1
INFLUENCING THE IT SELF-LEADERSHIP OF
WORKERS IN THE IT INDUSTRY
Development of the IT Self-Leadership concept and
Analysis of Possible Influencing Factors
Sonja L. Beekman University of Groningen
Faculty of Economics and Business MSc Change Management Supervisors: Dr. U. Y. Eseryel Eendrachtskade 1004-2 9726 CZ, Groningen +316 2332 1862 slbeekman@gmail.com August 2014
Abstract
IT self-leadership is expected to shape individuals’ behavior in regard to ICT tools. This article builds on research conducted on self-leadership in general and on empirical research aimed at developing the specifically IT self-leadership construct. The aim of this study is to expand the literature in the IS field with knowledge regarding the IT self-leadership construct by defining this construct based on research conducted on general self-leadership and applicable studies conducted in the IT field. This research is performed by conducting interviews with IT professionals that distinguish themselves in regard to their attitude towards IT, and analyzing the collected data. All subjects are employees of IBM Groningen, the Dutch office of a large multinational organization in the IT industry. It can be concluded that a large range of factors are of influence on the IT self-leadership construct and that an extensive amount of further research options exist regarding this construct.
Keywords: Computer Self-efficacy • IT Self-leadership • Self-leadership • IT Self-efficacy • IT Innovativeness • ICT use • IT innovativeness
Introduction
The goal of this paper is to discover and assess the various possible influencers on the IT self- leadership in a work related context. By being
2 organizational structure. Besides this, our research aims to provide a clear definition and operationalization of the concept of IT self-leadership since, even though some researchers in the IS field come close (e.g. Wang et al., 2011), the IT self-leadership concept has not been clearly defined and operationalized in literature up to this day. However in both IT related literature and general self-leadership literature, we find enough grounds to feel that defining this construct would be a welcome addition to the IS field. This is elaborated in the following section.
As knowledge of the various influencers on IT self-leadership is especially crucial in the current more globally dispersed organizations which are increasing their use of virtual teams and increasingly require a self-leading attitude of their employees in achieving organizational goals, we perceive IT self-leadership as an interesting concept to study. As Yamauchi and Swanson (2010) state, novel and unanticipated manners to utilize new ICT tools are often discovered by users and organizations can benefit greatly from these discoveries. IT users can be quite creative in discovering various features of the ICT tools they use and in applying ICT to accommodate or even enhance their ways of working. Moreover, Wang et al. (2011) mentions that it is possible for organizations to be a stimulating factor in the creative use of ICT by employees and that organizations that are actually able to stimulate this behaviour are more inclined to respond successfully to the changing external environment. The novel use of ICT tools is
3 heavily in ICT, only seldom do ICT investments lead to the returns envisioned by top management. It has even been estimated that, since the 1980’s, 50 percent of all new capital investments made by organizations have been in ICT tools and related aspects (Venkatesh et al., 2003). It might be the case that the current scope of literature does not adequately predict the effectiveness of IT use, but many researchers in the IS field believe that the effects of ICT implementation is not so much a function of the technology itself but rather how it is used by people (DeSanctis and Poole, 1994). Connecting to this, the studies of Jasperson et al. (2005) and DeSanctis and Poole (1994) make clear that both self-leadership and IT practices have a positive influence on organizational performance. In spite of the great managerial relevance of sustaining and positively influencing IT self- leadership, very little literature has been devoted to this subject. As will be revealed in this paper, general self-leadership and more specific self-self-leadership are well-researched topics, but far less research has been conducted on the concept of IT self-leadership. Even though a number of constructs, such as ‘general’ self-leadership, come close and IT innovativeness in a mandated context has been researched extensively, the IT self-leadership concept has not been clearly defined and operationalized in the literature before which leads to a gap in the current body of academic research. Hence, this paper addresses this by seeking to combine self-leadership research and IT literature to further define a highly underdeveloped concept named ‘ IT self-leadership’. This also raises the
interesting question of which factors impact the IT self-leadership of organizational members and whether these can be facilitated within an organization to possibly stimulate IT self-leadership of its members, of which the organization as a whole can benefit. This research therefore also sets out to investigate various possible human, structural and environmental influencers on the IT self-leadership of IT oriented employees in an organizational setting in which tasks are often performed within global virtual teams and a high degree autonomy is expected of all organizational members. Hence, the following research question is central in this study:
What are the factors related to IT self-leadership behavior in a work-related
context?
4 about the findings and their limitations. This paper concludes with stating the managerial and theoretical implications of our findings and our recommendations for further research.
