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

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

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

Increasing participation in the information society by people with disabilities and their families in lower-income countries using mainstream technologies

Assistive technology (AT) has been actively researched, developed and implemented throughout higher-income countries, but is relatively absent from lower-income countries. In lower-income countries, there is very little AT for reading, writing, communicating and for participation in the information society. In order for persons with disabilities in lower-income countries to participate fully in society, mainstream information and communication technologies (ICTs) such as mobile phones should be used as AT. This paper explores the potential for using mainstream ICTs as AT in lower-income countries, keeping in mind current ICT trends, characteristics of the post-PC era and ICT-based AT in higher-income countries. The paper concludes with a case study where mobile phones and SMS were used by people with disabilities and their caregivers to access information in a resourced-limited community in Bogota, Colombia. Mobile phones, a readily available mainstream ICT in this community, were a useful tool for addressing the information exclusion of people with disabilities and caregivers

Factors driving employee participation in corporate BYOD programs: A cross-national comparison from the perspective of future employees

As individuals all around the world increasingly use mobile devices in their daily life, their desire to use the same devices in the workplace continuously grows. In response, organizations are more and more allowing their employees to use their own devices for both business and private purposes and offer so called ‘Bring-your-own-Device’ (BYOD) programs. For organizations with global operations there is a need to examine the drivers of BYOD demand across different national cultures to assess how to develop a successful BYOD program. Based on recent literature on BYOD, we examine how different factors contribute to employees’ behavioural intention to participate in a BYOD program across different national cultures. The model was examined by surveying students from China, Germany and U.S. in their final term. The results show significant cross-cultural differences, particularly regarding the 'Perceived Threats'. Overall this study offers novel insights for cross cultural BYOD implementations

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

Mobility and Security in the New Way of Working: Employee Satisfaction in a Choose Your Own Device(CYOD) Environment

The consumerization of IT, known as Bring Your Own Device (BYOD), is an inevitable component in the future IT infrastructure of organizations. It is not the question if employees will use consumer IT products for their work, but how and under which conditions. The use of personalized mobile devices may be beneficial for both the employee and organization, but the concern of IT executives, on corporate data residing on uncontrolled mobile devices, is often leading to a restrictive policy. Giving employees the ability to choose from a variety of secure devices, at the expense of the organization, Choose Your Own Device (CYOD), may well bring the best of two worlds. In this research 126 employees at four multinational organizations were surveyed on their perception of usability and satisfaction of devices for their knowledge tasks. The outcomes were matched against a Risk Assessment on seven identified IT threats. The results show that a majority (52%) believes their performance would improve, when given the ability to choose a device of their own. The Risk Assessment shows that IT security risks do not need to increase, provided that the proper security policies are in place. This implies that the performance and satisfaction of employee can improve in a secure CYOD environment

Issues regarding IT Consumerization: How Mixed IT Portfolios of Private and Business IT Components Cause Unreliability

With increasing mobile work due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the usage and relevance of consumer IT for business purposes have substantially increased. In this light, an understudied area of IT consumerization, the adverse outcomes for employees using consumer IT for business purposes, is of major importance. We conduct a mixed-methods study to investigate the adverse outcomes of IT consumerization. We build on prior studies and end-user interviews to draw connections between IT consumerization and unreliability as one known technostressor. A quantitative survey of 162 full-time employees shows that IT consumerization is associated with increased unreliability. The users’ general computer self-efficacy, instead, decreases unreliability, and unreliability leads to various job-related and health-related outcomes. We show that unreliability is driven by users’ experience while trying to integrate private and business IT components for business purposes. We follow up on this observation through a qualitative analysis of open-ended survey questions to detail users’ experiences. Our findings emphasize the need to examine the negative outcomes of IT consumerization, despite its well-studied positive effects. We suggest that organizations should strive to integrate business and private IT as much as IT security constraints allow for reduced technostress

Technostress Research: A Nurturing Ground for Measurement Pluralism?

Because technostress research is multidisciplinary in nature and, therefore, benefits from insights gained from various research disciplines, we expected a high degree of measurement pluralism in technostress studies published in the information systems (IS) literature. However, because IS research mostly relies on self-report measures in general, reasons exist to also assume that technostress research has largely neglected multi-method research designs. To assess the status quo of technostress research with respect to the application of multi-method approaches, we analyzed 103 empirical studies. Specifically, we analyzed the types of data-collection methods used and the investigated components of the technostress process (person, environment, stressors, strains, and coping). The results indicate that multi-method research is more prevalent in the IS technostress literature (approximately 37% of reviewed studies) than in the general IS literature (approximately 20% as reported in previous reviews). However, our findings also show that IS technostress studies significantly rely on self-report measures. We argue that technostress research constitutes a nurturing ground for the application of multi-method approaches and multidisciplinary collaboration

A Problem Solving Approach to Enterprise FileVault 2 Management and Integration

Consumer technology adoption into large enterprise environments is occurring at an unprecedented rate. Employees require the flexibility and efficiency of using operating systems, computers, and mobility products they are familiar with and that enable their productivity. Due to this industry phenomenon, one large shipping enterprise must work to create solutions to integrate Apple’s OS X operating system into its traditional Windows-based operating environment. This level of integration must take place carefully to enable usability and foster the continued data security of enterprise assets. This paper describes the steps and methodology taken, as well as the rationale used, to accomplish the task of integrating Apple’s FileVault 2 full disk encryption technology into existing McAfee management infrastructure and traditional deployment and support workflows. Using a combination of industry and community solutions and techniques, a low-cost software solution named EscrowToEPO is created to facilitate the secure and user-friendly adoption of FileVault 2 as a full disk encryption solution. This paper also includes the success/failure rate of adoption and implications as to how the adoption of similar solutions can occur to support future operating systems or other environments