Perceived usefulness of podcasting in organizational learning: The role of information characteristics

Podcasting has been used widely to support individuals’ learning activities. However, most of the research focuses its use in formal educational contexts. Little attention has been paid to the use of podcasting in organizational settings to support employees’ learning activities. To address this gap, this research investigates employees’ perceived usefulness (PU) of podcasting to facilitate their learning activities within organizational settings. Using a global company as the case study, the data collected through semi-structured interviews were analyzed using qualitative techniques. The study finds that the characteristics of the information delivered by the podcasts (i.e., information overload, information privacy, and information relevance) play an important role in shaping employees’ PU to adopt podcasting for learning. Excitement toward the technology and tenure are also found to have an impact. In fact, contrary to prior findings, which showed the importance of emotions occurring during the use of technologies, towards their ultimate adoption, this study finds that emotions (excitement in our case) in anticipation of podcasting implementation plays a significant role in individual's PU towards adoption. Further, we develop a set of propositions to discuss the relationships between these factors and the PU of podcasting in organizational settings. Practical and theoretical implications are discussed.