Study on GenAI Adoption for Telecommunication and General Management

Abstract

The rapid proliferation of Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) across digital industries has intensified pressure on telecommunications organizations to adopt, govern, and strategically integrate these technologies. Yet adoption in the Indian telecom sector remains fragmented and sub-optimal, constrained not solely by technical infrastructure deficits but more fundamentally by how organizational leaders and managers perceive the technology's value, reliability, governance adequacy, and strategic relevance. This study investigates the organizational perception dimensions that shape GenAI adoption in Indian telecom organizations and examines how these dimensions influence adoption behavior and practical use. A sequential explanatory mixed-method design was employed, combining Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) of questionnaire data from 215 Indian telecom professionals with NVivo-assisted qualitative thematic analysis of eleven semi-structured interviews. EFA identified five empirically distinct perception factors: Perceived Performance and Operational Value (α = 0.892; EV = 7.12); Technological Capability and Readiness (α = 0.861); Trust, Reliability, and Risk Perception (α = 0.834); Governance and Regulatory Awareness (α = 0.801); and Strategic Alignment and Innovation Orientation (α = 0.847), collectively explaining 68.72 percent of total variance (KMO = 0.901; Bartlett's p < 0.001). NVivo analysis generated six coherent themes that confirm how these perceptual dimensions manifest as adoption behavior patterns, revealing that trust operates as a deployment scope regulator rather than merely an adoption intent predictor, governance gaps function as structural barriers requiring policy-level intervention, and strategic alignment differentiates adoption leaders from laggards across the Indian telecom sector. Integrating both phases of analysis, the study develops a six-component, ten-step adoption framework with dual applicability for Indian telecommunications policymakers and organizational practitioners. The study extends classical technology adoption models including TAM, UTAUT, and the TOE framework by empirically grounding governance awareness and strategic alignment as independent perception dimensions, and contributes the first mixed-method, sector-specific GenAI adoption study in Indian telecommunications.
Telecommunications, Exploratory Factor Analysis, NVivo Thematic Analysis, AI Governance, Strategic Alignment Keywords - Generative AI, Technology Adoption, Organizational Perception, Indian