The adoption of retail self-service checkout systems - An empirical study examining the link between intention to use and actual use

Self-service technologies (SSTs) are becoming increasingly essential drivers of business success. A large-scale utilization tends to be a prerequisite for a successful information technology (IT) investment. This study investigates the determinants of technology adoption in the case of self-service checkouts (SCOs) in Finnish grocery stores. The objectives are to confirm the determinants of intention to use SCOs, examine the link between behavioral intention to use and actual use, and study how a contextual variable may act as a trigger that turns the intention into actual use. In addition, the influence of some relevant control variables is taken under scrutiny. The study builds itself on the technology acceptance theory (Davis, 1989) by formulating a research model to explain the acceptance of SCOs. The core TAM model is extended by adding some context-specific variables based on the current research setting and previous literature on technology adoption. Method of research is a large-scale empirical study in the form of a consumer survey. Nine research hypotheses are formulated and tested with a sample of 1534 survey responses collected with a longitudinal study. Collected data is analyzed using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) technique Mplus 6.1. The research hypotheses are supported and the link between intention to use and actual use is confirmed. Findings suggest that the contextual variable, perceived waiting time, strongly moderates the relationship between intention to use and actual use. While a consumer may have a high intention to use the technology, it is less likely to turn into actual use without a contextual trigger. Thus, such activation mechanisms should generally be taken into account when investing in technology. In addition, preference of cash payment option was negatively related to intention to use SCOs, which might be caused by the lack of cash payment option in the SCO systems used in the sites of this study. Prior experience of SCO usage has a significant effect on its adoption, so to maximize utilization retailers should find ways to get consumers to trial SCO systems for the first time

A Domino Effect: Interdependencies among Different Types of Technical Debt

The paper examines the accrual of technical debt, which represents an increasingly pressing concern for many organizations. To advance understanding of how this debt-accumulation process unfolds, an in-depth case study was conducted with a large manufacturing firm for identifying particular types of technical debt and potential interdependencies among them. The findings point to architecture debt being "the root of all evil" at the case company, setting in motion dynamics that led to the development of other types of technical debt. Scholarship should benefit from this nuanced articulation and illustration of interdependencies across the various types of technical debt

Robotic Process Automation from the Design-Capital Perspective – Effects on Technical Debt and Digital Options

Robotic process automation (RPA) is an instantiation of lightweight automation that allows organizations to automate manual business processes quickly and at low cost without modifying the organization’s underlying deep information-systems structures. While RPA endows organizations with digital options (e.g., automation ability, cost savings), its implementation is bound to incur technical debt (i.e., accumulate unwarranted complexity in the IT architecture). The paper reports on an action research study shedding light on how RPA ties in with these two notions of a firm’s design capital: digital options and technical debt. Findings indicate that RPA can create digital options through improvements in knowledge reach, knowledge richness, and process richness. These benefits come at the cost of accumulating technical debt which stems from additional technical complexity and maintenance obligations

BUILDING AND SUSTAINING COMMUNITIES IN ONLINE LABOUR PLATFORMS

Online labour platforms enable the trading of services by connecting buyers who need services with providers willing to deliver those services. One crucial element to a platform’s survival and success lies in creating and fostering a thriving community of users – otherwise, the platform is likely to perish. However, we know very little about how such communities can be built. Extant studies have overlooked different stakeholder groups’ roles in community building and how primarily online platforms utilize offline activities. In this paper, we study the community-building efforts of six online labour platforms that have succeeded to thrive longer than an average platform. Beyond the traditional stakeholder roles of providing a marketplace (platform), delivering services (providers) and purchasing services (buyers), we find novel unique and shared roles that foster a well-functioning community. We identify five levers of community building: facilitating trade, encouraging community participation, involving users, empowering providers, and empowering buyers

How to Check Out? An Empirical Exploration of Customers’ Different Cognitive Processes in Retailing Context

