Resist, comply or workaround? An examination of different facets of user engagement with information systems

Abstract

This paper provides a summary of studies of user resistance to information technology and identifies workaround activity as an understudied and distinct, but related, phenomenon. Previous categorisations of resistance have largely failed to address the relationships between the motivations for divergences from procedure and the associated workaround activity. This paper develops a composite model of resistanceworkaround derived from two case study sites. We find four key antecedent conditions derived from both positive and negative resistance rationales and identify associations and links to various resultant workaround behaviours, providing supporting chains of evidence from the two case studies. © 2006 Operational Research Society Ltd. All rights reserved