User response to mandatory IT use: a coping theory perspective

Abstract

The introduction of a new information technology (IT) into a workplace often engenders a wide range of responses among users. These responses encompass a variety of emotions, such as excitement, indifference, skepticism, and fear, and behaviors, such as user engagement, avoidance, and workarounds, that are often manifested concurrently in the same work environment. We present a taxonomy of these responses in the context of mandated IT use by classifying user responses as engaged, compliant, reluctant, or deviant. Using a coping theoretic lens, we offer seven propositions to describe the causal factors and processes that drive specific IT user responses and how such responses might change over time. A qualitative analysis of 47 interviews of 42 physicians at a large community hospital over an 8-year period provides support for our taxonomy and propositions. The study's key contributions are that it conceptualizes different types of user responses that may emerge in mandatory IT use settings, elaborates the key drivers of and processes underlying these diverse responses, and suggests how those behaviors may change over time with changes in the coping process.

Physiolytics at the workplace: Affordances and constraints of wearables use from an employee's perspective

“…These studies distinguish IS appraisals by whether users primarily perceive system opportunities or system threats and by whether or not a user sees viable coping options (Beaudry & Pinsonneault, 2005; Elie-Dit-Cosaque & Straub, 2011). This may enrich the current understanding of the conditions, under which users choose or modify IS responses (Bhattacherjee et al, 2017). Thus, our results motivate a fine granular perspective on user mental models for IS appraisal.…”

“…Thus, our results motivate a fine granular perspective on user mental models for IS appraisal. This may enrich the current understanding of the conditions, under which users choose or modify IS responses (Bhattacherjee et al, 2017). For example, the cynical and the individualist user type may both react negatively to physiolytics offerings, however for very different reasons.…”

“…The introduction of physiolytics may even lead to resistance if a user's system appraisal is biased towards the personal risks that physiolytics entails (Lapointe & Rivard, 2005). Therefore, managers of physiolytics initiatives in organizations, in order to achieve desired user responses, require a profound understanding of what determines user appraisal during system design (Bhattacherjee, Davis, Connolly, & Hikmet, 2017).…”

“…Since conventional approaches to analysing the appraisal of physiolytics systems prefer to differentiate users by deterministic variables, such as age, sex, or marital status (Koo, 2017), an analysis of users' mental models may help to distinguish differences in perceptions of affordances and constraints that explain heterogeneous IS responses (Henfridsson & Lindgren, 2010;Mettler, Sprenger, & Winter, 2017). Taken together, adopting an affordance theoretic view may contribute to the current knowledge on IS appraisal because it enriches the current understanding of the conditions, under which users choose or modify IS responses (Bhattacherjee et al, 2017).…”

Leaving the Shadow: A Configurational Approach to Explain Post-identification Outcomes of Shadow IT Systems

“…Replacement refers to a situation in which a shadow IT system is discontinued after identification with another system replacing it. In this situation, users switch from one system to another one (Bhattacherjee et al 2018;Polites and Karahanna 2012). As we are interested in outcomes after shadow IT identification, the former system is a shadow IT system and the latter system is possibly a new system operated by the official IT units.…”