Based on the theory of effective use and adaptive structuration theory, we propose that employees' system exploration behavior can be affected by factors related to three major components: task, system, and organizational environment. Specifically, we examine how task characteristics (job autonomy and task variety), system complexity, and innovation climate jointly affect employees' exploration, which, in turn, leads to extended use of enterprise systems. A field survey of enterprise resource planning (ERP) users yields several interesting findings. First, job autonomy and task variety directly enhance system exploration. Second, system complexity plays a moderating role by strengthening the relationship between job autonomy and exploration and weakening the relationship between task variety and exploration. Third, innovation climate, also acting as a moderator, strengthens both the impact of job autonomy on exploration and the impact of system exploration on extended use. This research contributes to information systems (IS) research by theoretically articulating that system exploration is subject to the simultaneous influences of task, system, and organizational environment factors and empirically testing these factors' main effects and interactions to shed new light on system exploration research. It also contributes to IS practice by suggesting that organizations could enhance employees' system exploration and facilitate the transition from exploration to extended use by increasing job autonomy and task variety, designing personalized training programs to reduce system complexity, and developing organizational climates that foster innovations. > >
With reward (carrot) and punishment (stick) widely applied by organizations to regulate mandatory IT usage, it is imperative to understand how these incentives influence employee compliance behavior. Drawing upon control theory and regulatory focus theory, this study investigates the relationships among regulatory focus, reward, punishment, and compliance behavior in mandatory IT settings. Survey data were collected from 186 employees in companies where enterprise resource planning (ERP) compliance was mandated. Analyses reveal that punishment expectancy is a strong determinant of compliance behavior, whereas the main effect of reward expectancy is not significant. Moreover, the relationship between reward expectancy and compliance behavior is moderated by promotion focus and the relationship between punishment expectancy and compliance behavior is moderated by prevention focus. This study provides an in-depth understanding of reward and punishment in mandatory IT settings and suggests that regulatory focus plays an important role in affecting employees' compliance with organizational controls.
This paper examines two ways to create business value of information technology (BVIT): resource structuring and capability building. We develop a research model positing that IT resources and IT capabilities enhance a firm's performance by providing support to its competitive strategies and core competencies, and the strengths of these supports vary in accord with environmental dynamism. The model is empirically tested using data collected from 296 firms in China. It is found that IT resources generate more business effects in stable environments than in dynamic environments, while IT capabilities generate more business effects in dynamic environments than in stable environments. The results suggest that the BVIT creation mechanism in stable environments is primarily resource structuring while the mechanism in dynamic environments is primarily capability building.
This paper aims to understand the influence of punishment and perceived justice on user compliance with mandatory information technology (IT) policies. Drawing on punishment research and justice theory, a research model is developed. Data collected from a field survey of enterprise resource planning (ERP) users are analyzed to test the proposed hypotheses. The results indicate that IT compliance intention is strongly influenced by perceived justice of punishment, which is negatively influenced by actual punishment. When perceived justice of punishment is considered, the effect of satisfaction on compliance intention decreases and that of perceived usefulness becomes insignificant. This paper contributes to information systems (IS) research and practice by drawing attention to the importance of punishment, particularly perceived justice of punishment, in mandatory IT settings. It delineates the relationships among actual punishment, punishment expectancy, perceived justice of punishment, and IT compliance intention, and thus provides a better understanding of user compliance behavior in mandatory IT settings.
This paper describes the development of the technology threat avoidance theory (TTAT), which explains individual IT users' behavior of avoiding the threat of malicious information technologies. We articulate that avoidance and adoption are two qualitatively different phenomena and contend that technology acceptance theories provide a valuable, but incomplete, understanding of users' IT threat avoidance behavior. Drawing from cybernetic theory and coping theory, TTAT delineates the avoidance behavior as a dynamic positive feedback loop in which users go through two cognitive processes, threat appraisal and coping appraisal, to decide how to cope with IT threats. In the threat appraisal, users will perceive an IT threat if they believe that they are susceptible to malicious IT and that the negative consequences are severe. The threat perception leads to coping appraisal, in which users assess the degree to which the IT threat can be avoided by taking safeguarding measures based on perceived effectiveness and costs of the safeguarding measure and self-efficacy of taking the safeguarding measure. TTAT posits that users are motivated to avoid malicious IT when they perceive a threat and believe that the threat is avoidable by taking safeguarding measures; if users believe that the threat cannot be fully avoided by taking safeguarding measures, they would engage in emotion-focused coping. Integrating process theory and variance theory, TTAT enhances our understanding of human behavior under IT threats and makes an important contribution to IT security research and practice.
