What Influences Technological Individualization? – An Analysis of Antecedents to IT Consumerization Behavior

IT consumerization refers to the adoption of consumer IT in the workplace and is regarded as one of the major future IT trends. However, little is yet understood with respects to the antecedents of the trend on an individual level, i.e. the IT consumerization behavior of individuals. We attempt to close this research gap by means of a quantitative analysis. First, we conceptualize IT consumerization and draw clear boundaries to existing concepts in the context of individual information systems. We then set out to derive possible antecedents from literature and quantitatively test their impact on IT consumerization intention. We are able to show that expected performance improvement as well as consumerization behavior of coworkers have a high significant impact, while personal innovativeness in IT does not significantly influence the intention to user technologies other than the ones provided by the enterprise

CONSUMERIZATION OF IT – WHERE IS THE THEORY?

Consumerization of IT (CoIT) is a key trend affecting society at large, including organizations of all kinds. A consensus about the defining aspects of CoIT has not yet been reached. Some refer to CoIT as employees bringing their own devices and technologies to work, while others highlight different aspects. While the debate about the nature and consequences of CoIT is still ongoing, many definitions have already been proposed. In this paper, we review these definitions and what is known about CoIT thus far. To guide future empirical research in this emerging area, we also review several established theories that have not yet been applied to CoIT but in our opinion have the potential to shed a deeper understanding on CoIT and its consequences. We discuss which elements of the reviewed theories are particularly relevant for understanding CoIT and thereby provide targeted guidance for future empirical research employing these theories. Overall, our paper may provide a useful starting point for addressing the lack of theorization in the emerging CoIT literature stream and stimulate discussion about theorizing CoIT

Are Employees Following the Rules? On the Effectiveness of IT Consumerization Policies

In most organizations, employees commonly use mobile technologies including smartphones and tablets to complete their tasks. Therefore, many organizations have started to implement policies that govern the use of mobile devices such as Bring-Your-Own-Device (BYOD) policies, that allow employees to use private devices for work-related purposes, or Company Owned PrivatelyEnabled (COPE) policies, which allow the use of organizational technologies for private purposes. Despite its relevance, there is only little empirical research that provides evidence on the effectiveness of specific policies, i.e., policies in favor of BYOD/COPE, policies that prohibit it, and no implemented policies. Based on survey data (N = 381), we provide initial insights in terms of the effectiveness of these policies. Our results indicate that policies indeed influence the degree of technology use. Policies in favor of BYOD/COPE are particularly effective. We conclude this paper by discussing our findings and derive several implications for theory and practice

Conceptualizing Individualization in Information Systems – A Literature Review

Driven by advances in information and communication technology, end users nowadays operate extensive information systems to support all kinds of private and professional activities. Previous IS research has coined various terms to refer to this rather new phenomenon. Some scholars call it individualization in IS; others refer to it as consumerization of IT. While scholars still struggle to agree on a common conceptualization and terminology, it is clear that particular aspects of this new phenomenon have already been addressed by previous work on technology acceptance, satisfaction, or technology diffusion. However, these previous findings do not form a distinct and integrated body of knowledge because no one has yet associated them with the phenomenon of individualization. To address this gap, we suggest an integrated, yet generic, conceptualization of individualization in form of a meta-theory. Based on the key entities and relations of the meta-theory, we conduct a structured literature review to identify pre-existing IS contributions to the individualization phenomenon, which help explain the phenomenon of individualization in IS. Furthermore, we analyze the identified literature for gaps in understanding the phenomenon and outline future research opportunities

Does the Ability to Choose Matter? On the Relationship between Bring-your-own Behavior and IT Satisfaction

Employees increasingly complete organizational tasks using privately owned consumer technologies such as private devices (e.g., smartphones) or private Internet accounts (e.g., email accounts). Higher satisfaction constitutes a major reason for this bring-your-own behavior (BYOB). However, little research has theoretically explored and empirically tested this assumption. This study sheds light on this phenomenon by analyzing the effect of BYOB on IT satisfaction. Drawing from social cognitive theory, we propose choice self-efficacy as a new construct that intermediates the relationship between BYOB and IT satisfaction. Building on results from survey data (n = 400), we provide new evidence that BYOB has a positive effect on IT satisfaction whereby choice self-efficacy plays a vital element as it mediates this relationship. Since IT satisfaction shapes how people use technology and how they perform with it, we derive important implications for future research on IT consumerization. Furthermore, we provide several conclusions for practitioners and discuss how to enhance IT satisfaction and choice self-efficacy