Theoretical Background
The rise of Information Technology in today’s society has led to the diffusion of hierarchies. It marks the end of bureaucratic organizational structures and brings structures that are much more loosely, or organically, organized (Morgan, 1989). Today’s dynamic environment encompasses organizations that tend to be greatly dispersed, using distributed teams with global workers to meet organizational goals (Avery and Bergsteiner, 2010, cited by Choi, 2006). These developments have led to the increase in popularity of virtual teams (Townsend, Demarie, and Hendrickson, 1998). Townsend, De Marie and Hendrickson stated in 1998 that working in virtual teams was a rising trend, and it appears that their predictions are confirmed as the use of virtual teams has been growing and most of the large organizations are believed to make use of virtual teams to some degree (Hertel, Geister, and Konradt, 2005). According to DeSanctis and Poole (1997) and Powell, Piccoli, and Ives (2004), a virtual team can be defined as a group of workers distanced from each other in space (geographically and organizationally) and dispersed in time, but brought together by the use of various ICT tools to realize one or multiple organizational goals. Especially within the Netherlands, a new phenomenon that promotes the growth of virtual teams is a concept termed in Dutch ‘HetNieuwe Werken’ (translated: The New Way of Working), which entails performance based working independent of time and place (Bijl, 2011). It is needless to say that these events indicate that the use of ICT tools is fundamental for the achievement of organizational goals, especially amongst organizations that utilize virtual teams or function according to the principles of ‘Het Nieuwe Werken.’
5 Self - Leadership
The concept of self-leadership is very old and derives from Greek philosophy (Rappe, 1995). The Greek philosopher Socrates stated that by ‘knowing thyself’ an individual can make choices according to his own preferences, and not dictated by its surroundings. According to Socrates, the individual, knowing what he knows, who he is and where he wants to go, is able to make a turn to the desired destination where motivation will light its path towards this desired destination (Rappe, 1995). A widely adopted definition of self-leadership is provided by Manz (1986), Manz and Neck (2004) and Neck and Houghton (2006) who define self-leadership as the process of influencing and leading oneself to perform both, naturally motivating and not naturally motivating tasks by making use of behavioral and cognitive strategy sets. According to Manz (1986), self-leading individuals control their own behavior in this process. Markham and Markham (1995) add to this definition by approaching self-leadership as focusing on what should be done and why, in addition to how to complete a task to reach a defined standard. Self-leadership can be operationalized as the total strength of a threefold of aspects an individual possesses; behaviour awareness, motivation for a task and constructive cognition (Manz, 1986). Self-leadership is of importance in virtual teams due to the extent of decentralization that virtual team’s experience. Individuals in a virtual team setting have a higher level of responsibility (Schipper and Manx, 1992) and therefore team
6 In today’s world technological progress and change is very frequent, therefore organizations that want to stay competitive, need to make use of various ICT tools (e.g. Viitamo, 2003; Gera and Gu, 2004). The importance of ICT is clarified by Jasperson et al. (2005) who states: ”Organizations have made huge investments in information technology over the last 25 years, resulting in many, if not most, intra-organizational work systems being IT-enabled. Furthermore, organizations are increasingly depending on IT-enabled inter-organizational value chains as the backbone of their commerce with clients, customers, suppliers, and partners.” Moreover, IT is associated with higher success rate of innovation (Carlo et al, 2012). Employees at different levels of organizations need to work with more and less complicated ICT tools, yet not all people are equally confident in doing so. For this reason, understanding an individual’s computer or IT self-efficacy is particularly relevant for both researchers and practitioners. Konradt et al. (2009) define self-efficacy as the perceived capability that team members have on themselves to perform the required activities to successfully fulfil team tasks. Wang et al. (2011) define IT self-efficacy as an individual’s judgment of his or her ability to use an Information Technology, while Compeau and Higgins (1995) emphasize that computer self-efficacy should not be defined in terms of component skills (such as the ability to create an Excel spreadsheet) but, instead, in terms of the tasks one can accomplish with such skills (such as the ability to use IT to prepare a budget overview). It has been established that the level
of IT self-efficacy influences the level of computer use by individuals and the amount of enjoyment derived from the computer use (Compeau and Higgins, 1995). Webster and Martocchio (1992) argue that computer playfulness affects users’ willingness to examine and experiment with different software options and find evidence confirming that the level of computer self-efficacy influences the level of computer playfulness. Furthermore, a study by Ellen, Bearden and Sharma (1991) provides empirical evidence that the level of computer self-efficacy is an important predictor of an individual’s resistance to technological innovation, while Burkhardt and Brass (1990) find that computer self-efficacy is positively and significantly related to early adoption of new computer systems.
IT Self Leadership
7 been found to influence the degree of self-leadership of individuals (e.g. Pearce and Manz, 2005; Yun, Cox and Sims Jr, 2006), can have a similar degree of influence on IT self-leadership, and whether additional influencers can be found in the specific IT self-leadership context. Since hardly any research on more specific self-leadership aspects could be found, it appears feasible to expect that a person, who exhibits a self-leadership in general terms, will be more likely to exert more task-specific self-leadership then someone who doesn’t exert self-leadership behavior.
Wang, Li and Hsieh (2011) come close to defining IT self-leadership by discussing the concept of “innovate with IT” (IwIT), which refers to an individual’s use of IT to support task performance in ways that go beyond the established, standardized practices. They find that individuals are more likely to use IT in creative and new ways when their assessment of its contribution to enhancing their own performance is positive and they derive satisfaction from using it (Wang, Li and Hsieh, 2011). There are no researchers present in the field that have elaborated on the work of Wang, Li and Hsieh, or researcher that have cited their study, but a number of articles reviewed by Wang, Li and Hsieh do provide a foundation for the conceptualization of IT self-leadership. The ‘innovate with IT’ concept of Wang, Li and Hsieh (2011) is derived from ‘trying to innovate with IT’ as, amongst others, stated by Ahuja and Thatcher (2005) which define this as the goal of an IT user to find new ways of using existing IT. Ahuja and Thatcher (2005) use two
8 successful applications of IT that may optimize task performance or organizational processes. (Ahuja and Thatcher, 2005).
