User IT Adaptation Behaviors: What Have We Learned and Why Does it Matter?

We provide a review of the IT adaptation behaviors within IS research, addressing questions such as: what have we learned about this multifaceted phenomenon? who are contributors to the debate? and why does this topic matter? The article is intended to be insightful to faculty and students considering research on this emerging, intriguing yet complex topic of IT-related user adaptive behaviors. It is equally useful to instructors preparing lectures, managers and practitioners seeking to understand and assess the ‘state-of-the-play’ as well as those who want to think about strategic management and investments in human capital. In this article we focus on IT-related user adaptation behaviors, reviewing past studies and proposing integrating views. It is both informative and provocative. Challenges to the value of IT adaptation behaviors research, divergent views, and new perspectives on adaptive responses are presented. This article will spark helpful conversation on this topic

Investigating the link between users’ IT adaptation behaviours and individual-level IT use outcomes using the coping model of user adaptation: A Case study of a work system computerisation project

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel UniversityThe benefits of new IT-induced organisational changes, such as new organisational information systems (IS), depend on the degree that system users adapt by proactively changing themselves, their work routines, and even the technology itself in order to reap its strategic capabilities and advantages. However, researchers are increasingly concerned that IS research has provided very little indication about how IS users’ IT adaptive strategies are formed and evolved over time and how such adaptive behaviours employed by IS users influence subsequent IT use and individual-level performance outcomes. This thesis investigates in-depth the evolution of IT adaptation behaviours towards disruptive IT events in the case study of a Medical Clinic attached to one of Iran’s elite Oil and Gas industry companies. The case study investigated the individual coping behaviours of the employees of this Medical Centre as a consequence of the introduction of a mandatory Work System Computerisation (WSC) initiative. Work System Computerisation project refers to both the replacement of manual work processes with computers as well as modernisation of the existing out-dated computerised work systems in the medical centre under investigation. According to the case study, each of the seven sub-units of the Medical Centre implemented a different WSC scheme and the consequences of the introduction of the scheme resulted in differing outcomes among the employees of those sub-units, such outcomes being related to a complex interplay of the individuals’ coping behaviours, appraisals and emotional responses and the environment. The term ‘Disruptive IT event’ in this study refers to any enhanced or completely new information technology in different units within the medical centre (i.e. Work System Computerisation schemes) that replaced and disrupted existing work processes/practices and had resulted in disruptive and unpredictable changes to users’ daily routines. The theoretical lens used in this study is the Coping Model of User Adaptation (CMUA) elaborated by Coping Theory, which also underpins the model. CMUA provides a useful theoretical basis for deeper understanding of users’ adaptive responses to a new work information system (IS) as well as direct analysis of the impact of such adaptive responses on system usage. The other theoretical concept used, which addresses issues not readily covered by the CMUA, was a typology of adaptive behaviours from Roth and Cohen (1986): avoidance vs. approach. This allows for further clarification of how different types of individual-level adaptation acts evolve over time and affect individual-level IT use outcomes. Furthermore, how these various adaptive acts enhance or hinder the extent to which the new IT is used can also be explained. The research questions guiding this thesis are as follows: (1) How do IS users’ adaptation tactics and strategies evolve over time when dealing with a disruptive IT event? (2) How do alterations in users’ coping strategies subsequently influence their IT use outcomes and overall performance? The study’s methodological approaches and underlying philosophical assumptions followed an interpretive research approach. A broadly interpretive approach was adopted in this study with the aim of understanding the complexity of human sense making and their IT adaptation behaviours as the situation emerges. The research was carried out in one state of Iran, Mashhad, and took place during the period of 2011-2012. The findings of this thesis have both theoretical and managerial implications. From a theoretical perspective, this study expands on the work of Beaudry and Pinsonneault (2005) who suggested that the process of user adaptation could be understood in light of coping theory. The results of this study and the additional identified perspectives and enhancements which are represented in the following ways could help to advance the field of user IT adaptation behaviours in IS research. This study contributes to the existing IT adaptation literature by providing rich insights into the phenomenon of user IT adaptation behaviours within the context of Iran. Adopting an interpretive approach through a longitudinal process-oriented perspective has provided a greater understanding of the patterns of user adaptation to IS, users’ psychological constructs, initial patterns of their coping strategies, the alterations in such coping efforts over time, and the consequences of these evolutions on IT use outcomes in different divisions within a healthcare environment. The appraisal of ‘challenge’ is an influential contributor to the users’ subsequent adaptation process that CMUA is mute about it. The findings indicate that since the challenge appraisal represents a ‘positive stress’, some levels of challenge are useful to mobilise IS users towards IT adoption and use. The correlated concerns identified in the research (i.e. a web of complex personal, social and technical concerns) play a vital role on users’ adaptation processes following the IT implementation and over time. This highlights the importance of feedback loop in the adaptation process (which represents users’ revaluation process), and how the direct and indirect impacts of such interventions affect users’ reassessments of the IT event and their subsequent efforts and outcomes. The concept of emotion that is missing from CMUA is influential especially where non-IT savvy users’ behaviours toward significant IT events may be influenced by extreme emotions. Outcomes of this study highlight the theoretical importance of preserving the distinction between approach-, and avoidance-oriented emotion-focused behaviours in exploring how emotion-focused behaviours may influence behavioural outcomes such as system usage. The consideration of parallel processes for users’ IS appraisal is another area of theoretical expansion. The findings also suggest implications for practice as well as directions for future research. Understanding how employees’ IS appraisals considerably affect coping efforts and ultimately their technology performance outcome is critical for successful IT implementations and use in work settings. The results could assist decision makers in assessing user adaptation concerns and the intensity of such apprehensions at each phase of the change process and hence address them more effectively

