Institutionalized computer workaround practices in a Mediterranean country: an examination of two organizations

Abstract

Information systems research often treats computer workarounds tangentially and as temporary phenomena. This exploratory research embraces anomalous system use in general and computer workarounds in particular by suggesting why the latter can be institutionalized and how they may be manifested in practice. Anomalous use is defined as sociomaterial actions around an IT artifact not consistent with its design or related official rules that nevertheless constitute system enactment in practice. The persistence of computer workarounds might be explained by the tension between top-down pressures from the external environment and bottom-up constraints from day-to-day operational work. These insights are drawn from an up-close study of workarounds in two cases from the Mediterranean region. The workaround practices involve decoupling and loose coupling, effectively creating ‘equilibrium’ between the aforementioned top-down and bottom-up influences. This may be attributed to parity between the influence exercised by external regulatory/accrediting bodies and the constraints of day-to-day work within the focal organization (i.e., work ethos, material constraints, and discretion to decouple). Our results show why some computer workarounds exhibit institutionalized behavior and their antecedent conditions. We also suggest that constituent workaround practices may exist as twin but distinctive behavioral patterns – non-compliance (or partial compliance) with an official rule and partially (or fully) working around designed systems.

Keywords:

• computer workarounds
• practices
• institutional theory
• decoupling
• loose coupling
• Mediterranean

Acknowledgements

The insights from this study would not have been possible without the members of the two case organizations (whose names remain anonymous) embracing a self-reflection of how work was done. We are especially grateful to Nancy Pouloudi, Angeliki Poulymenakou, Katerina Pramatari, the Special Issue editors, as well as the anonymous reviewers who worked with us to improve the manuscript. Work on this manuscript was partially supported by grants from the American University of Beirut Research Board to the authors. Both authors equally contributed to this paper.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Bijan Azad

About the authors

Bijan Azad is Associate Professor at the Olayan School of Business, American University of Beirut and co-director of Samih Darwazeh Center for Innovation Management and Entrepreneurship. His research interests are in how actors enact innovative technologies and procedures in organizations within the public sector, hospitals and private sector. He earned his Ph.D. and masters degrees from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. Bijan Azad has over 20 years of experience in the systems integration industry before re-joining academe. His research has been published in Journal of Strategic Information Systems, European Journal of Information Systems, Government Information Quarterly, Information Systems Journal, Journal of Global Information Management, and International Journal of Accounting Information Systems, Academy of Management Best Paper Proceedings, America's Conference on Information Systems Proceedings as well as several practitioner publications. He was the Organizational Communication and Information Systems Division's recipient of the Best Conference Paper Award at the Academy of Management 2008 annual meeting in Anaheim, California, USA.

Nelson King

Nelson King is Assistant Professor at the Olayan School of Business, American University of Beirut. Before joining academia, he spent over 20 years as a systems engineer. He obtained his Ph.D. in industrial and systems engineering from the University of Southern California where he also did post-doctoral research in imaging informatics. His research interests are the system problems of healthcare information technology (HCIT) especially when inter-organizational collaboration is necessary such as with electronic prescribing. Nelson's healthcare work has been published in journals such as European Journal of Information Systems, Communications of the Association of Information Systems, E-Service Journal, and International Journal of Organizational Design and Engineering. Some of his earlier work has been published in MIS Quarterly and IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management.