IT culture elements that influence individual readiness to change in healthcare organisations.

IT culture is a relatively novel concept that measures the values individuals attribute to IT. Extant literature fails to establish a relationship between IT-culture and individual IT readiness to change. We analyse the influence of IT culture on individual IT readiness to change and analyse the antecedents that influence IT-culture. Our work adds to the virtual onion model (Straub et al., 2002) by opening the black-box of professional culture, specifically IT-culture, which makes up one level of the virtual onion model. We conducted in-depth qualitative interviews with 18 employees from two healthcare companies. We sampled the interviewees theoretically from among three different departments: healthcare professionals, IT professionals and management. We found that IT-culture has a multi-faceted relation to individual IT readiness to change. Our model contributes to the theoretical models on acceptance and individuals' readiness to change by specifically identifying the specific aspects of IT culture that contribute to readiness to change during IT implementation and adoption in healthcare organisations. Our findings emphasise the need for an IT-culture assessment prior to implementing changes.