Digital service problems: Prevention and user persistence in solving them

The service sector is an important and consistently growing sector of the world economy. It is estimated that the sector will make up two thirds of the total world Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Information Technology (IT) has been an important contributor to the fast and high grow of the sector by increasingly digitising the production, delivery and use of services. IT has enabled multiple parties, including user support service staff, employees (internal IT users) and customers (external IT users) of an organisation, to engage in the production, delivery and use of digital services. Consequently, both users and user support service staff of the organisations have an increased responsibility to both prevent IT problems from occurring, and solve them when they do occur. Problems with ITs can occur at different stages of a digital service value chain (i.e. sequential steps/stages required to produce and deliver a digital service), and may lead to a service failure in the user’s mind. Examples include problems with a self-check-out machine at a library, problems with an online registration system that occurs for university students, or a website that does not include an online payment functionality a user expects. Numerous studies in both Information Systems (IS) and service literature have focused on the role of the service staff in both preventing and solving digital service failures, but few have considered the user’s role in these. This thesis includes four original articles. The first article emphasises that prevention from digital service failures must be considered before establishing effective approaches to solving the problems. The article presents a typology of technologies and technological approaches that customers and businesses can use to support prevention from these failures. The rest of the articles consider situations where an IT-related service problem has occurred, and address the user’s behaviour of persistence in solving their own IT problem. From the user’s perspective, their persistence in solving the problem contributes to achieving a satisfactory outcome, and from the organisational perspective, such an outcome is important for maintaining their user satisfaction. User persistence is important both when trying to solve an IT problem alone, and when using support services. Studying user persistence can help organisations to design their user support services in a way that encourages user persistence, resolves the problems more efficiently and cheaply; and maintains their user satisfaction. The study of user persistence included the use of focus groups for data collection purposes. Surprisingly, qualitative methodology literature has little to say on analytical approaches to focus group data – particularly interactive participant data. Therefore, a focus group analysis framework was designed (presented in the second article) and was used in the analysis phase of the user persistence study. The third article uses the framework in its analysis phase, and (a) presents a conceptual clarification of user persistence in IT problem solving, (b) identifies the factors that contribute to user persistence, (c) develops a theory to explain that why a user decides to persist with a method of solving IT problems, and (d) develops a theory to explain that why the user decides to persist with the overall process (collective methods) of solving the problem. The fourth article presents the results of evaluating the robustness of the two theories and shows that the two theories are confirmed. The thesis concludes with the ‘contributions and conclusion’ chapter where it presents a summary of the contributions of the four articles to IS theory, methodology and practice