International journal of information management

Paper Name: Working around inadequate information systems in the workplace: An

empirical study in Romania

Slide 1/2/3: Description about the paper (Adiba)

 The paper is based on a phenomenon known as workaround behavior, which means temporary
and inadequate fixes to persistent and long term problems which might hamper progress in the
future.
 This paper discusses workaround behaviors of employees when the information system in their
organization is inadequate
 The authors of this paper are Louie H.M. Wong, Luminita Hurbean, Robert M. Davison, Carol XJ
Ou and Mihaela Muntean from Hong Kong, Netherlands, Japan and Romania
 The authors mentioned that their work is exploratory and the motivation is to find out the
effects of inadequate information system on employee work to put emphasize on developing
organization Information system.
 The motivation of the authors are to create a base for research on IS and employee behavior
which will help organizations to create policies in future and help understand gap in their
processes.
 This research was published on January, 2022
 Our motivation to study this paper is because we felt that inadequate IS is also a prevalent
problem in Bangladesh, which also affects us in our workplaces.

Slide 3:

 Is this a pure research or applied research? This is an applied research because Applied research
focuses on the use of information to create useful materials.
 This is an empirical puzzle or theoretical? This is an empirical puzzle because it is grounded in
real-world events. As such, these puzzles lend them- selves to inductive research, creating the
dual challenge of requiring researchers to be familiar with actual cases, and working backwards
from the puzzle to find or build an appropriate theoretical framework.

Slide 4: Paper Structure

1. Introduction
2. Lit Review
3. Theoretical framework
a. Hypothesis
4. Methods/Methodology
5. Data analysis and Results/Analytical Model
6. Discussion
a. Implications
b. Contributions
c. Limitations
7. Conclusion
Slide 4: Research Question/Problem

 research question: How do organizational employees behave when required to use information
systems that inadequately support their working requirements?
 IS inadequacy is not uncommon in practice, but it is under-investigated and lacks theorization

Slide 5: Research Gap

 Practice of workarounds can be examined from a process theory perspective (i.e. with
longitudinal, qualitative measurements), the determinants of workarounds have been
investigated to a markedly lesser extent, especially from the variance theory angle.
 In simple words, workaround behaviors have been qualitative research, this is a quantitative
study of relationship between workaround behavior and inadequate Information system in
workplace

Slide 6: Theoretical framework

 What are the base theories:

1. Coping theory is relevant because it refers to the “constantly changing cognitive and behavioral
efforts to manage specific external and internal demands that are appraised as taxing or
exceeding the resources of the person.
2. What is the theoretical model?:

Slide 7: This research has 7 Hypothesis

 IS inadequacy is negatively associated with employees’ individual work control.

 IS inadequacy is positively associated with job anxiety.
 Individual work control is negatively associated with job anxiety.
 Individual work control is negatively associated with employees’ engagement in workaround
behavior.
 Job anxiety is positively associated with employees’ engagement in workaround behavior.
 IT policy restrictiveness is negatively associated with employees’ engagement in workaround
behavior.
 Employees’ inclination to perform discretionary behavior is positively associated with their
engagement in workaround behavior.
Slide 8: Analytical Framework: Variables

 When dependent variable Individual Work Control then independent variable IS inadequacy
(from theory)
 When dependent variable Job anxiety then independent variable IS inadequacy (from theory)
 Dependent Variable: Workaround behavior, Independent variable: Individual Work Control
(new), Job anxiety (theory), IT policy restrictiveness (theory) and discretionary behavior (theory).

Slide 9: Method

 Survey method and questionnaire on 310 Romanian employees

 Likert scale method is used for data analysis
 Used web based software to collect data

Slide 10: Implications/Contributions

 The empirical data and analyses largely support the conceptual model proposed in this research
 The conceptualization of workarounds into a variance theory in this study contributes to the
calibration with the predominantly process models of prior workaround research, and hence
enriches the theoretical explanation and prediction via an alternative logical theoretical
structure
 New conceptual model also opens up the possibility of broadening the theoretical landscape
surrounding workarounds.
 Given the tendency of employees to create workarounds when they face inadequate IS, we
suggest that managers in organizations need to be more sensitive to the legitimate needs.

Limitations
 Need more time to monitor employee workaround behavior change over time