By combining the analyzed work of the aforementioned researchers in the field we define the concept of IT self-leadership as:
The willingness and ability of an individual to experiment with any new information technology, explore it’s potential uses and
find new ways of using an existing IT to support performance with respect to
work-related tasks in ways that go beyond the established, standardized practices and regardless of how motivating this process is.
Although this definition does resemble the emergent use of IT as put forward by Wang (2007), as he defines emergent IT use as using a technology in an innovative manner to support an individual’s task and enhance his/her productivity, Wang (2007), similar to Yamauchi and Swanson (2010), focuses only on how individuals apply mandated technology in their own routines. IT self-leadership, by definition, takes a broader and more result-oriented perspective by looking at how individuals use IT that was not mandated by their superior or task definition. IT self-leadership can be operationalized and researched on two dimensions, namely how an individual seeks and implements new ICT tools to enhance performance in conducting his or her personal tasks, and how an individual takes control of changing the ICT usage of other organizational members to enhance their performance.
Concluding this outline of the literature findings most important for this research. IT self-leadership is a highly underdeveloped construct with a close connection to Wang’s (2007) innovativeness with IT but enriched with various aspect of research conducted on general self-leadership and IT self efficacy. Research from these fields has led to the definitions of IT self-leadership as formulated in this section and which provides the red line in conducting an explorative research of the factors that can influence IT self-leading behavior. During this research, focus is placed on the earlier described dimensions regarding an individual’s personal tasks and aimed at changing the ICT use of others.
Research Method
9 to conduct interviews with IT users within a work related setting. This approach, together with the establishment of our research design, arguments for the case selection, the methods used for data collection, and the methods utilized for analysis of the collected data will be discussed in the following subsections. Research design and case selection
The data used in this study was collected by means of case study analysis. Case study analysis was chosen since it provides the possibility of generating novel theories within unstructured real life organizational situations (Eisenhardt, 1989). Besides this, case study analysis enjoys a high face validity. (Myer, 2009) The case study that served as input for this research was conducted within a Dutch office of a multinational organization in the IT industry. The organization was founded over 100 years ago, but the office where this research was conducted has only been operational for a year. Only a handful of the employees were already employed at the organization prior to the opening of this office. The organization has few hierarchical levels and all members work in the same large flexible office area. Teamwork, openness, and innovativeness are core values of the organization and translate into the culture at the office.
The 20 employees interviewed are of a bachelor or masters level, and all have less than four years of work experience. The target population of this research was composed of people that are recognized within the organization as initiative takers with respect towards their utilization of ICT tools. The organizational
members that have been interviewed were selected by means of a snowball sampling approach (Blumberg, Cooper, and Schindler, 2011). This is a common approach within sampling by means of qualitative interviews in which a key respondent that corresponds to the formulated criteria functions as a primary node within an organizations network. This key respondent can provide aid in locating colleagues that also fit the deployed profile. (Arksey and Knight, 1999) In this case the key respondent was a HR manager within the organization who pinpointed two organizational members that exerted a noticeable behavior regarding their use of ICT tools. Utilizing a snowball sampling approach, these respondents were asked to point out other organizational members that they perceived as exerting similar or even more noticeable behavior in their ICT use. This approach resulted in a total of 26 approached respondents of which, as stated, 20 were eventually interviewed of which the demographics are stated in table 1 on the following page.
10 Table 1. Demographics 20 respondents
Characteristics Values Age Range Average 21 - 33 25 Gender Female Male 2 18 Months at organization Range Average 1- 12 9 Function description Java developer Tester Project manager Designer Intern 11 6 1 1 1
Initial field of education IT
Finance Business
Communication Graphic design / Media Highest level of education Applied sciences Academic bachelor Academic master 8 2 4 3 3 11 4 5
amplification (Ozcan and Eisenhardt, 2009). We have specifically chosen for semi-structured interviews to achieve a balance between maintaining consistency in the process of data gathering and leaving space for acquiring new insights and possible deviation towards new lines of enquiry (Myers, 2009). The interviews were approximately 30-40 minutes of length.
Data collection
11 conducted in a certain field (Da Silva, Santos, Soares, et al., 2011). During the literature reviewing process the concepts of self-leadership, self-efficacy, IT self-efficacy and (personal) IT innovativeness appeared to be key in approaching the IT self-leadership conceptualization. An overview of the search queries used in this process is provided in Appendix 1. To accommodate our research with the necessary focus, our interview protocol was established with the main goal of answering the research question at hand in mind and to a lesser extent towards defining the IT self-leadership construct. Since we maintained an iterative process in establishing connections between our findings and the available literature in our field, we eventually disposed of additional information to reassess our initial definition of IT self-leadership. This is elaborated in the discussion section.
Construction of the Interview protocol
The interview protocol questions have been drawn up based on a combination of validated measurement instruments used in the field, literature findings and group discussions. The choices made in measuring the concepts IT self-leadership, transformational IT self-leadership, and team effectiveness are elaborated upon below. An overview of the interview protocol in both English and in the native language of the respondents, Dutch, has been provided in Appendix 2 and 3.
