INDIVIDUAL IT USES AND THEIR ANTECEDENTS: A SOCIAL THEORY PERSPECTIVE
type: CreativeWork
description: The use of information technology (IT) is foundational to modern work systems. However, the IT use construct is not fully understood and has not been clearly defined. Confounding the understanding of IT use are similar, yet often conflicting, conceptualizations, indicative of the jangle fallacy. The jingle fallacy is also found in the inconsistent measures employed to study the IT use construct. Consequently, the existing literature does show that there are multiple forms of use. Further, adoptive IT use has long been understood to be fundamentally different from post-adoptive IT use, but few theories have sought to bring these two concepts together. Clarity of the IT use construct is fundamental to designing and understanding how managers may influence users toward different kinds of IT use. This dissertation seeks to resolve these fallacies in the IT use construct by developing a theory of workplace IT use. It conceptualizes individual IT use as a socio-technical construct, instead of purely a social (i.e., perceived) or technical (i.e., objective) construct. It proposes to resolve conflicts about the conceptualization of IT use by developing a general definition of IT use and three IT use constructs that may be employed in research: initial use, continued use, and novel use. Using structuration theory as a metatheoretical lens, we also developed antecedents to IT use that take the form of modalities, which are internal perceptions of the user, and structural dimensions, which exist in the environment and may be influenced by managers. Modalities are conceptualized as higher-order constructs, with their first-order constructs drawn from existing IT use literature. Influences from the environment exhibit one or more structural dimensions, which are new first-order formative constructs. The research design for this study drew on methodological pluralism, using qualitative and quantitative methods. Using this mixed-methods approach to test the theory of workplace IT …
abstract: The use of information technology (IT) is foundational to modern work systems. However, the IT use construct is not fully understood and has not been clearly defined. Confounding the understanding of IT use are similar, yet often conflicting, conceptualizations, indicative of the jangle fallacy. The jingle fallacy is also found in the inconsistent measures employed to study the IT use construct. Consequently, the existing literature does show that there are multiple forms of use. Further, adoptive IT use has long been understood to be fundamentally different from post-adoptive IT use, but few theories have sought to bring these two concepts together. Clarity of the IT use construct is fundamental to designing and understanding how managers may influence users toward different kinds of IT use. This dissertation seeks to resolve these fallacies in the IT use construct by developing a theory of workplace IT use. It conceptualizes individual IT use as a socio-technical construct, instead of purely a social (i.e., perceived) or technical (i.e., objective) construct. It proposes to resolve conflicts about the conceptualization of IT use by developing a general definition of IT use and three IT use constructs that may be employed in research: initial use, continued use, and novel use. Using structuration theory as a metatheoretical lens, we also developed antecedents to IT use that take the form of modalities, which are internal perceptions of the user, and structural dimensions, which exist in the environment and may be influenced by managers. Modalities are conceptualized as higher-order constructs, with their first-order constructs drawn from existing IT use literature. Influences from the environment exhibit one or more structural dimensions, which are new first-order formative constructs. The research design for this study drew on methodological pluralism, using qualitative and quantitative methods. Using this mixed-methods approach to test the theory of workplace IT …
author: Williams, Jason
keywords: IT Use, structuration theory, theory development, post-adoption, continued use, novel use, Business, Business Administration, Management, and Operations, Management Information Systems
date published: 2020-04-15T07:00:00Z
date modified: 2026-07-24T02:43:33Z
provider: Kennesaw State University
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: Kennesaw State University