Chapter Four:

Information Systems User and Use issues

Research and Practical Agendas

 Chapter objectives

• Provide reflections on Information System (IS) users

and information use issues
• Describe the evolution and assimilations of IS in an
organizational setting
• Inform the growing need for integrated
organizational-wide systems
• Describe the prevailing complexities of
organizational IS
• Familiarize with Information systems use theories
and models
 Information systems users

• Information system is designed to meet the needs of

users/business needs

• Enhancing users capabilities is the prime purpose of

information system

• Information systems helps to improve productivity and

effectiveness, if properly designed, developed, and used

 Internal users

1. Novice users: new to the system and technology

-May not have clear idea about the capability of the
system
-May not be able to articulate their needs
-May have high demand for training and support
 2.Expert users

have clear understanding about the potential benefit of a

system
 Capable of articulating their requirements
 Demand for a better system and services
 Have less demand for training and development
 Have vested interest to follow recent developments

 The IS manager is expected to strike a balance

between varied needs
 3. Managers/leaders/org needs

• Capable of articulating their business policies and information

needs
• Have high expectation from the system
• Lack technical skills to Identify and set up appropriate systems
How Business Uses Information systems
Business use….
Business use…
Business Use…
Business Use…
Business Use…
Business Use….
Organizational models
Business use..
 Understanding users and their needs

Over the past three decades, various studies have been

conducted with the aim of understanding users and use
related issues, these are:
• Psychosocial, behavioral, and technological factors
• Mandatory system use and users resistance
• Volitional users context
1. Psychosocial, behavioral, and technological factors

Various prominent theoretical foundations that helps to

understand how users would adopt a new technology have
been forwarded by researchers and authors. Some of them
include:

1. Diffusion of innovation by Everett Rogers, 1962

2. Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) by Davis, 1989
3. Unified Theory of Acceptance and use of technology
(UTAUT by Venkatesh et al, 2003
4. Information systems success model by Delone and McLean
5.Task-Technology Fit Theory,
6.The Technology–Organization–Environment Framework etc.
 1. Diffusion of innovation

Rogers studied how farmers adopted new technologies, and

he noticed that the adoption rate started slowly and then
dramatically increased once adoption hit a certain point.

He identified five specific types of technology adopters:

 Innovators
•Are the first individuals to adopt a new technology
• Willing to take risks
• are the youngest in age
• have the highest social class
• have great financial liquidity
• are very social,
• and have the closest contact with scientific
sources and interaction with other innovators.
•Risk tolerant in terms of adopting technologies
that may ultimately fail
 Early adopters
• Arethose who adopt innovation after a technology has
been introduced and proven.

•These individuals have the highest degree of opinion

leadership among the other adopter categories, which means
that they can influence the opinions of the largest majority.

•They are typically younger in age, have higher social

status, more financial liquidity, more advanced education,
and are more socially aware than later adopters.

•These people are more discrete in adoption choices than

innovators, and realize judicious choice of adoption will
help them maintain a central communication position
 Early majority
•Individuals in this category adopt an innovation after a
varying degree of time.

•This time of adoption is significantly longer than the

innovators and early adopters.

•This group tends to be slower in the adoption process, has

above average social status, has contact with early adopters,
and seldom holds positions of opinion leadership in a system
 Late majority
•Adopt an innovation after the average member of
the society.

•These individuals approach an innovation with a

high degree of skepticism, have below average
social status, very little financial liquidity, are in
contact with others in the late majority and the
early majority, and show very little opinion
leadership.
 Laggards
•Individuals in this category are the last to adopt
an innovation.

