, the company did notspend enough effort in understanding its culture; this can easily be done throughphased implementation. Finally, the developing stock exchange organization did not

UTAUTs constructs CSFs violation

Performanceexpectancy

Inadequate communications and support to and from senior businessmanagementInadequate project management and oversightUnmatched vision development process and organization’s culture

Effort expectancy Unmatched vision development process and organization’s cultureInsufficient training of IT professionals and disagreement on issues facing theorganizationLack of focus on action orientation and early benefit delivery

Social influence Poor vision, support and expectations from the managementPoor monitoring, evaluation and reward process

Facilitatingconditions

Poor vision, support and expectations from managementInsufficient training of IT professionals and disagreement on issues facingthe organizationInadequate staff involvement in process and technology assessment processes

Table IV.Case study matchedwith the CSFs andUTAUT model

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implement the right methodology for tool and vendor selection, which resulted ina one-year delay trying to customize the tool.

Social influence. We can also see that matching CSFs were missing from thesocial influence construct as well, which contributed to the employees’ lack of interestto adopt the implementation of the ITIL framework. Top management did notcommunicate the need for ITIL to the employees nor did it ask for the employees’feedback during the process. Consequently, the employees did not feel the urge tocommit to the project. It is worth noting that the employees started changing theirbehavior toward adopting ITIL in their relevant tasks only after the managementstarted questioning them on their lack of adhering to the new processes.

Facilitating conditions. Referring back to the ITIL implementation in the developedstock exchange, although management had approved the purchasing of an ITILcompliant tool, hired a consultant to guide the implementation process and providedthe required training for the employees, the acceptance of ITIL was not as high as it isexpected to be according to the adoption model. The reason behind that is the absenceof other critical factors that affect other adoption constructs. The managementonly provided financial support to the project but not the required organizationalempowerment. As discussed earlier, the lack of properly defined change managementprocedures, project management methodologies, and effective communication hadplayed a role in poor adoption of ITIL in the exchange.

5. Proposed roadmap for ITIL implementationITIL best practices can definitely help organization or IT department specifically tomanage internal change in a better manner by focussing on preparation, benefits toaffected personnel, and user involvement. However, implementing ITIL can be verychallenging (as illustrated in the case study). ITIL provides only general guidance onwhat processes to implement but provide no advice as to how to implement them.While this approach gives ITIL the flexibility to work for a wide variety of industriesand businesses, it also introduces many challenges. One of the most apparentchallenges is to map ITIL processes to the real world.

In order to help address the challenge of aligning IT services with critical businessrequirements, we propose an implementation roadmap that focusses on people,process, and technology. After presenting CSFs for ITIL implementation, examiningtheir effect on the determinants of user’s willingness to adopt the governanceframework, and applying them to a case study, this paper proposes a comprehensiveroad map for a successful implementation and adoption of the ITIL framework. Figure 2depicts the proposed ITIL road map.

The steps are described below.

(1) Management and employee commitment: the first step in the ITILimplementation roadmap is the high commitment from both the managementteam and the employees. The management commitment will give importance tothe project, which will eventually help in getting employees commitment. It iswidely recognized that management commitment and support is essential forany major process improvement initiative. Without demonstrated commitmentand direct participation from the management, a process initiative or culturalchange is severely constrained and will most likely fail as shown in the casestudy. It is also wise to make several team members go through an accreditedITIL training program to champion the ITIL initiative. Employees will become

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more committed if they are directly involved and get noticed by the management.In addition, management commitment shall facilitate the implementation of ITILby providing the needed support like funding, resources, and required training.

(2) Consultant selection: the second step requires the organization to spendenough time and effort in selecting the appropriate consultancy company. Theconsultant is required to provide the needed expertise for a smooth ITILimplementation, therefore it is very important for the organization to select aconsulting firm with experience in ITIL training or implementation. Ideallyselect a consulting firm that has “ITIL masters” on board – a commondesignation for those individuals that have achieved ITIL Service ManagerCertification.

