User resistance has long been acknowledged as a critical issue during information technology implementation. Resistance can be functional when it signals the existence of problems with the IT or with its effects; it will be dysfunctional when it leads to organizational disruption. Notwithstanding the nature of resistance, the implementers--business managers, functional managers, or IT professionals--have to address it. Although the literature recognizes the importance of user resistance, it has paid little attention to implementers' responses--and their effect--when resistance occurs. Our study focuses on this phenomenon, and addresses two questions: What are implementers' responses to user resistance? What are the effects of these responses on user resistance? To answer these questions, we conducted a case survey, which combines the richness of case studies with the benefits of analyzing large quantities of data. Our case database includes 89 cases with a total of 137 episodes of resistance. In response to our first research question, we propose a taxonomy that includes four categories of implementers' responses to user resistance: inaction, acknowledgment, rectification, and dissuasion. To answer our second question, we adopted a set-theoretic analysis approach, which we enriched with content analysis of the cases. Based on these analyses, we offer a theoretical explanation of how implementers' responses may affect the antecedents that earlier research found to be associated with user resistance behaviors.
Culture plays an increasingly important role in information systems initiatives, and it receives considerable attention from researchers who have studied a variety of aspects of its role in IS initiatives. Notwithstanding the contributions of research to date, our knowledge of how culture influences--and is influenced by--the development and use processes and an information system itself remains fragmented. Knowledge fragmentation is amplified by the fact that conceptualizations of culture differ among researchers. Indeed, most researchers agree that culture consists of patterns of meaning underlying a variety of manifestations. Researchers diverge, however, on the degree of consensus on these interpretations that they assume to be reached within a collective. In order to integrate these divergent conceptualizations of culture, we adopt the view that no single perspective is sufficient to capture the complexity of interplay between culture, the processes of developing and using an IS, and the IS itself. We have, therefore, adopted a conceptualization that views culture from three perspectives--integration, differentiation, and fragmentation--that come into play simultaneously and jointly. Using this conceptualization, the paper synthesizes what is known about the role of culture in IS initiatives, and proposes a model of the relationships between culture, the development and use processes, and an information system.
To better explain resistance to information technology implementation, we used a multilevel, longitudinal approach. We first assessed extant models of resistance to IT. Using semantic analysis, we identified five basic components of resistance: behaviors, object, subject, threats, and initial conditions. We further examined extant models to (1) carry out a preliminary specification of the nature of the relationships between these components and (2) refine our understanding of the multilevel nature of the phenomenon. Using analytic induction, we examined data from three case studies of clinical information systems implementations in hospital settings, focusing on physicians' resistance behaviors. The resulting mixed-determinants model suggests that group resistance behaviors vary during implementation. When a system is introduced, users in a group will first assess it in terms of the interplay between its features and individual and/or organizational-level initial conditions. They then make projections about the consequences of its use. If expected consequences are threatening, resistance behaviors will result. During implementation, should some trigger occur to either modify or activate an initial condition involving the balance of power between the group and other user groups, it will also modify the object of resistance, from system to system significance. If the relevant initial conditions pertain to the power of the resisting group vis-à-vis the system advocates, the object of resistance will also be modified, from system significance to system advocates. Resistance behaviors will follow if threats are perceived from the interaction between the object of resistance and initial conditions. We also found that the bottom-up process by which group resistance behaviors emerge from individual behaviors is not the same in early versus late implementation. In early implementation, the emergence process is one of compilation, described as a combination of independent, individual behaviors. In later stages of implementation, if group level initial conditions have become active, the emergence process is one of composition, described as the convergence of individual behaviors.
Drawing both from the IS literature on software project risk management and the contingency research in Organization Theory literature, the present study develops an integrative contingency model of software project risk management. Adopting a profile deviation perspective of fit, the outcome of a software development project (Performance) is hypothesized to be influenced by the fit between the project's risk (Risk Exposure) and how project risk is managed (Risk Management Profile). The research model was tested with longitudinal data obtained from project leaders and key users of 75 software projects. The results support the contingency model proposed and suggest that in order to increase project performance a project's risk management profile needs to vary according to the project's risk exposure. Specifically, high-risk projects were found to call for high information processing capacity approaches in their management. However, the most appropriate management approach was found to depend on the performance criterion used. When meeting project budgets was the performance criterion, successful high-risk projects had high levels of internal integration, as well as high levels of formal planning. When system quality was the performance criterion, successful high-risk projects had high levels of user participation.
This article presents an executive overview of the article "Information Technology and the Nature of Managerial Work: From the Productivity Paradox to the Icarus Paradox," by Alain Pinsonneault and Suzanne Rivard.
Despite the introduction and use of a wide variety of system development methods and tools, software projects are still plagued by time and cost overruns, and unmet user requirements. To avoid these problems, it is frequently recommended that the risk associated with a software project be managed. A task that is critical to the proper management of software development risk is the assessment of the risks facing the project. Based on previous research, this paper proposes a definition and a measure of software development risk. Subsequently, data collected in a survey of 120 projects is used to assess the reliability and validity of the instrument.
During the past decade, end-user computing has been subject to several research efforts. One result is common to nearly all the studies on that topic: the importance of providing support to users. Descriptive studies have identified this result as a major issue; critical success factor studies have reported it as a key element, and models of factors of success have found that it is significantly related to user satisfaction with end-user computing. This article reports the results of a study that further investigates user support, in the particular context of the information center. The study examines the relationships among some of the key features of the information center in its support role and reports on user satisfaction. The results are based on the data provided by 172 users and 19 information center managers In 19 organizations. Analysis of the data suggests that the number of information center employees, the number of databases, and the number of software tools provided to users are negatively correlated with user satisfaction, while the proximity of the information center, the diversity of services offered, and the proportion of the information systems budget devoted to the information center are positively related with the various dimensions of user satisfaction.
Information systems researchers, while helping others build better information systems, have done little in supporting their own information needs. The large amount of knowledge accumulated in IS today has created a situation where the researcher needs some sort of organizing mechanism to map the IS territory and relate its different components. A keyword classification scheme performs such a task through its content descriptors, systematically listed to show their relationships. This paper proposes a keyword classification scheme for IS. The scheme contains over 1,100 keywords and consists of nine top-level categories (reference disciplines, external environment, technological environment, organizational environment, IS management, IS development and operations, IS usage, information systems, and IS education and research), each of which is divided into subcategories.