Author List: Stein, Mari-Klara; Newell, Sue; Wagner, Erica L.; Galliers, Robert D.;
MIS Quarterly, 2015, Volume 39, Issue 2, Page 367-392.
Achieving the promised business benefits of an IT system is intimately tied to the continued incorporation of the system into the work practices it is intended to support. While much is known about different social, cognitive, and technical factors that influence initial adoption and use, less is known about the role of emotional factors in users' behaviors. Through an in-depth field study conducted in two North American universities, we examine the role of emotions in how specific IT use patterns emerge. We find that there are five different characteristics of an IT stimulus event (cues) that, when interacting in a reinforcing manner, elicit a single class of emotions (uniform affective responses) and, when interacting in an oppositional manner, elicit mixed emotions (ambivalent affective responses). While users respond to uniform emotions with clear adaptation strategies, they deal with ambivalent emotions by combining different adaptation behaviors, a vacillating strategy between emphasizing positive and negative aspects of the stimulus. Surprisingly, these ambivalent emotions and vacillating strategies can lead to active and positive user engagement, exhibited in task and tool adaptation behaviors and improvisational use patterns that, despite their nonconformity to terms of use, can have positive organizational implications.
Keywords: Emotions; IT use patterns; adaptation behaviors; ambivalence; qualitative research
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#174 0.169 use support information effective behaviors work usage examine extent users expertise uses longitudinal focus routine revealed volume constructs contributes operations
#230 0.153 adaptation patterns transition new adjustment different critical occur manner changes adapting concept novel temporary accomplish experience period managers transitions frequency
#290 0.120 emotions research fmri emotional neuroscience study brain neurois emotion functional neurophysiological distrust cognitive related imaging tools effects warnings magnetic turn
#219 0.114 response responses different survey questions results research activities respond benefits certain leads two-stage interactions study address respondents question directly categories
#100 0.099 affective concepts role questions game gaming production games logic play shaping frames future network natural processes evidence addresses reference theorizing
#10 0.078 strategies strategy based effort paper different findings approach suggest useful choice specific attributes explain effective affect employ particular online control
#166 0.057 negative positive effect findings results effects blog suggest role blogs posts examined period relationship employees research employee bloggers reveal companies