مفید بودن: تاثیر متخصصان سیستم های اطلاعاتی بر استفاده از سیستم های اطلاعاتی در شرکت ها Being useful: How information systems professionals influence the use of information systems in enterprises

1 Introduction An information system is infused in a practice when it is used to its fullest potential (Cooper and Zmud 1990). When that happens, organizations receive a greater return on their investment in that system (Hsieh and Wang 2007). IS infusion is thus a much sought-after goal for many IS managers (Jasperson et al. 2005). However, while there has been extensive research on IS adoption and post-adoption (e.g. Hsieh et al. 2012; Li et al. 2013; Venkatesh et al. 2011), less is known about the determinants of IS infusion. While previous researchers have examined how system characteristics, such as the quality of the information in a system and the services it provides (DeLone & McLean, 2003), and managerial and peer support influence infusion (Saeed and Abdinnour-Helm 2008; Sundaram et al. 2007), less attention has been paid to other aspects of the social context of infusion. Before a new system can be infused, there is often a process of adaptation, as users modify their routines or the components of the system itself (Fadel, 2012). As users experiment with the new system to come up with creative ways of using it, they become more confident about the system, making it more likely that the system will be infused into their work practices. However, as users improvise, doubts about the system may arise. This uncertainty may require technical expertise beyond the knowledge of their managers and peers, decreasing users’ confidence in the system (Magni et al. 2010). This lack of confidence in a new system can be overcome by involving IS professionals, who have a blend of technical and nontechnical skills, in the process of improvisation (Bassellier and Benbasat 2004; Reich and Benbasat 1996; Reich and Benbasat 2000). In many of their roles, IS professionals often share their knowledge and skills when they interact with their business colleagues, especially when the latter encounter difficult-touse technologies and face task-related conflicts from newlyadopted systems (Kettinger et al. 2013; Nelson and Cooprider 1996; Santhanam et al. 2007). Such sharing and helping behaviors are often supplementary to the duties specified in the roles of the IS professionals, that is, they are discretionary and ‘extra-role’, not prescribed and ‘in-role’, behaviors (Deng and Wang 2014; Yen et al. 2015; Rice et al. 1999). When IS professionals carry out such actions, they affect users’ perceptions of an information system, influencing them to use the information system as fully as possible and in novel, improvised ways (Ghosh 2011). Post-adoption studies, such as Venkatesh et al. (2003), often limit their focus to the actions of managers and users without examining the role of IS professionals in supporting and motivating IS use. By not considering the role of IS professionals, current research has simplified and narrowed the social milieu that users exist in. This paper asks: how do the discretionary behaviors of IS professionals towards non-IS employees influence the latter’s inclination to infuse information systems into their work practices? This study has two contributions: i) explicating the impact of the discretionary behaviors of IS professionals on IS success beyond project implementation, and ii) defining additional mechanisms through which IS infusion takes place. In the next section, we review the IS infusion literature and frame it using social cognitive theory (SCT).