Business Commons^™

A Work System Perspective On Adoption Entities, Adoption Processes, And Post-Adoption Compliance And Noncompliance, Steven Alter

Business Analytics and Information Systems

This conceptual contribution responds to the invitation to the DIGIT 2015 Call for Papers “to reflect on and move forward from the dominant stream of research work on technology acceptance.” The dominant stream of research is basically about antecedents and correlates of adoption and continuation of use for hardware/software artifacts. This paper uses work system theory and several of its extensions to identify directions for adoption research that have been realized partially, but not nearly to the extent possible. It focuses on three general issues:

1) what adoption means in the context of work systems,

2) how adoption occurs, and …

A Workaround Design System For Anticipating, Designing, And/Or Preventing Workarounds, Steven Alter

Business Analytics and Information Systems

Idealized system design produces requirements reflecting management intentions and “best practices.” This paper proposes a workaround design system (WDS) for anticipating, designing, and/or preventing workarounds that bypass systems as designed. A WDS includes a process and an interactive “workaround design tool” (WDT) for identifying and evaluating foreseeable workarounds based on work system theory and a theory of workarounds. This paper summarizes the conceptual background and explains the form, use, and implications of the proposed WDS and WDT.

The idea of WDS addresses significant gaps in practice and research. Designers should have methods for identifying likely obstacles and anticipating and evaluating …

Engineering Enterprises For Emergent Change, Steven Alter

Business Analytics and Information Systems

This paper uses work system theory (WST) and two of its extensions to provide an integrated perspective on engineering enterprises for emergent change. This paper starts by explaining six basic assumptions and distinctions related to emergent change. It introduces four frameworks or models related to WST including the work system framework, work system life cycle model, a theory of workarounds, and a work system metamodel. It shows how each framework or model can help in identifying different aspects of engineering for emergent change and also can be the basis of guidelines for that purpose. Overall, this paper provides a unique …

Theory Of Workarounds, Steven Alter

Business Analytics and Information Systems

Although mentioned frequently in the organization, management, public administration, and technology literatures, workarounds are understudied and undertheorized. This article provides an integrated theory of workarounds that describes how and why workarounds are created. The theory covers most types of workarounds and most situations in which workarounds occur in operational systems. This theory is based on a broad but useful definition of workaround that clarifies the preconditions for the occurrence of a workaround. The literature review is organized around a diagram that combines the five “voices” in the literature of workarounds. That diagram is modeled after the diagram summarizing Orton and …