Self-checkouts (SCOs) have become an integral part of many retail servicescapes. While SCOs have the potential to improve service while simultaneously cutting operations costs, achieving satisfactory utilization rates for them can be challenging. As these systems come with high investment costs, it is important for managers to understand how customers choose between traditional service and self-service technology. To understand this choice better, we study the cognitive processes consumers use in their decision-making through the lens of dual-systems theories. We conduct an exploratory field study where we observe and interview customers checking out from retail stores. We discover four distinct customer types regarding the extent of reflexive (automatic) and reflective (deliberate) processing they use in their checkout selection: habitual traditional checkout users, habitual SCO users, situational users, and drifting users. Moreover, we find that the processing styles are highly related to the different stages of technology acceptance

Sociotechnical Envelopment of Artificial Intelligence: An Approach to Organizational Deployment of Inscrutable Artificial Intelligence Systems

The paper presents an approach for implementing inscrutable (i.e., nonexplainable) artificial intelligence (AI) such as neural networks in an accountable and safe manner in organizational settings. Drawing on an exploratory case study and the recently proposed concept of envelopment, it describes a case of an organization successfully “enveloping” its AI solutions to balance the performance benefits of flexible AI models with the risks that inscrutable models can entail. The authors present several envelopment methods—establishing clear boundaries within which the AI is to interact with its surroundings, choosing and curating the training data well, and appropriately managing input and output sources—alongside their influence on the choice of AI models within the organization. This work makes two key contributions: It introduces the concept of sociotechnical envelopment by demonstrating the ways in which an organization’s successful AI envelopment depends on the interaction of social and technical factors, thus extending the literature’s focus beyond mere technical issues. Secondly, the empirical examples illustrate how operationalizing a sociotechnical envelopment enables an organization to manage the trade-off between low explainability and high performance presented by inscrutable models. These contributions pave the way for more responsible, accountable AI implementations in organizations, whereby humans can gain better control of even inscrutable machine-learning models

Caught in between: how an organization became a prisoner of its legacy system after is change

Replacing a legacy system is a complex information system (IS) change project and represents severe economic and operational risks for an organization. Due to this, legacy systems are hard to get rid of and thus they sometimes continue to live alongside their intended replacement systems, forming complex IS architectures. To understand how this happens, I conducted an in-depth case study of a factory that failed to kill its legacy system despite executing two massive IS implementations. Interviews with key stakeholders reveal that the factory has gotten caught in between old and new system architectures. Leveraging the punctuated socio-technical information system change (PSIC) model as a theoretical sensitizing device, I provide a process explanation for this outcome. Moreover, I propose extensions to the PSIC model to better capture the nuances of complex IS change. My findings help managers to make more informed decisions when engaging into complex IS change projects

