Me, My Self, and I(T): Conceptualizing Information Technology Identity and its Implications

Author List: Carter, Michelle; Grover, Varun;
MIS Quarterly, 2015, Volume 39, Issue 4, Page 931-957.
As social roles and relationships become increasingly inseparable from people's interactions with information technologies (ITs), new constructs representing this intertwinement are needed to expand understandings of human behavior. As part of that endeavor, this paper draws on structural symbolic interactionist identity theories to systematically develop a conceptual definition of one such construct, IT identityÑdefined as the extent to which an individual views use of an IT as integral to his or her sense of selfÑas a new form of identity. The construct is framed within a theoretical model. Our goal is to facilitate the establishment of IT identity as an important and relevant construct that can improve our understanding of a variety of phenomena. In doing so, this paper makes three contributions to the information systems (IS) literature. First, it delineates current understanding of IT as a medium, determinant, or consequent of identity. Second, it defines the conceptual domain and theme of IT identity, which is necessary for investigating the construct's theoretical influence. Third, it demonstrates the utility of IT identity to a wide range of IS topics relating to how people express, maintain, and expand their self-concepts. In doing so, it offers potential directions and opportunities for IS researchers to incorporate this novel concept into IS research.
Keywords: IT identity; human behavior; individual IT use; IT embeddedness; theory development
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#259 0.211 identity norms identification symbolic community help sense european social important verification set identities form obtained properties deterioration mixed match emphasis
#110 0.192 theory theories theoretical paper new understanding work practical explain empirical contribution phenomenon literature second implications different building based insights need
#292 0.177 information research literature systems framework review paper theoretical based potential future implications practice discussed current concept propositions findings provided extant
#146 0.072 work people workers environment monitoring performance organizations needs physical useful number personal balance perceptions create computer-based technological technologies investigation achievement
#138 0.065 use question opportunities particular identify information grammars researchers shown conceptual ontological given facilitate new little constraints dual answer post-adoption theory
#216 0.057 conceptual model modeling object-oriented domain models entities representation understanding diagrams schema semantic attributes represented representing object relationships concepts classes entity-relationship