Appropriating Information Technology Artefacts through Trial and Error: The Case of the Tablet
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Appropriating Information Technology Artefacts through Trial and Error: The Case of the Tablet Efpraxia D. Zamani 1
&
Nancy Pouloudi 2 & George M. Giaglis 3,4 & Jonathan Wareham 5
Accepted: 10 September 2020 # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract The concept of appropriation is of paramount importance for the lasting use of an Information Technology (IT) artefact following its initial adoption, and therefore its success. However, quite often, users’ original expectations are negatively disconfirmed, and instead of appropriating the IT artefact, they discontinue its use. In this study we examine the use of IT artefacts following negative disconfirmation and use Grounded Theory Method techniques to analyse 136 blogposts, collected between March 2011 – July 2017, to investigate how users appropriate or reject the tablet when technology falls short of users’ expectations. Our findings show that users overcome negative disconfirmation through a trial and error process. In doing so, we identify that users appropriate the tablet when the attained benefits significantly outweigh the risks or sacrifices stemming out of its use. We discuss our contribution within the context of the appropriation literature, and highlight that the success of IT lies with the user’s success in identifying personal use scenarios within and across diverse contexts of use. Keywords Trial and error . Grounded theory method . User behaviour . Appropriation . Rejection . Tablet . Negative disconfirmation
1 Introduction Contemporary Information Technology (IT) devices are boundary spanning and accommodate different contexts of use, covering both professional and personal use scenarios. Such IT devices can be smartphones and tablets, among others, and their adoption and use is largely volitional (Schmitz et al. 2016), which means that the individual user is able to decide and control their use. This indicates a great heterogeneity of potential uses, and further signifies increased user control over a device’s adoption, modification, and even rejection. These two points create an important challenge
* Efpraxia D. Zamani [email protected] Nancy Pouloudi [email protected] George M. Giaglis [email protected]
where the user can easily switch between contexts, with IT having to satisfy their requirements irrespective of the changing environments. This is important because the success of an IT artefact resides with the user identifying a benefit in IT use against the background of personal use scenarios. For this reason, today there is a large body of research that examines why users accept an IT artefact and how they make use of it (Barnett et al. 2015). Often, these studies draw from theories, such as the Technology Acceptance Model (Davis and Warshaw 1989), the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (Venkatesh et al. 2003) and their variations (Kim and Garrison 2009; e.g., Venkatesh et al. 2011;
2
Department of Management Science and Technology, Athens University of Economics and Business, 47
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