Tietojärjestelmien alasajot ja niiden seuraukset organisaatioissa

Information systems (IS) and information technology (IT) are increasingly permeating today's organizations. However, the rapid emergence of new technologies along with organizations' changing strategic needs make retiring of incumbent systems a phenomenon with growing relevance. As old systems deteriorate or become obsolete, they need to be replaced with new ones. Then again, sometimes even current systems end up getting abandoned, due various reasons that can relate to strategy or operations, for instance. Despite the prevalence of such discontinuance decisions in many organizations, previous research has given scant attention to the topic. Whereas a handful of existing studies have shed some light on the antecedents of organizational IS discontinuance, the underlying mechanics of those decisions and the resulting outcomes remain poorly understood. The objective of this dissertation is to improve the understanding of organizational IS use discontinuance, specifically investigating the conceptual dimensions of the phenomenon, analyzing the processes of IS discontinuance, and probing its consequences. To this end, I focus on three research questions: 1) What does IS discontinuance mean?; 2) How do organizational IS discontinuance processes unfold?; and 3) What are the outcomes of organizational IS discontinuance decisions? I address these questions in four standalone research papers. Paper I synthesizes the prior literature on IS discontinuance and investigates the different meanings it has given to the term. Paper II reports on a case study of an organization where discontinuing an incumbent legacy system proved insurmountable, representing an IS change outcome of being caught in between old and new IS architectures. Paper III is a case study of an IT service provider where discontinuing an accounting automation software resulted in an organizational disruption. Finally, Paper IV discusses the outcomes of retail self-service technology discontinuance from the consumer perspective. My empirical studies are among the first attempts to untangle organizational IS discontinuance processes and to probe the consequences of discontinuance decisions. I contribute to the IS literature by conceptualizing IS discontinuance and providing an analytic framework for studying the phenomenon. Moreover, my findings shed light on several phenomena connected to IS discontinuance decisions, including the challenges with modernizing legacy environments and the effects of automation on workers' skills.Nykyajan organisaatiot hyödyntävät tietojärjestelmiä enenevässä määrin. Teknologian kehitys sekä organisaatioiden muuttuvat strategiset tarpeet tekevät kuitenkin käytössä olevien järjestelmien alasajosta päivänpolttavan ilmiön. Ajan myötä järjestelmät vanhentuvat, ja niiden toiminnallisuus heikkenee, jolloin ne on korvattava uusilla. Toisaalta joskus jopa kurantit ja toimivat järjestelmät päädytään ajamaan alas, esimerkiksi erinäisistä strategisista tai operatiivisista syistä. Vaikka järjestelmien käytön lopettamispäätökset ovat ajankohtaisia monissa organisaatioissa, niitä on käsitelty hyvin vähän tieteellisessä kirjallisuudessa. Siinä missä kourallinen olemassa olevia tutkimuksia on kartoittanut alasajoon johtavia tekijöitä, ymmärryksemme alasajoprosesseista sekä niiden seurauksista on edelleen puutteellinen. Tämän väitöskirjan päämääränä on parantaa ymmärrystä tietojärjestelmien alasajopäätöksistä tutkimalla ilmiön käsitteellisiä ulottuvuuksia, analysoimalla alasajoprosesseja sekä kartoittamalla niiden seurauksia. Keskityn kolmeen tutkimuskysymykseen: 1) Mitä tietojärjestelmän alasajo tarkoittaa?; 2) Miten tietojärjestelmien alasajoprosessit toteutuvat organisaatioissa?; ja 3) Mitä seurauksia organisaatioiden tietojärjestelmien alasajolla on? Väitöskirjani koostuu neljästä itsenäisestä tutkimuspaperista, joista kukin antaa vastauksia edellä mainittuihin kysymyksiin. Ensimmäinen paperi kartoittaa merkityksiä, joita tietojärjestelmien käytön lopettamiselle on annettu aiemmassa kirjallisuudessa. Toinen paperi raportoi case-tutkimuksen organisaatiosta, joka on kokenut vaikeuksia legacy-järjestelmänsä alasajossa ja jäänyt lopulta jumiin vanhan ja uuden tietojärjestelmäarkkitehtuurin välimaastoon. Kolmas paperi tutkii tietojärjestelmän alasajon vaikutuksia IT-palveluorganisaatiossa, jossa päätös lopettaa kirjanpidon automaatiota tarjoavan järjestelmän käyttö johti sekasortoon yrityksen kirjanpitoprosessissa. Neljäs paperi tutkii itsepalveluteknologian alasajon vaikutuksia kuluttajan näkökulmasta vähittäiskaupan kontekstissa. Edistän tietojärjestelmätieteen tutkimusta käsitteellistämällä tietojärjestelmien alasajon eri ilmenemismuotoja ja rakentamalla analyyttisen viitekehyksen, jota tulevat aihetta käsittelevät tutkimukset voivat hyödyntää. Löydökseni tuovat uusia näkökulmia myös muihin, tietojärjestelmien alasajoon läheisesti kytkeytyviin teemoihin, kuten legacy-ympäristöjen modernisoinnin haasteisiin ja automaation vaikutuksiin työntekijöiden osaamiseen

Caught in between: How an Organization Became a Prisoner of Its Legacy System after IS Change

Replacing a legacy system is a complex information system (IS) change project and represents severe economic and operational risks for an organization. Due to this, legacy systems are hard to get rid of and thus they sometimes continue to live alongside