The Role of Workarounds in Benefits Realisation: Evidence from a Field Study in Saudi Arabia

Recent studies show that more than half of Saudi Arabian (SA) organisations fail to realise business benefits from their IS investments. This has been largely attributed to the contextual misalignment between information technologies and the needs of developing countries. In the IS literature on benefits realisation, the application of benefits dependency networks (BDN), have been established as being helpful in improving IS projects outcomes. This research investigates current IT development practice in SMEs in Saudi Arabia and reports on some of the challenges that these businesses need to overcome to achieve benefits from their IT investments. Evidence from the literature and a field study suggests that workarounds are widely used when implementing new IT, particularly to facilitate the continuation of embedded cultural practices. The paper argues that integrating the Theory of Workarounds into frameworks for benefits realisation would offer a useful conceptualisation of IT implementation practice to support businesses in developing countries such as Saudi Arabia to improve outcomes when investing in IT

Mechanisms of technology affordance actualization: critical realist case studies of information systems in Saudi Arabian SMEs

Affordance actualization (AA) is a process through which organizations realize their IT potentials. The extant IS literature on affordances has mainly focused on theorizing the existence and perception of affordances; the actualization process remains understudied and undertheorized. To address this gap, this research investigates the process of affordance actualization and unpacks the mechanisms that explain how and why affordance actualization has evolved in the small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) context.Critical realist philosophical assumptions were adopted to identify and analyse the causal paths through which technology affordances are successfully realized. Three case studies were carried out in Saudi Arabian SMEs through two phases: exploratory and explanatory. The data collection methods comprised semi-structured interviews, participant observation, and a review of organizational documentation. Findings from the case studies were used to develop a mechanism-based explanation of the affordance actualization process to address the question: ‘How does affordance actualization occur in SMEs?’The theory of affordance actualization and the theory of workarounds were integrated to account for various actualization actions and outcomes. Three types of actualization actions were identified: planned actions; workarounds; and assessments and alterations. The actualization actions, enacted at the individual level, collectively contribute to produce actualization outcomes at the organizational level. These outcomes correspond to the actualization actions and broadly involve enabling organizational changes and goals.This research contributes to the IS literature on affordances in two ways. First, the research develops a SME-specific AA process that demonstrates the two-level dynamics of actualization actions and outcomes. Second, the research identifies four sets of contextual conditions that contingently determine the outcomes of the affordance actualization process for SMEs. These conditions are classified according to their influence on AA process, including: restraining conditions; enabling conditions; stimulating conditions; and releasing conditions. The findings from this research also provide practical implications for SME managers and practitioners to succeed in actualizing technology affordances through improving affordance potency and locality and reducing affordance dependency.</div

Exploring Institutionalization of Workarounds: The Case of ERP Implementation in Saudi Arabian SMEs

˜Workarounds™ have been defined in Information Systems research as improvisations that are devised locally to overcome the misfits between new Information technology (IT) and the organizational context. The literature mostly treats workarounds as static