Self-Leadership
Based on the widely adopted definition of self-leadership by Manz (1986), self-self-leadership in
this study is defined as the process in which an individual influences himself or herself to perform both motivating and non-motivating tasks. In compliance with this definition, the concept of self-leadership is operationalized as the total strength of behavior awareness and volition, task motivation, and constructive cognition an individual has. This operationalization of the self-leadership concept is based on the study of Houghton, Dawley and DiLiello (2012) who designed a shortened version of Houghton and Neck’s (2002) Revised Self-Leadership Questionnaire. This version, named the Abbreviated Self- Leadership Questionnaire (ASLQ), measures self- leadership by using nine instead of 35 items. These nine items have been reviewed and taken into consideration during the establishment of the interview protocol. The ASLQ has been employed in this study to measure self-leadership due to the statistically supported good model of fit as proved by Houghton, Dawley and DiLiello (2012). Furthermore, using a more in-depth (35 items) instrument was not practical as the number of items needed to test a combination of multiple variables can make the interview protocol too complex and the nine key items as stated by Houghton and Neck (2002) have been discussed extensively as being the most crucial items of the Self Leadership Questionnaire. IT Self-Leadership
12 performance. This entails that IT self-leadership can be operationalized and re- searched on two dimensions, namely how an individual seeks and implements new ICT tools to enhance performance in conducting his or her personal tasks, and how an individual takes control of changing ICT usage to enhance the performance of others. Sub-questions have been formulated to measure the first dimension, representing IT self-leadership in the context of personal performance, with regard to how ICT tools might support an individual’s work. Elements of this are task organization, task support, task efficiency, communication, goal accomplishment and effectiveness, and high performance deliverance (Podsakoff, MacKenzie and Bommer, 1996). The second dimension, representing IT self-leadership in the context of team performance, has also been incorporated in the interview protocol. Literature on measuring self-leadership (e.g. Wang, Li and Hsieh, 2011; Podsakoff, MacKenzie and Bommer, 1996) has been reviewed to establish whether these questions represent an adequate measure of the construct. Coding and analysis
Since IT self-leadership is a rather novel concept and available literature is quite limited, a qualitative approach in the form of a grounded theory method is appropriate for this research (Myers, 2009). All of the conducted interviews were tape recorded and transcribed. The gathered data has been transcribed and analyzed by means of the grounded theory methodology (Glaser and Strauss, 1967, cited in Myers, 2009) to enable derivation of the behaviors as
described by the respondents from the data obtained. The transcribed files varied between 6 and 17 pages of length with an average of 11 pages per interview. Periods of general talk about non-organization related topics to break the ice with nervous respondents have been indicated with a time stamp in the transcripts, but not transcribed as such to keep the data clear and to save time in order to conform to time constraints.
13 transcribed interviews, the initial coding of the interviews has been revised twice while keeping a close eye on what the respondent exactly stated. The following critical questions have been asked per selected quote and its accompanying label during the analyses: A) Is the coded factor connected to IT self-leading behavior? B) Did the respondent make a particular statement spontaneously, or was it induced by the interviewer? In the first revision all cases in which one of these questions were answered with ‘no’ have been highlighted in the
database. In the second revision the highlighted quotes were removed and the remaining quotes revised. During this revision three quotes prevailed to be uncertain and where also removed. The remaining quotes can be viewed in the table on the next page and in the results section. The quotes initially not perceived as just have been saved for optional further research. After this process, the coding scheme was reviewed by a second researcher upon finalization. The most crucial steps of this coding process can be viewed in table 2. Table 2. Coding process
1 Interviews are transcribed and read three times
2 Transcripts coded quotes regarding respondent IT related behaviors and triggers for this behavior
3 Researchers discussed the coding scheme, possible antecedents and whether quotes have been interpreted correctly
4 Revision of the coding scheme and filtering of quotes based on critical questions 5 Grouping of codes to main categories and comparison to literature findings to formulate
possible antecedents
6 Coding of all transcripts is conducted by means of the coding scheme
From the above data collection and analysis, both factors that influenced IT self-leadership positively and factors that inhibited IT self-leadership behavior could be identified. The first factors that together provide a total of 75% of the times mentioned in the interviews are presented in the results section. The stated factors were only considered when these have been mentioned by multiple respondents. Subsequently, these factors were grouped into categories as is shown in table 3 on the
14 Table 1. Factors of IT self leadership – positive / negative relations
Identified Factors
Coding
Related
Literature
Labels Examples / Quotes Definition
Coding rules 1. Ambition to
enhance performance
Reduce time needed for task
Reduce effort needed for task
Minimize errors
Find easiest way to use ICT
Desire to increase own productivity
Laziness
“Time restrictions and how easy it is to tackle these kind of [ICT related] things have led to us coming up with that kind of solution.”
“… that way, you make sure that the chance of mistakes gets reduced and that the time needed will be reduced as well.”
“…I use ICT to make certain things easier for myself.”
Utilizing ICT to save time and/or effort.
Utilizing ICT to decrease the number of mistakes made.
Utilizing ICT to make a task easier.
Bagozzi, Davis, and Warshaw (1992)
Venkatesh, et al. (2003)
Ross (2012)
2. Organizational boundaries
Freedom
ICT’s set by management
New ICT request procedure
Rules regarding ICT Licenses
“…does give the freedom needed to experiment. Which eventually leads to more use of other tools and tools you normally use for something else.”
