QUALITATIVE INVESTIGATION OF TAM
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implementation are aligned with existing research across other professional sectors, and the CES
is not considerably unique. However, there is one area that CES participants discussed frequently
throughout the research that may have influence on several critical success factors. Many CES
professionals shared significant challenges in employee resistance due to data centralization.
There appear to be concerns from CES professionals about sharing their contacts within a
centralized system. As mentioned in Chapter 1, the CES prides itself on the trust it can develop
with communities. CES professionals foster relationships with community members through
their programming, and it is possible that CES professionals may view the centralization of
contact data as a violation of that trust.
Organizational Performance
This study did not gain much ground on insights regarding the impact of CRM
technologies on organizational performance. Al-Weshah et al. (2018) highlighted four primary
dimensions of CRM on organizational performance, including system quality, information
quality, system usage, and user satisfaction. Al-Weshah et al. (2018) also found that individuals
had fairly different responses to defining what a CRM system is or does. Similarly, this research
did not find a unified definition for CRM, and responses varied mostly around CRM functions.
However, very few participants provided a holistic view regarding how CRM improves areas
such as system and information quality or system usage and user satisfaction. In the context of
the CES, CRM technologies are used for various reasons, including contact management, event
management, and email marketing. While there are success stories of CRM technologies
improving these specific areas of Extension efforts, these incidents appeared to be isolated based
on participant responses. One reason for this is that the implementation of CRM systems from
participant perspectives is relatively new, currently unfolding, or simply has not occurred yet.
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