Not All That Glitters Is Gold! The Brokerage Role of Consulting Companies in Disseminating Information to Overcome the Barriers to Metaverse Adoption

The last few years have seen a reemergence in the awareness of virtual worlds among practitioners and academics. Driven by tech giants' investments, the Metaverse is considered by some as an unprecedented revolutionary technology with the potential to unlock an entire gamut of new unexplored opportunities for both companies and individuals. Others instead talk of “Metaverse dream fallacy” for search traffic for the word Metaverse has collapsed by roughly 80% over the past year and some companies have discontinued their Metaverse projects. In such a puzzled situation, managers are left without solid advice on the Metaverse concrete adoption and adoption speed. This article explores the brokerage role of top consulting companies in disseminating information that makes managers aware of Metaverse concrete adoption and of its adoption speed. Based on an AI- supported thematic analysis of 199 documents on Metaverse published by world's top consulting companies in the 2 years 2021–2023, we identify four key barriers to Metaverse adoption and categorize them into an enriched four- legged TOE (i.e., technological, or ganizational, environmental, and human barriers) framework. In the process, we unveil a suite of managerially relevant aspects emerging from tapping into the Metaverse adoption process.