“They were forced to use Eclipse and were told that they were not allowed to use something else.”
“It is quite difficult to acquire licenses here. You have to apply via multiple communication channels and wait for approval.”
“…no, we want our own products to be used, so use those products. Receiving other licenses is difficult due to this attitude of management.
Space within the organization to try new ICT tools.
Being forced by formal leaders to use particular ICT tools.
Difficulty of requesting new ICT.
This can either impede ICT use or enhance new ICT use because of the waiting times.
Restrictions in implementing new ICT due to needing licenses.
Neck and Manz (1996)
Curral and Marques-Quinteiro (2009)
Cohen and Ledford (1994)
15
Size of organization
Organizational change capacity
Limited management control on ICT rules
(+)
“then working for a large organization is more of a limitation instead of an opportunity to do the things you want to do.”
“And also, if you want to change something in this large tedious organization, a budget will have to be made available in order to implement changes.”
“…but apparently they don’t really check that, since I have never received a notice about certain software I’ve installed not being allowed or not being whitelisted.”
Large organization is perceived as being inhibiting towards freedom regarding ICT use.
Remarks regarding the effort it costs to change things within the organization.
Degree of control by management on the compliance of subordinates to ICT rules.
3. Enjoyment Interest in ICT
Curiosity regarding ICT’s Amused by ICT’s Boredom
Spending personal time on ICT’s for work tasks
“…it is more out of personal interest that these kind of [ICT related] things enter the organization”
“I see myself as having a curious attitude towards ICT.”
“That I really enjoy doing it [working with ICT] plays an important part.”
“Boredom sometimes, or actually often, plays an important role in that [searching for new ICT’s].”
“I would have done it [searching for new ICT’s] as well in my spare, or you can technically say free, time.”
The desire to understand ICT more, and discover new ICT’s.
Working with ICT’s because it is perceived as fun.
Working with ICT’s out of boredom. Spending free time on using ICT’s for the benefit of work related tasks and goals.
Agarwal and Karahanna (2000)
Pekrun, Frenzel et al. (2007)
Pekrun and Stephens (2011)
16 4. Pressure of
attaining work-related goals
“I would have searched within the current [ICT] tool for a way to fix the problem.”
“…and lower the amount of coding rules you have to write and the complexity of course…”
“You have to create a design that has to be completed within 2-3 days.”
“We have been searching for a MacBook for quite a while since we had to make a new application…”
“And if, for example, everything [all ICT’s] would have worked well then I would have never considered saying: ‘I want a different system.’ Because this also works. What I am saying is that I think the underlying need is a key factor regarding many things if something doesn’t work well anymore.” “And sometimes there are certain [ICT] tools that we don’t have… that lack certain functionalities.”
Searching for other ways to use existing ICT to solve a problem.
Utilizing ICT’s to deal with task complexity Utilizing ICT’s to achieve task deadlines. Searching for and using new ICT’s to achieve work related goals.
The need to search for new ICT’s due to unavailability of organizational ICT’s that are fit for the task at hand.
Ross (2012)
Deci and Ryan (1985)
5. ICT Reputation Initiation of ICT’s
Showing off ICT’s
Introducing ICT’s to others
“I tried to introduce this software and technology here a bit as well.”
“…it’s fun to introduce something [ICT related] to your colleagues, telling them about what you have been working on at home… And it is just pretty cool… Also hearing: Hey, you found something new!”
“And then I say: Hey, this [certain ICT tool] might be nice for you to try. And then I just show it.”
Attempts to introduce ICT’s to others. Introducing ICT to others to be considered an interesting person.
Introducing ICT to others to help them.
Bereiter and Scardamalia (1993)
Williams and Procter (1998)
Ilomäki and Rantanen (2007)
17
Sharing ICT knowledge
Contribute to ICT use of others unasked
Influence ICT attitude of others
Being challenged by others
Image building
“So, I looked over his shoulder and said: You can also do it [use ICT tool] like that. And then I explained how you could do it differently.”
“…and I approach people because I am interested in what [ICT related things] they are working on. I then ask questions such as: What are you doing? And then ask: Can you do it in another way? You can maybe do it like that? To see if they have thought about other solutions, to increase performance.” “But I do have the feeling that I contribute a bit to the use of ICT or to another attitude towards ICT, so to say, I let others consider using ICT in another way.”
Helping others in using their ICT tools.
Code for being asked for help or when it’s unclear whether respondent was asked or not.
Helping others in using their ICT tools.
Code for when help is given unasked.
Contributing to changing how others feel towards ICT tools.
6. Will to learn Desire to learn about new ICT’s
Desire to use ICT’s in new ways
Desire to optimize ICT use
Learning organizational culture
“I’m momentarily trying to teach myself how to work with Illustrator, that’s already tough…”
“I knew it [certain software] from previous work. But I have never used it like that before...”
“…I would like to apply it in a way that will enable others to use things that are not so accepted yet in their daily lives.”
“…especially handy things. There are a lot of tools that, that not everyone uses optimally and it can sometimes be handy to see new things of it.”
Outspoken will to learn new ICT or new or unknown ways of using existing ICT.
