Employees' Evaluation of Mandatory IS Change at Post-Implementation Stage
COM2 Level 4
Executive Classroom, COM2-04-02
Abstract:
Information systems need to evolve constantly for an organization to compete and survive. Consequently, employees may face constant IS changes but have less freedom to decide whether to utilize these new technologies in their daily work. Mandatory IS change is typical in organizations where a new version of information system or technology is introduced to replace the prior one, and is required to be used by employees in order to perform their jobs. However, there are gaps in our understanding of employees' evaluation of mandatory IS change at the post-implementation stage.
This thesis derives and empirically tests a theoretical model on 1) how employees evaluate mandatory IS change and determine their mental acceptance (i.e. symbolic adoption) of the change; and 2) the impact of employees' symbolic adoption on their interpersonal extra-role behaviors associated with IS use at the post-implementation stage. Our theoretical framework is based on the integration of equity implementation model, symbolic adoption theory as well as the literature on IS success and extra-role behavior. By recognizing that use of a previous system could be a major source of users' resistance, the model also explicitly takes into account influences of using the old IS. Our results demonstrate that employees'evaluation of the three quality aspects between the new and old system, IS change leadership and resource allocation fairness significantly predicted their symbolic adoption of the new system. Moreover, employees' symbolic adoption is also found to be an important antecedent of their interpersonal helping behaviors associated with IS use. From a practical standpoint, this study offers important implications on how to conduct and facilitate IS change as well as harness IS-use associated helping in organizations.