INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY ADOPTION AND INNOVATION IN MANUFACTURING COMPANIES IN RIVERS STATE

Abstract

Notwithstanding the popularity of Information Technology (IT), there is scanty literature between Information Technology (IT) Adoption and innovation within the manufacturing sector. This study investigated information technology (IT) adoption and innovation of manufacturing firms in Nigeria. Data was collected from 121 employees from seven manufacturing firms. Descriptive statistics (frequencies, percentages and charts), were generated with the aid of IBM SPSS version 27. Three hypotheses were tested using the Partial Least Squares- Structural Equation Modelling, with the aid of SmartPLS 3.2.6, while ordinal regression was used to ascertain the combined effect of the independent variables on the dependent variable. Results suggest that information technology infrastructure and technology alignment moderately amplify innovation, while employee learning had a weak impact. The study recommends that manufacturing firms should have a huge budget for purchasing information technology hardware/software, and also embrace modern IT applications, and should have technology or applications that supports improved products designed in compliance with certified manufacturing standard. Also, employees should quickly learn and adopt modern IT applications for their work. They should not see adopting to new IT applications as a challenge.