This study identifies governance patterns for information technology investment decision processes and explores the impact of organizations' investment characteristics, external environment, and internal context on the shaping of those patterns. By identifying the lead actors of the initiation, development, and approval stages in IT governance, the patterns of 57 IT investment decisions at 6 hospitals are analyzed. The results reveal seven IT governance archetypes: (1) top management monarchy, (2) top management-IT duopoly, (3) IT monarchy, (4) administration monarchy, (5) administration-IT duopoly, (6) professional monarchy, and (7) professional-IT duopoly. Each archetype is analyzed by taking into account four specific factors: IT investment level, external influence, organizational centralization, and IT function power. This study makes several contributions to IT governance theory and practice. First, IT governance is reframed to include pre-decision stages, highlighting the importance of participants other than the final decision maker. Second, the variation of IT governance archetypes suggests that even when top management approval is required, the IT department may not play a key role in the IT investment decision process. Third, governance of the pre-decision initiation and development stages is found to be jointly affected by several contextual factors, suggesting that the allocation of final decision rights is only a part of IT governance. While decision rights may be allocated by the organization a priori, the actual patterns of IT governance are contingent on contextual factors. It is important to understand how IT governance archetypes are shaped because they may affect desired outcomes of IT investments.
We develop and test a theoretical model to investigate the assimilation of enterprise systems in the post-implementation stage within organizations. Specifically, this model explains how top management mediates the impact of external institutional pressures on the degree of usage of enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. The hypotheses were tested using survey data from companies that have already implemented ERP systems. Results from partial least squares analyses suggest that mimetic pressures positively affect top management beliefs, which then positively affects top management participation in the ERP assimilation process. In turn, top management participation is confirmed to positively affect the degree of ERP usage. Results also suggest that coercive pressures positively affect top management participation without the mediation of top management beliefs. Surprisingly, we do not find support for our hypothesis that top management participation mediates the effect of normative pressures on ERP usage, but instead we find that normative pressures directly affect ERP usage. Our findings highlight the important role of top management in mediating the effect of institutional pressures on IT assimilation. We confirm that institutional pressures, which are known to be important for IT adoption and implementation, also contribute to postimplementation assimilation when the integration processes are prolonged and outcomes are dynamic and uncertain.
Despite a decade since the inception of B2C e-commerce, the uncertainty of the online environment still makes many consumers reluctant to engage in online exchange relationships. Even if uncertainty has been widely touted as the primary barrier to online transactions, the literature has viewed uncertainty as a "background" mediator with insufficient conceptualization and measurement. To better understand the nature of uncertainty and mitigate its potentially harmful effects on B2C e-commerce adoption (especially for important purchases), this study draws upon and extends the principal-agent perspective to identify and propose a set of four antecedents of perceived uncertainty in online buyer--seller relationships--perceived information asymmetry, fears of seller opportunism, information privacy concerns, and information security concerns--which are drawn from the agency problems of adverse selection (hidden information) and moral hazard (hidden action). To mitigate uncertainty in online exchange relationships, this study builds upon the principal--agent perspective to propose a set of four uncertainty mitigating factors--trust, website informativeness, product diagnosticity, and social presence--that facilitate online exchange relationships by overcoming the agency problems of hidden information and hidden action through the logic of signals and incentives. The proposed structural model is empirically tested with longitudinal data from 521 consumers for two products (prescription drugs and books) that differ on their level of purchase involvement. The results support our model, delineating the process by which buyers engage in online exchange relationships by mitigating uncertainty. Interestingly, the proposed model is validated for two distinct targets, a specific website and a class of websites. Implications for understanding and facilitating online exchange relationships for different types of purchases, mitigating uncertainty perceptions, and extending...