The Office at Home: Information Technology and Work-Life Balance among Women in Developing Countries

The use of information technology (IT) has increased in developing countries, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic era, since many have been forced to stay indoors to stop the spread of the virus. IT use means the acquisition and use of smart devices and Apps that make work and communication from home efficient. Women in developing countries who also have to work from home have challenges of acquiring IT. They must solely care for the family as it is the norm. This potentially increases burnout. This study, therefore, seeks to understand how women in developing countries appropriate IT for work-life balance during COVID-19. This study employs qualitative autoethnography methodology and theoretical lens of technology appropriation to recount how female academics appropriate IT in Ghana during the COVID-19 pandemic. We present an analysis and discussion of the empirical finding through the three levels of the technology appropriation process that support Work-Life balance

IN DEFENCE OF SUBJECTIVITY. AUTOETHNOGRAPHY AND STUDYING TECHNOLOGY NON-USE.

Despite calls for the use of reflexive methods in Information Systems, few notable autoethnograph-ic works have made an impact in the field. This paper acknowledges the increase of interest in top-ics related to technology non-use and offers autoethnography as a possible solution to methodo-logical challenges in studying absence of technology. As autoethnography allows the researchers to experience the effects of technology absence first hand, evocative accounts emerge making visi-ble practices and phenomena that were not apparent before, or bringing into question assumed behaviours. The paper uses a vignette from an autoethnographic study to illustrate the type of da-ta that can emerge, followed by a discussion on the validity and legitimacy of the method, as well as concrete possible steps researchers can take in planning autoethnographic work. Furthermore, an argument is presented in defence of subjectivity as way of interrogating topics in which trust-worthiness and authenticity are of utmost value. Finally, the merits of autoethnography are pre-sented to the community of Information Systems researchers who are interested in investigating technology adoption as well as non-adoption through qualitative methods

An Autoethnographic Account of Innovation at the US Department of Veterans Affairs

The history of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) health information technology (HIT) has been characterized by both enormous successes and catastrophic failures. While the VA was once hailed as the way to the future of twenty-first-century health care, many programs have been mismanaged, delayed, or flawed, resulting in the waste of hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars. Since 2015 the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) has designated HIT at the VA as being susceptible to waste, fraud, and mismanagement. The timely central research question I ask in this study is, can healthcare IT at the VA be healed? To address this question, I investigate a HIT case study at the VA Center of Innovation (VACI), originally designed to be the flagship initiative of the open government transformation at the VA. The Open Source Electronic Health Record Alliance (OSEHRA) was designed to promote the open innovation ecosystem public-private-academic partnership. Based on my fifteen years of experience at the VA, I use an autoethnographic methodology to make a significant value-added contribution to understanding and modeling the VA’s approach to innovation. I use several theoretical information system framework models including People, Process, and Technology (PPT), Technology, Organization and Environment (TOE), and Technology Adaptive Model (TAM) and propose a new adaptive theory to understand the inability of VA HIT to innovate. From the perspective of people and culture, I study retaliation against whistleblowers, organization behavioral integrity, and lack of transparency in communications. I examine the VA processes, including the different software development methodologies used, the development and operations process (DevOps) of an open-source application developed at VACI, the Radiology Protocol Tool Recorder (RAPTOR), a Veterans Health Information Systems and Technology Architecture (VistA) radiology workflow module. I find that the VA has chosen to migrate away from inhouse application software and buy commercial software. The impact of these People, Process, and Technology findings are representative of larger systemic failings and are appropriate examples to illustrate systemic issues associated with IT innovation at the VA. This autoethnographic account builds on first-hand project experience and literature-based insights