(3) Process identification and selection: next, the organization and the consultingcompany should work hand in hand to identify and select the main ITprocesses to be changed to adhere to ITIL standards. The true value of ITILcan only be realized when it is applied with a thorough understanding of thebusiness and a flexible set of tools for process implementation. In parallel tothat, the culture of the organization along with the roles of the people needsto be understood to prepare for a smooth change management process.

(4) Understand the current processes, functions and roles: ITIL by itselfrepresents very good process governance framework, however, it is not easy

Obtaining Management’sCommitment

Obtaining Employees’Commitment

Select a ConsultancyCompany

Process ldentification &selection

UnderstandingCurrent Processes

Processes&Functions

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Identifing the KeyCustomers, Collect and

analyze their requirements

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Re-design processes toadhere to ITIL standards

ITIL compliant Tool Selection& Customization

Transition Plan +Designing Training

Train the employee

Implementation of ITILProcess & technology

Evaluation + ContinuesImprovement

Understanding the social sub-system people, competencies,behavior, attitudes, beliefs, values

Figure 2.ITIL implementationroad map

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to implement ITIL. The key challenges often associated with ITIL are culturaland political resistance. Therefore, the next step that needs to be done is toproperly understand the cultural and political resistances that exist in thefirm. In terms of culture, ITIL attempts to drive people away from their habitsand routine work. This shift in culture can be a particular issue for manyorganizations where IT personnel in particular have worked independently orin silos. As for political, when processes are modified, responsibility, andauthority may shift to different groups or entities on the organizational chartcreating a further resistance from the employee. As such, it is important thatprocesses, definition of roles and responsibilities of every person involvedin ITIL implementation project are well defined and documented. A cleardefinition of accountability and responsibility is a CSF for any processimplementation project. Without this step, functional staffs are unclear as totheir roles and responsibilities within the new process and might revert backto how the activities were accomplished before.

(5) Identifying and understanding the key customers: once the processes havebeen clearly identified, understood, and defined, it is equally important for theorganization to put an emphasis on identifying and understanding the keycustomers – those that have been critical of the service. We can have all theprocedures and processes in place but until we know our customers we willnot know if the time and money spent on the project is a good investment.By listening to the customers, organization can gain valuable information todrive and support ITIL initiatives.

(6) Construct a project plan: then, a project management methodology should befollowed and a proper implementation plan following quick wins strategyshould be developed. A project plan will help the organization to answer thequestion, How do we get there? The most important thing in planning is tounderstand where you are now and develop a vision of where you want to beand how you want to get there. Organization can use customer surveys andITIL maturity assessments to objectively define gaps, develop a vision, whichis meaningful for the organization and which can be clearly articulated andcommunicated. In addition, the plan should also contain organization’s mostcritical problems, support model, communications, training and awareness,and an emphasis on a metric program to empirically map improvementsgoing forward.

(7) Redesign processes to adhere to ITIL standards: subsequently, the ITemployees will be involved in requirements gathering in an attempt to makecomprehensive ITIL re-engineered processes. ITIL consists of manyprocesses that are connected with each other and have many internaldependencies. Some of the processes have to be started before others can beinitiated. There is a strong need to follow process governance best practices toensure that running ITIL processes will realize IT organization’s goals andassigned resources will be used in and effective and efficient manner.

(8) ITIL tool selection: experience from the case study organization showed thatadopting ITIL is not an easy project. Indeed very few companies weresuccessful in adopting all ITIL processes (Hoerbst et al., 2011; Pollard, 2009;Pedersen et al., 2010; Shang and Lin, 2010). Like most organization, the case

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study organization is using only part of ITIL. One of the very often-mademistakes is investing in unnecessary tools. To further smooth theimplementation of ITIL processes, a proper tool should be selected from theproper vendor. ITIL in itself is not a product; it can be best regarded as a set ofbest practices built upon knowledge of doing specific IT processes as well ashow tools can automate and expedite these processes. It is important fororganization to avoid the trap of tools proliferation in support of ITILadoption. Most organizations need only three to five tools such as problem/incident management, change management, asset management/ConfigurationManagement Database (CMDB) with a business service management (BSM)solution being a key to integrating these tools (Marquis, 2006).