BYOD IMPLEMENTATION: UNDERSTANDING ORGANIZATIONAL PERFORMANCE THROUGH A GIFT PERSPECTIVE

BYOD, which allows employees to bring their own mobile devices to work and connect into the corporation network, has been increasingly implemented by numerous organizations and corporations. Companies expect to save cost as well as increase productivity and employees’ morale through BYOD implementation. Hence, it is critical for companies to understand how BYOD affects organizational performance. Addressing on gift economy and cognitive evaluation theory, this study indicates the gift nature of BYOD and builds up a cross-level research framework which indicates two aspects of BYOD - informational aspect and controlling aspect. When informational aspect is perceived by employees, they will return positive outcomes, thereafter increase productivity and morale. In contrast to controlling aspect, negative outcomes will be returned and then decrease productivity and morale. A two-step mixed method approach will be conducted to test proposed research framework

Unraveling the Effect of Personal Innovativeness on Bring-Your-Own-Device (BYOD) Intention - The Role of Perceptions Towards Enterprise-Provided and Privately-Owned Technologies

Consumerization of information technology (IT) refers to consumer technologies finding their way into enterprises. In this context, bring-your-own-device (BYOD) describes the phenomenon of privately-owned mobile devices being brought into organizations. While research on the general topic is scarce, initial studies have identified personal innovativeness in IT as one important driver for this behavior. However, the reasons why innovative people are more likely to use their privately-owned devices for work remain largely undiscovered. This study argues that technology acceptance factors with respect to both the enterprise-provided as well as the privately-owned mobile devices are important mediators. Moreover, a model using perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use as mediators is derived. The model’s underlying hypotheses are then tested using data from a quantitative survey in Germany. The results show that beliefs towards the ease of use of both the enterprise-provided as well as the privately owned mobile IT mediate the relationship between personal innovativeness in IT and BYOD intention. The findings are discussed with respect to implications for theory and practice and an outlook is given on potential future research

Toward an Ontology of Workarounds: A Literature Review on Existing Concepts

While workarounds are studied frequently in information systems research, a coherent and interrelated structure to organize the knowledge of the field is still missing. In this study, we provide a first step towards an ontology of workarounds in order to enable researchers to study the relationships among the core concepts. By identifying existing literature, we discover three gaps in workaround research: (1) lack of conceptual consensus, (2) fragmentation and (3) static perspective. To advance theory, we provide an overview of different types of workarounds that are frequently used in literature. Based on these findings we derive core concepts of workarounds that are used in literature and provide an ontology of workarounds

ON THE EMERGENCE OF SHADOW IT - A TRANSACTION COST-BASED APPROACH

Information Technology (IT) used for business processes is not only provided by the organization´s IT department. Business departments and users autonomously implement IT solutions, which are not embedded in the organizational IT service management. This increasingly occurring phenomenon is called Shadow IT. The various opportunities and risks of Shadow IT challenge organizations and call for approaches to manage the phenomenon. An initial point to achieve measurable indications for the management is to explain why Shadow IT emerges. Therefore, this paper explores the business decision to implement Shadow IT. Based on existing research we derive that Shadow IT is created after a make-or-buy decision, which is substantiated in the Transaction Cost Theory. We deploy a triangulation approach using the methods expert interviews and multiple-case study to investigate Shadow IT emergence. Our findings identify prohibitive transaction costs in the exchange relation between business and IT departments, influnced by misalignment, as the main explanation. We conclude that the principles of Transaction Cost Theory may be applied to develop governance structures for managing Shadow IT. This strengthens the link between IT Governance and Business IT Alignment and expands the understanding of business integration within the IT domains of an organization

The Effect of Private IT Use on Work Performance - Towards an IT Consumerization Theory

IT consumerization – defined as the use of privately-owned IT resources for business purposes – is steadily growing, thus creating new challenges for enterprises. While numerous practitioner studies suggest a positive effect of this trend on employee work performance, IS research still lacks a systematic understanding of the forces underlying this relationship. In order to close this research gap, we derive three major effects of IT consumerization on employees: 1) an increased workload 2) an elevated autonomy and 3) a higher level of competence. Drawing on cognitive stress model and self-determination theory, we develop an innovative theoretical model of the relationships between IT consumerization and work performance. We then conduct an embedded single-case study, in order to evaluate the constructs and relationships of our structural model by means of qualitative research. Subsequently, the implications for theorizing and practicing IT consumerization are discussed and suggestions on further developing this study are presented