Follows ICT related courses voluntarily or is planning to follow an ICT course.
Outspoken will to enhance ICT skills to enhance own and others performance.
Burkhardt and Brass (1990)
Carlson and Zmud (1999)
18 7. IT self
leadership of others
Initiation of ICT’s by others Others interest in ICT’s
“And sometime people approach me and ask: Hey, do you know about this [ICT tool] already?”
“It’s a symbiotic process.”
“I think that especially the interest other people show makes someone think; O, I can take this with me some time.”
When another person mentions, discusses or shows an ICT tool without being asked to do so.
When another person mentions to be interested in ICT or of when it can be assumed this person is interested in ICT.
Venkatesh, et al. (2003)
Konradt, Andressen, Ellwart (2009)
8. IT Playfulness Experiment with ICT’s
Creativity aimed at ICT’s
Trying new ICT’s
“And then I thought: Hey, I already know this so let’s try it [certain software]. But even if I was unfamiliar with it, I would’ve probably still tried it anyway.”
“We have used our cell phones as a hacking station to collect some data to give presentation…”
“I enjoy trying out those kind of crazy [ICT] things.”
Spontaneous interaction with ICT by an individual.
Unexpected way of using existing ICT’s or developing new ICT’s.
Using new ICT for fun or out of curiosity. Not necessarily for achieving a certain goal.
Martocchio and Webster (1992)
Hackbarth, Grover and Yi (2003)
Phelan and Young (2003)
9. Acknowledge- ment of superiors
Management support
Management openness towards new ICT’s
“And then he brought it [certain ICT tool] with him and you then play with it a bit, which is fun. And then he was asked to make some kind of game with it that could pick up the IBM logo since that is nice for the open days.”
“…I then discussed it with my lead developer and he said: Yes, try it [certain ICT tool]! If it works then we will replace it.”
Encouraging reactions of formal leaders on ICT’s introduced by their subordinates.
Positive reactions of formal leaders on subordinates’ ideas regarding ICT’s.
Chatzoglou et al. (2009)
19 10. IT Self-efficacy Intensiveness of ICT use
Affinity with ICT
ICT related knowledge
“I’m constantly behind a computer besides from a couple of meetings, such as the one we are having now.
“I really have affinity with that [ICT].” “…I then suggested that we could use Java with Frameworks software. I know that well from previous work…”
General indication of time spent using ICT for work related tasks.
Individual perceives him/herself as someone that learns ICT related things quickly.
Study background in ICT, special ICT skills or other ICT knowledge.
Wang et al. (2011)
Compeau and Higgins (1995)
Konradt et al. (2009)
Prussia, Andersson and Manz (1998)
Yukl (2010)
11. Accustomed to ICT
Used to own ICT’s
Used to certain way of working with ICT’s
Lack of proficiency in organizational ICT’s
“Switching to other software is really difficult once you are used to other programs.”
“And that you don’t see if you can learn how to actually use the new [ICT] package, but that you just stubbornly keep working the way you are used to.”
“…what we really noticed with that is that you end up trying to do things with it [certain ICT’s] just the way you were always used to. While it all works much differently in the new package.
Respondents’ indication of difficulties in changing to other ICT’s then the ones they are used to.
Preference towards staying with the ICT’s known then taking the time to learn new used of ICT’s.
Trying to do things in the manner you are used to while this isn’t the best way.
Lankton, Wilson and Mao (2010)
Wilson and Lankton (2013)
12. Rebellious behavior
Opposing to mandatory ICT’s
Irritation towards organizational ICT’s
“No, I think it is more the case that I don’t use the organizations applications.”
“It’s maybe also because I don’t have much trust in the organizations products.”
Conscious non-use of organizations own ICT tools.
Outspoken dislike of organizations own ICT tools.
20 13. Resources Available budget
Available time
Restrictions due to customer ICT compatibility
Hardware limitations
“…but that is only because it costs money and that wasn’t an option. That is a shame since it is an [ICT] tool that really increases your productivity.”
“There is also not much budget available for a rigorous change.”
“And then I said: I’m going to spend a bit more extra time on this [new ICT].”
“You have to use enterprise-grade proven technology for your customers.”
“…because I have a laptop that can’t handle that [certain software].”
Budget restrictions.
Time restrictions.
Restrictions due to customer demands.
Restrictions due to hardware available.
Davis et al. (1989)
Bateman (1981)
14. Specific personal circumstances
Physical limitations “that I do a lot with my right hand. Instead of using both, I type with one hand. I have to be careful with that, because I use a computer 8 hours a day. That’s why I use different tools.”
21
Results
The findings made in this study resulted in a broader understanding of the IT self-leadership construct and the possible factors influencing IT self-leadership of IT professionals in an organizational context. In this section, a view of the various possible factors discovered in the data gathered will be provided. These results will be presented together with components of the coding scheme as utilized during the data analysis. The resulting factors are discussed in order of frequency of occurrence. The most prominent factors in this research are elaborated upon in this paper. The remaining less cited factors are included in the tables and appendices of which only certain salient results within these factors will be touched upon briefly.