(9) Transition plan and designing training: next, the transition plan and trainingactivities should be designed to support change management and equip boththe culture and the employees’ skills for the new processes. This oftenrepresents a challenge for organizations as it is the critical point where ITleadership stakeholders begin to clearly recognize the extent of requiredchanges to the status quo, and the impact this may have on their sphere ofinfluence and reporting structure (Cater-Steel and Tan, 2005). Enough timeshould be given to the careful consideration of transition plans, goals, andtraining requirements to ensure qualified decisions are made in respect toprocess implementation and transition period. The transition and trainingplan will provide most of the knowledge transfer in the beginning phases ofthe project and then will work with the team on a periodic and decreasingbasis as the project matures in its lifecycle.

(10) Training the employees: the next step is to provide proper training to theemployees. ITIL training should be designed to ensure a common languageand understanding of best practice. ITIL project will fail if organizations donot have the right skills and the right experience in the right place. Trainingcan be used to communicate the new way to work. The goals of training are toinsure that roles and responsibilities are clearly understood, procedures arefollowed and policy adherence is understood to be a requirement as the ITorganization moves forward in a service management centered and processbased work culture.

(11) Implementation of ITIL process and technology: the next step is the actualITIL implementation. ITIL implementation project are dependent upon thescale, required customization, and degree of complexity of each organization.In some organizations several processes can be implemented concurrently,subject to the size of the overall IT operation, scope of the role selected foreach process, degree of integration with other IT processes, number ofprocesses to be implemented, quality and number of assigned staff, and speedof management decision making (Marquis, 2006).

(12) Evaluation and improvement: The final step is evaluation and improvement.As the ITIL project draws to an end, it is important to analyze how the projectwas managed and to identify lessons learned. This information can then beused to benefit the project team as well as the organization as a whole. At theend, the organization shall roll out the new processes incrementally withdetailed monitoring for proper observation and continuous improvement. It is

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critical for the firm to measure their progress, define measurable processimprovement criteria and measure them before and after the implementation.The evaluation process/review should also consider any additional benefitsachieved or unexpected problems that arose. Both of which can be used toimprove future business cases.In order for organization to ensure success in ITIL implementation, individualemployees must want it to succeed. And most individuals will only want it tosucceed if it decreases work, increases efficiency, decreases frustration, orimproves outcomes. ITIL adoption is a continual process; in order to gainfrom the improvement, we must continually check to make sure that whateverchanges we have made, will satisfy the basic needs and requirements ofcustomers and other stakeholders.

6. Discussion and implicationsIn this paper, ITIL synthesized CSFs were identified from a comprehensive literaturereview in an attempt to link them to technology adoption model, namely UTAUT.The proposed model advances the existing literature by improving the process of ITILimplementation and adoption. The model was verified by proper studying ofthe literature and applying it to a case study of a company that suffered fromimplementing ITIL. The case study not only confirmed the proposed CSFs but alsorevealed some challenges that the firm faced during ITIL implementation. We learnedmany valuable lessons from the case that can help other practitioners who areconsidering ITIL adoption. The most important lessons learned are:

. The importance of people in successful ITIL adoption: focus on what thecustomers/employees regard as most important. A strong emphasis on the needto adopt a service is crucial so that they will not view ITIL as unnecessary.

. ITIL is not always the answer: there can be many reasons for implementingsome or all of the ITIL processes but organization must be crystal clear on itsreasons in order to measure success and focus efforts on the real problem.

. Clear understanding of process definition: organizations should put enoughthought into their business processes and clearly differentiate between criticaland non-critical processes. The focus should be on “what to do”? ITIL projectsare costly, therefore, organizations need to be able to demonstrate up front how itwill fortify core business processes and make them more reliable.

The findings lead us to a proposal of a roadmap for ITIL implementation. Thesuggested roadmap provides guidance for organizations toward a successful ITILdeployment. The proposed model together with the roadmap will better equip thedecision makers to connect or map ITIL processes with business performance and tomake a better decision on “what” processes to implement, and “how” to implementthem. In conclusion, organization need to approach ITIL initiatives with a clearunderstanding of how the organization operates because ITIL implementation requiresmore skills than just ITIL knowledge. It involves every group and individual in theorganization and requires cultural change.