• Show no opinion leadership. These individuals

typically have an aversion to change-agents and
tend to be advanced in age.
• Tend to be focused on “traditions,” are likely to
have the lowest social status and the lowest
financial liquidity, be oldest of all other
adopters, and be in contact with only family and
close friends.
 Implication of Understanding adoption
scenarios
 These five types of users provide additional
insight into how to implement new information
systems within an organization.
For example, when rolling out a new system,
IT may want to identify the innovators and early
adopters within the organization and work with
them first, then leverage their adoption to drive
the rest of the implementation.
2.Technology Acceptance Model (TAM)
by Davis 1989

Information technology offers the potential for

substantially improving white collar performance

But performance gains are often obstructed by users'

unwillingness to accept and use available systems
Because of the persistence and importance of this
problem, explaining user acceptance has been a long-
standing issue in MIS research
•better measures for predicting and explaining
system use would have great practical value, both
for vendors and for information systems managers
within user organizations

•the purpose of this research is to pursue better

measures for predicting and explaining use
•the investigation focuses on two theoretical
constructs, perceived usefulness and perceived ease of
use, which are theorized to be fundamental
determinants of system use.
TAM...
 TAM
Perceived usefulness (U) is defined as the
prospective user's subjective probability that using a
specific application system will increase his or her
job performance within an organizational context.
Perceived ease of use (EOU) refers to the degree to which
the prospective user expects the target system to be free of
effort
Unified Theory of Acceptance and use of technology

(UTAUT by Venkatesh et al, 2003

Integrated about eight technology acceptance

models, including TAM

The theory includes Four core determinants of intention

and usage, and up to four moderators of key
relationships.
UTAUT
 Information systems success model
Delone and McLane
motivated to present a more integrated view
of the concept of I/S success
 six major dimensions or categories of I/S success:
1.SYSTEM QUALITY 2. INFORMATION QUALITY
3 USE, 4. USER SATISFACTION
5.INDIVIDUAL IMPACT
6. ORGANIZATIONAL IMPACT.
I/Success model
 Mandatory system use and users resistance
system use scenarios are studied from volitional
and mandatory context

measures of voluntariness have been developed in

models to predict user intention or IS use behavior
a measure of user intentions is inappropriate in
a mandatory adoption environment,
because the variable would be extremely skewed
and unusable in model testing
 Mandatory use...
An alternative variable to user intentions is symbolic
adoption, a concept recently referred to by Karahanna,
who has made use of symbolic adoption (Klonglan and
Coward 1970) to distinguish adoption in two parts:
symbolic adoption and actual adoption.
Symbolic adoption refers to the mental acceptance of an idea,
distinct from attitude (Karahanna 1997), whereas actual adoption
refers to actual use of the technology.
 Mandatory use...

According to the Klonglan and Coward theory, in a mandatory

adoption environment, actual adoption need not necessarily be
preceded by symbolic adoption, while in a voluntary adoption
environment, symbolic adoption is virtually a prerequisite for
actual adoption to occur.

Hence, in a mandatory environment, people are likely to

display differences in symbolic adoption of the IS
Model of IS acceptance in a mandatory
adoption environment
 Task-Technology Fit Theory,
• argues that information system use and
performance benefits are attained when an
information system is well-suited to the tasks that
must be performed
 The technology–organization–
environment (TOE) framework
 explains that three different elements of a firm’s
context influence adoption decisions.
These three elements are- :the technological context, the
organizational context, and the environmental context. All
three are posited to influence technological innovation
 The technological context includes all of the technologies that are relevant to
the firm
 The organizational context refers to the characteristics and resources of the firm,
including linking structures between employees, intra-firm communication
processess, firm size
 The environmental context includes the structure of the industry, the presence or
absence of technology service providers, and the regulatory environment
 Users Resistance to use information
systems
defines user resistance as opposition of a user to change
associated with a new IS implementation

resistance has consistently been identified as a salient

reason for information systems implementation failures
user resistance is the first-ranked challenge for the
implementation of large-scale IS, such as enterprise resource
planning (ERP) systems (ITtoolbox 2004 )
loss of power and other Psychosocial issues can lead to
resistance
 Reflections
 Information systems are need based and goal oriented
 The business needs, employees capabilityies, and behavioural
issues determine information systems use
 Misalignment of information systems to the business process
was one of the challenges observed over the years
 Modern organization/enterprise level information systems are
expected to function in a complex ecosystem
 For a longer period of time interface, usability, and even safety
were overlooked features of software system design
 Currently more abstract issues like moral values are expected to
be design considerations of AI systems
 Reflections...

Relational connections:
 Theory is the basis for research and practice