Theoretical Implications

There are some implications of the findings and theoretical contributions of the research on IS projects in this thesis. The findings of the first study (see Section 3.1) imply that further research on the mechanism that influence the perception of IS project success in organizations is necessary to determine whether the same causal mechanisms are present in different contexts and conditions and whether they will have the same benign influence on the overall perception of project success in all these cases. Hence, additional

longitudinal cases studies that investigate the perception of IS project success by different stakeholders and particularly end-users are necessary. It would be interesting to see whether the perception of the business environment and the resulting organizational narrative will dominate the perception of a project’s success in many circumstances or whether we have just researched a special case. This call for future research is closely linked to the concern about the limitations to generalizability of a single case study. However, it is likely that the theoretical understanding and sequence presented in our study is generalizable as the organ-izational narrative, which informs perception, is likely to depend on the organorgan-izational environment.

The implication of the second study (see Section 3.2) is directly related to the empirical typologies of the links between different project configurations and IS project success in terms of usability. The results of the configurational analysis indicate that user participation of the appropriate users in the requirements analysis phase is the key combination of conditions linked with IS project success in terms of usability.

Future research should aim to explore variants of these combinations in different contexts in more detail.

Again, additional longitudinal case studies, maybe comparative ones, might be the appropriate course of action to investigate the relationship of UIP and usability and subsequently effective use in more detail.

Moreover, researchers could evaluate how many organizations actually ask for the participation of a sig-nificant number of end users. In many cases, these seem to be the appropriate users to ensure the long-term success of an IS project. Based on the findings in this thesis, additional research on the effect of user par-ticipation in later stages of an IS project is also required. The effect of UIP in these late stages might be minimal and might just create a false sense of involvement on the side of the end users. This could have an adverse effect over the course of the IS project when they realize that they have been involved at a stage when they cannot influence the outcome. This is a situation ripe for the inherent fatalism identified in our first study. Another interesting aspect that might follow from the research on IS implementation projects in this thesis is the analysis of the effect of the use of agile project methods on end users’ perception of usa-bility and subsequently effective use.

The implications of our research on the post-implementation phase are also related to the nascent state of understanding and theory in the research area. Regarding the first conceptualization of the relationship of learning and effective use (see Section 4.1), future research should test these relationships empirically. This test could also involve the test of established constructs of IS use behaviors that might relate to conceptu-alized forms or learning. For instance, experimentation as a behavior of self-learning is a purposeful be-havior during use and has therefore been conceptualized similarly in other contexts and research (e.g. Kara-hanna & Agarwal, 2006; Ahuja & Thatcher, 2005). Furthermore, the evaluation could also account for users who combine several self-learning activities to learn more effectively. For example, a user watches a video tutorial or reads about a new feature in the system documentation while simultaneously working with the system.

It follows from our analysis of the effects of workarounds on effective use (see Section 4.2.) that future research should recognize workarounds as users’ adaptation actions that encapsulate their state of

knowledge about a system and a task. The decision to develop or adopt a workaround can originate for very different reasons on the individual level. One can hypothesize that users can use a workaround because they resist system use for a lack of knowledge, convenience or lack of personal benefit. However, they can also develop a workaround because the system does not allow them to conduct their task sufficiently. However, they might have sufficient knowledge to develop a solution that enables them to use a core IS of the organ-ization, which they otherwise would not have been able to use. As we focused on the effects of workarounds on effective use, we neglected the origin of different kinds of workarounds and the individual skill of users involved in developing workarounds. These are interesting avenues of future research, which are closely linked with understanding the link between different forms of learning and effective use.

Finally, the mixed results of the operationalization presented in this thesis imply that further thorough con-ceptual work on the understanding of the appropriate concon-ceptualization and measurement of effective use is necessary. Furthermore, the results accentuate the need for future research with the current measures and comparative studies with measures for alternative yet related concepts. Burton-Jones and Grange (2013) define effective use as an aggregated construct (Law, Wong, & Mobley, 1998). However, we also stated that a change in a user’s level of effective use is not necessarily related to a change in all subdimensions (Chin, 1998). This is exemplified by a situation in which users may be able to increase their overall level of effective use only by improving their ability to take IA. It is conceivable that the users’ level of RF and TI may does not need to change to lead to an increased ability to take informed action. Hence, future re-search should challenge the conceptualization of effective use theory and introduce different possible ante-cedents and explanations for a change in the level of effective use. This thesis provides an initial exploration of the original conceptualization of effective use as defined by Burton-Jones and Grange (2013). Future research should go beyond this initial framework and explore new constellations of conditions and behav-iors, which may be related to effective use. For instance, it could be possible to understand effective use solely as the informed action in the real world because this is fulfilling the purpose of effective use. IA would therefore be defined as the use of information obtained from a system, which is enabled by using a system with the properties of RF and TI. TI and RF could be system characteristics in such a framework, which can have an impact on the level of effective use. A system would exhibit a high level of RF whenever it accurately displays the characteristics of the represented domain and it would provide a high level of TI, whenever it enabled unimpeded access to its contents. Such a definition would incorporate the understand-ing of effective use theory by many raters and respondents as presented in this thesis. Measurunderstand-ing an alter-native model with the alteralter-native constructs of InfQ or PEOU is a first step. Yet, future research may go beyond that and test additional constructs that might be related to effective use. Constructs such as system quality have been identified as one of the antecedents of IS performance in previous research (e.g. DeLone

& McLean 1992, 2003).

Furthermore, Burton-Jones and Grange (2013) identify two major drivers of effective use: learning and adapta-tion. While we explored this conceptually and tried to link ASU and effective use, future research on potential

drivers should extend the user behaviors of interest that might lead to effective use. Especially already estab-lished conceptualizations of user behaviors that incorporate adaptation actions or learning behaviors, such as the concepts of emergent use (Karahanna & Agarwal, 2006) could provide interesting avenues for future research. This might entail an effort to explicate the boundaries of measures of IS use and users’ behavior during use. In sum, additional conceptual research seems necessary to devise an intricate understanding of the nomogical net of effective use. Specifically, future research needs to determine in more detail what constitutes effective use and its antecedents in order to allow a more effective measurement of effective use and its antecedents.