6.1 Implications for research and practiceToday, most organizations are completely reliant on IT such as e-mail, MicrosoftOffice application, enterprise systems, databases, and other basic IT infrastructure

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applications and services in order to do their business efficiently. If any of thesesystems go off-line, the productivity of the organization will be negatively impacted.ITIL, a cohesive set of best practices that focusses on service delivery, was developedspecifically to address these issues (ITIL Official web site, 2011; Cater-Steel, 2006;Kabachinski, 2011). However, as previously discussed in Section 2.1, along withbenefits, ITIL also faces several implementation challenges.

In practice, the findings presented in this paper can serve as a guideline for ITmanagers considering ITIL adoption. The CSFs presented can be used to increaseawareness of ITIL inside and outside the IT function, increased budget, and greatermanagement support to eliminate the barriers to ITIL adoption. Organizations couldbenefit significantly from the proposed model by applying the appropriate CSFsto the proper constructs, which will eventually result in a better ITIL adoption.In addition, organizations could also learn from the case study by avoiding themistakes and following the proposed best practices and roadmap. Additionally, forthose organizations considering the adoption and having doubts on how and where tostart, the proposed roadmap can be used as guidelines on what steps to be followed.IT managers and practitioners can use the proposed framework and roadmap to bettermanage internal change by focussing on preparation, benefits to affected personnel,and also user involvement. It is important to note to those new to ITIL that there is nourgent need to adopt every process specified in the ITIL books. As shown in the casestudy, in the real world, resources are limited and there will be a better return in someareas than in others.

6.2 Limitations and future researchAlthough our study showed meaningful findings, there are some limitations that needto be discussed. First, it is important to note that our study focussed on a practicalpoint of view and, therefore, there are no testable propositions derived. Second, thisresearch is targeted more toward practitioners such as the IT experts.

We could expand this research by proposing a theoretical framework and derivetestable propositions; therefore further studies need be conducted to understand theviews of the business in respect to the challenges and benefits of the ITILimplementation. It is also useful to understand how business-IT alignment is affectedby the ITIL implementation especially for those companies looking at ITIL with themotive to establish business processes that can be scalable to keep pace with fastgrowth. Another track could be to further enhance the practicality of the road map.This can be achieved by applying it to a real life scenario(s).

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About the authors

Dr Norita Ahmad is an Assistant Professor of Marketing, at the American University of Sharjahin the United Arab Emirates. She received her PhD in Decision Science Engineering Systemsfrom Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), and an MS and a BS in Telecommunications andNetwork Management and Computer Sciences, respectively, from Syracuse University. Herresearch interest includes decision analysis, database management systems, and knowledgemanagement. She has presented research internationally and published in a variety of scholarlyjournals such as International Journal of Information Technology & Decision Making, European

Business Review, Journal of Business Ethics, and VINE: The Journal of Information and

Knowledge Management Systems. Norita Ahmad is the corresponding author and can becontacted at: [email protected]

Noha Tarek Amer works as a Laboratory Teaching Assistant in the School of Business andManagement in the American University of Sharjah. She is also pursuing her doctorate degreeat the British University in Dubai. She received her Master of Science degree in EngineeringSystems Management and a Bachelor Degree in Computer Science from the American Universityof Sharjah (AUS). She was the Founder of the Engineering Systems Management Student Societyat AUS.

Faten Qutaifan is a Developer and a System Analyst at one of the top financial institutions inthe United Arab Emirates. She holds a BS in Computer Science from American University ofSharjah and currently finalizing her Master’s Degree in Engineering Systems Management fromAUS. Faten is an ambitious young women who believes that true wisdom is knowing that youknow nothing.

Azza Alhilali is an Electrical Engineer working in one of the biggest telecommunicationcompany in the United Arab Emirates. She holds a Master of Science in Engineering SystemsManagement from the American University of Sharjah. She believes and endeavors to follow theIslamic teaching that one should speak good or keep silent.

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