Desire to enhance performance
The most prominent results deducted from the interviews belong to the factor titled ‘ambition to enhance performance’. This factor is composed out of the subcategories ‘reduce time needed for task’, ‘reduce effort needed for task’, ‘minimize errors’, ‘find easiest way to use ICT’, ‘desire to increase own productivity’, and ‘laziness’. The exertion of IT self-leading behavior to reduce effort and time needed for the task at hand has been counted the most times of all items derived from the data. Searching for novel ICT’s in order to reduce effort needed for a task has been mentioned 16 times by a total of eight different respondents. As one respondent stated: “I decided to write a query especially for this [calculating the hours
worked on a project] because it was the easiest way and it saved me from having to repeatedly scroll through weeks of data.” Reducing the amount of effort needed for a task is, as can be derived from this quote, interlaced with finding the easiest way available to use ICT and often accompanied with the desire to reduce the time needed for a task. This was also the case for this particular respondent as he continued: “With this query I was able to calculate all the hours worked by my four team mates within five seconds.” However, these factors also occur separately from each other. Besides these three specific productivity increasing aspects, the desire to increase productivity on a more general level is also of influence on IT self-leadership: “I chose to use that [a particular type of software] because it works so much more productive then the software we have to use].” Even though the wish to increase productivity seems to be a leading factor in IT self-leadership behavior, exertion of this behavior also occurs out of laziness: “The desire to search for IT that can do that [automatically fill in your passwords] originated out of laziness, I guess.”
Organizational boundaries
22 procedure, rules regarding ICT licenses, size of the organization, and the organizational change capacity. Freedom to explore and use other ICT’s is the most occurring aspect in the interviews as it has been indicated 17 times amongst six respondents. A fair amount of freedom regarding ICT use in an organization can enhance IT self-leadership as stated: “The great thing here is that you have administrator rights for your own laptop, so that you can install certain software yourself. That motivates me even more to try new things”. A lack of freedom can possibly lead to a decrease in IT self-leadership: “I really want to try new things [ICT’s] but that is not allowed, so I don’t.” Additional to these finding, three respondents mentioned that they would exert more behavior that falls under the scope of IT self-leadership if they would have had more freedom: “If I would have had a bit more freedom, then I would have initiated the use of new ICT tools.” Another example of this is: “But you can also stimulate people a bit to start messing around, like Google, where employees are given the opportunity to innovate.” The impact of ICT’s being set by management connects closely to the freedom perceived by organizational members: “They [colleagues] were forced to use Eclipse [development software], because something else was not allowed. This really is a factor that works against using new things [ICT’s].” With respect to the procedures that need to be followed within the organization in order to use new ICT’s, various possible relationships with IT self-leadership have been found. “I had to develop an App for an iOS system, but we didn’t have a Mac. I couldn’t
just keep on waiting and my motivation was really decreasing so I managed to install MacOS on my pc, which technically wasn’t allowed. It took a lot of effort, but it worked eventually and that was really cool. ” In this example, the tediousness of the request procedures that have to be followed resulted in an enhanced IT self-leadership, but it also occurs that these type of procedures impede the exertion of IT self-leadership of the members of the organization: “If I would have worked somewhere where requesting software licences was less of a tedious process, I think I would be more inclined to introduce new ICT tools.” Other factors that impede IT self leadership is are the rules regarding ICT licenses that employees are expected to conform by and the size of the organization: “The size of the company and the guidelines that I have to follow have a negative effect on that [using new ICT’s].” Another respondent using the same line of reasoning regarding organizational size stated: “The organization has a lot to offer, which enables you to come in contact with new ICT’s, but in respect to actually being able to use the ICT tools you want to use then working at a large organization might be more of a limitation as you are not really free to do what you want.” Connected to this elements, the general change capacity of the organization was also noted as an influencer: “…so, before you can set something like that up around here you will be waiting a couple of months.”
Enjoyment
23 codes ‘amused by ICT’s’, ‘interest in ICT’, ‘curiosity regarding ICT’s’, ‘boredom’, and ‘spending personal time on ICT’s for work tasks’. Over half of the times enjoyment was indicated, respondents stated that being amused by ICT’s, or simply just having fun with it, was leading in their behavior. As mentioned in the interviews: “I really like trying those kind of new crazy things.” Another clear statement in this same line of reasoning is: “It is really nice to be able to play with the things you enjoy playing with [referring to ICT’s]. I think that having fun with it influences how eager you are to take initiative in solving problems and taking time to do so.” General interest in ICT is also categorized under ‘enjoyment’. People that are interested in ICT are more likely to search for new ICT’s and new ways of using ICT: “I also use the computer a lot at home, I have always been interested in those kind of technical things and I play around to see how things work… …I also search for alternatives in my project.” Closely connected to this is curiosity regarding ICTs. As quoted from the interviews “But besides that, I am just curious towards how things [ICT’s] work.” And stated by another respondent: “I definitely want to see how something works, and I also mess around with IT a bit…” All these elements of enjoyment come together in the following quote of one of the three respondents that indicated to spend personal time on ICT’s for work related tasks: “I don’t only search for new ICT’s for my project in work time, but also in my free time. This is because A, I enjoy it and B, it is necessary in our field. Only working from 9 till 5 will impede your development.” Highly
related to enjoyment is IT self leadership that occurs out of boredom, “This happens a lot out of boredom, but sometimes also out of interest.” Work related goals
24 tool. That was my first step… ” Existing organizational ICT’s often have limitations with respect to their functionality. The need to cope with these limitations in order to achieve certain work related goals is also of influence on IT self-leading behavior: “You just have limited resources. So you will automatically be busy with it [searching and using ICT’s] and then you’ll learn and try all kinds of tricks and such. Just because you are limited, that makes you creative.” Also searching for ways to deal with the complexity of certain tasks influences IT self-leading behavior: “Things have to work faster and easier… and that is also work related, dealing with complexity in your work.” Additional to this, other influences are the need to solve a problem or coming across limitations of organizational ICT’s and the desire to find the best ICT tools possible to utilize. “Another factor that plays a role is that I just simply look at what is handiest to use.”
