Workaround behaviour in information systems research.

Autorde Vargas Pinto, Aline
  1. Introduction

    Organizations are increasingly seeking to improve the level of productivity of their employees, especially with the use of information systems (ISs) and mobile technologies (MT). However, the new information technology (IT) management policies, Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) for example, which allows employees to use their personal devices while in the organization and to connect them to the corporate network, and the concern with the use of non-authorized technologies inside the workspace, called shadow IT, have manifested the workaround behavior by the employees more intensely (Dulipovici and Vieru, 2016).

    The investments in ITs have been increasing in the organizations, aiming to standardize the work processes and to gain improvements in the performances, with higher productivity (Roder et al., 2015). Estimates show that, in 2018, the global expenses with IT should reach a total of US$ 3.7tn, equivalent to an increase of 4.5 percent in comparison to 2017. The investments are driven and directed toward cloud computing, MT and internet of things that help the organizations to improve employees' productivity, and bring implications such as enhancing the workaround behavior (Gartner, 2018).

    The workaround behavior was initially defined as non-standard procedures used by users/operators to compensate the deficiencies found in the IS (Courtright et al., 1988). Subsequently, other authors have brought new definitions to the workaround behavior, defining it as informal methods to compensate the inability to obtain necessary data or the capability of using alternative processes to avoid perceived blockage in the workflow, with the possibility of using an extension or a resource that is non-existent in the system (Petrides et al, 2004; Vogelsmeier et al., 2008).

    For the users, the workaround behavior allows the overcoming of impact procedures and issues at work being composed of temporary practices (Alter, 2014). However, the organization is often not aware that the employees are applying other solutions for the job completion. The workaround behavior can have different results for the employees and for the organization, because the adoption and use of alternative solutions are individual, according to the necessities and abilities of each user, and the result of its adoption may not be desired by the organization (Drum et al, 2016).

    The employees will use the IS adopted by the organization if they identify quality in the system based on the desired characteristics of the technology itself, considering usability aspects such as ease of use, efficiency, navigation and reliability (Petter et al., 2013). In a recent investigation, the workaround behavior was analyzed by Laumer et al. (2017), using the following dimensions: quality of the system, quality of the service and quality of the information (representative and contextual), as prior to user satisfaction and workaround behavior. The model's dependent variable has evaluated the benefits in productivity and in the work performance through workaround behavior. However, the research did not fill all the gaps and the opportunities of research on IS workaround behavior, some of which are listed in this research as recommendations for future research.

    Thus, the aim of the present study is to verify how the workaround behavior has been approached in IS studies, verifying its applicability and presenting guidelines for future research. The importance of this research in the theoretical and practical scope focuses on gathering relevant information about the workaround behavior, bringing up positive and negative aspects of the manifestation of this behavior. Besides, no Brazilian study has been identified on workaround in the IS area in the databases consulted (Web of Science, Scopus, Science Direct), showing a research gap on this theme in Brazil.

    This paper is structured as follows. Section 2 presents a literature review about aspects of the workaround behavior and its use in the IS researches. Section 3 approaches the method that was used. Section 4 presents the results and, lastly. Section 5 presents the conclusions and guidelines for future researches.

  2. Literature review on workaround

    IT area allows to organizations high capability to extend, acquire, manipulate and communicate information, being a strategic and fundamental resource to companies, because it ensures the quality of information on the decision-making process, providing operational and strategic benefits to the companies (Rikhardsson and Dull, 2016). Once a certain technology is adopted in the business process, the company's capacity for growth tends to increase (Xiong and Qureshi, 2012). Thus, IS allows filtering the most relevant information to the business, taking into account that around 80 percent of information in organizations are not structured and are found in websites, text documents, spreadsheets, presentation slides and many other formats (Alalwan and Weistroffer, 2012).

    The deployment of an IS can be beneficial to organizations. However, the degree of employees' use of this system will depend on the satisfaction with the system and the level of support assigned to it. The user dissatisfaction with the system adopted by the company leads the employee to find alternative solutions to those prescribed by the IT department (Laumer et al, 2017). At the organizational level, the benefits that an organization expects when implementing an IS decrease when the employees establish alternative solutions (Petrides et al, 2004).

    Alternative solutions are the use of any system that deviate from the prescribed policies and processes, which could be planned solutions, when the system does not meet the business' needs, or non-planned solutions to meet an immediate and specific need (Drum et al., 2017). Managers believe that alternative solutions are temporary practices implemented and used to deal with uncertainties matters right after the implementation of a system, with the belief that these practices should decrease over time. However, previous research suggests that these practices, in fact, increase over time instead of disappearing (Azad and King, 2012). One of the first authors to study IS use after its implementation was Gasser (1986). This study shows situations in which the IS did not meet the processes and requisites of the task work that leads to the manifestation of alternative solutions called workarounds.

    IS literature conceptualizes the workaround behavior as the employees' decision to adapt and improvise the organizational IS in a way that makes it possible to overcome any anomalies and restrictions that do not allow the work performance to be complete and effective (Alter, 2014; Malaurent and Avison, 2015). The workaround behavior is considered a way for users to get involved with the system while not conforming to the prescribed "rules of engagement," leading them to resort to alternative solutions (Petrides et al., 2004; Kobayashi et al., 2005) or as a mean of neutralizing the perception of loss of power and identity with the introduction of a new IS (Alvarez, 2008).

    Workaround behavior is often seen as negative. However, some authors present beneficial aspects from its manifestation. From a positive point of view, workaround behavior is considered a normal part of an IS implementation process and, as such, provides sources for future improvements (Safadi and Faraj, 2010). Workaround behavior can be much more than acts of resistance, being, actually, necessary solutions to support the accomplishment of activities (Azad and King, 2012).

    From a negative point of view, workaround behavior can generate risks, inefficiency or errors and may have an impact on subsequent work activities, for example, when mistakes are made (Boudreau and Robey, 2005; Gasparas and Monteiro, 2009). Although alternative solutions are often temporary practices to deal with immediate problems, there is some increasing evidence that such alternative practices can become permanent forms of use (Azad and King, 2012; Orlikowski, 2008).

    Therefore, the main reasons for the workaround behavior adoption in IS are users and managers satisfaction, and the use of alternative solutions can have both positive and negative consequences (Laumer etal., 2017). In many situations, organizations are not aware that employees are embracing workarounds to get the job done, as they are informal temporary practices for handling exceptions in the workflow. The satisfaction of the users with the IS is an essential indicator of the success of the system, that is, the more satisfied the user is with the system, the less prone they will be to manifest the workaround behavior, which is caused by the lack of meeting their expectations with the company system (Vaezi et al., 2016).

  3. Method

    We performed a systematic literature review (SLR) based on the model proposed by Biolchini et al. (2007), which includes the following phases: planning, execution and analysis of the results. In addition, the present study follows the guidelines proposed by Webster and Watson (2002) that emphasize that an effective literature review creates a solid foundation for knowledge advance, and it is fundamental for the strengthening of IS research. According to those authors, the research should provide elaborate definitions of their key variables, define the limits of their work, indicate which literature and areas of study were used, clearly present the contributions of the article, and, finally, perform an investigation of all the articles published and not only those published in the most respected journals in the area.

    3.1 Planning and execution

    To carry out the research, first, the journals cited in the Association for Information Systems (AIS) "basket" of eight top IS journals were consulted. This list indicates eight journals with greater power of impact in the IS area. Twelve articles were found in these journals, considered to be the...

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