Workarounds as generative mechanisms for bottom‐up process innovation—Insights from a multiple case study

Abstract

Workarounds are goal‐driven deviations from the standard operating procedures performed to overcome obstacles constraining day‐to‐day work. Despite starting as temporary fixes, they can become established across an organisation and trigger the innovation of processes and IT artefacts that can resolve misfits permanently. Although prior research has elicited antecedents and types of workarounds, it is not known how workarounds diffuse in an organisation and, thereby, innovating co‐workers' activities, IT artefacts, and organisational structures. The results of our multiple two‐year case study provide unique empirical insights into the diffusion of workarounds and how they can act as generative mechanisms for bottom‐up process innovation.

Workarounds and shadow IT – balancing innovation and risk

“…Among these were the much wider integration of text (in the form of notes on treatments and outcomes) and the role of nurses in particular as a source of innovation in not only driving application development but being aware of the implications on treatment outcomes. (Bartelheimer 2023) This contrasts with the situation in enterprise applications where there is little involvement in employeesupported development of systems and a sense that workarounds should not be tolerated. The enterprise focus is on conformance to corporate policies and especially on improving productivity.…”

“…Among these were the much wider integration of text (in the form of notes on treatments and outcomes) and the role of nurses in particular as a source of innovation in not only driving application development but being aware of the implications on treatment outcomes. (Bartelheimer 2023)…”

When workarounds aggravate misfits in the use of electronic health record systems

“…Some definitions even more directly legitimise workarounds by portraying them as performance-or goal-achievement-enhancing reactions to perceived work system misfits (e.g. Alter, 2014;Bartelheimer et al, 2023;Li et al, 2017). In these later conceptualisations, workarounds' inherent non-compliance with designed expectations has moved backstage.…”

“…Recently, there has been considerable attention given to the beneficial effects of non-compliant workaround behaviours (Bartelheimer et al, 2023;Beerepoot et al, 2019;Choudrie & Zamani, 2016;Davison et al, 2020Davison et al, , 2021Malaurent & Karanasios, 2020), and especially in the context of organisation-wide systems. In contrast, our analysis focused on the adverse effects that workarounds may sometimes have and set out to unravel when these occur.…”

Pickled eggs: GenerativeAIas research assistant or co‐author?

“…In the third paper, Bartelheimer et al (2023) explore the triggers, occurrences and consequences of workarounds for bottom‐up process innovation, drawing on data from a multiple case study. The authors investigate nine workarounds that were developed in three cases and find that when workarounds are observed by others, they may have consequences that reach far beyond their creators.…”