ICT reputation
The results also suggest that ICT reputation, or in other words, the image of being an IT expert within the organization, is of influence on IT self-leading behavior. This factor is divided in, in order of number of times stated in the interviews, sharing ICT knowledge, introducing ICT’s to others, initiating ICT’s to use, contributing to ICT use of others unasked, showing off ICT’s others don’t know, being challenged by others and focusing on building a certain image within the organization. Sharing ICT knowledge was, with ten times, found the most in the interviews followed by ‘introducing ICT’s to others’ which was stated seven times.
25 ICT, more.” Another notable aspect of the factor ICT reputation is the desire to show off ICT findings or knowledge to colleagues: “When I finish my virtual box, then I will definitely influence the people in my project with it, because they can use it too. […] No, I don’t do that out of love for my neighbour. I mean, of course it is nice to help people, but secretly it is mainly vanity. To be able to say, I fixed that. ”.
Will to learn about ICT’s
Encompassing a general will to learn more about ICT’s is also found to be a factor influencing IT self leadership. This factor contains the desire to learn about new ICT’s, the desire to use ICT’s in new ways, the desire to optimize ICT use and working in an organization containing a learning culture. In the interviews, the desire to learn about new ICT’s and the tendency to follow particular media in order to become aware of new ICT’s that come to market has been noted: “I keep close track of those type of trends, that’s for example how I came up with the idea to use the extension of Hootsuite.” Also the desire to use ICT’s that the individual is already familiar with, but wants to use in a new way to utilize its full potential: “I knew this already, but I wanted to try to use it in a different way because it seemed more optimal.”
IT Self leadership of others
The initiation of ICT’s by others together with the general interest of others in ICT’s is labeled as the IT self-leadership of others. Others’ IT self-leadership is also found to be an
influencing factor in the interviews, especially cases in which other organizational members approach their colleagues to communicate the discovery of a new ICT tool and offer them to show its functionality: “And sometime people approach me and ask: Hey, do you know about this [ICT tool] already?”
Various other factors
The broad design of this research led to the discovery of an extensive amount of factors that might influence IT self-leadership. Other factors that have been discovered in the data are playfulness with IT, the acknowledgement received of superiors, perceived IT self-efficacy, how accustomed a user is with ICT in general, the tendency to exert rebellious behaviour, the availability of resources (prominently budgets and time), and specific personal circumstances such as having to cope with a physical limitation.
26 respondent’s affinity with ICT, and ICT related knowledge.
The factor formulated regarding how accustomed a user is with ICT is aimed at how used to working with certain (non-organizational) ICTs the user is. The degree to which individuals are used to their own ICT’s, are used to a certain way of working with ICT’s and their (lack of) proficiency in specific organizational ICT’s prevails to influence IT self-leadership are items of being accustomed to ICT’s. Being accustomed to own ICT’s and a certain way of working together, while lacking knowledge regarding how to work with specific organizational ICT’s, results in IT self-leading behavior in the form of searching for workarounds when utilizing organizational ICT’s. As mentioned, another notable result of the interviews is the rebellious type of behavior a number of organizational members have towards mandatory organizational ICT’s and the irritation regarding mandatory ICT’s which induces IT self-leadership behavior in the form of secretly using novel ICT’s or organizational ICT’s in other ways. This irritation towards organizational ICT’s induces this behavior and respondents also clearly stated that being restricted by organizational ICT’s induces the intensity in which they search for new ICT’s or workarounds. Organizational resources such as available budgets, time, and hardware, and various ICT restrictions due to ICT compatibility with customers are also found to have an influence on the IT self-leadership of three of the twenty respondents.
In one of the interviews, specific physical limitations played a major role in the IT leadership of the particular individual. IT self-leadership in this case is induced by the need to find new ways to use ICT’s to work in the best way possible while not disposing over full functionality in both hands and arms. Since this factor has only been noted by one of the twenty respondents, further attention has not been paid to this factor within this research.
Discussion
27 the other factors stated in the results section of this research are also perceived valuable to the conceptualization of the IT self-leadership construct and provide a clear basis for a widely dispersed range of opportunities for further research. The discussion of the factors ambition to enhance performance, organizational boundaries, enjoyment, and pressure of attaining work-related goals will be followed by a section in which the limitations of the research conducted will be elaborated and recommendations for further research will be provided.
Discussion of results
This study was structured around the following research question:
What are the factors related to IT self-leadership behavior in a work-related
context?
In the theoretical background section of this paper, a definition of the IT self-leadership construct has been provided. IT self-leadership was defined as follows:
The willingness and ability of an individual to experiment with any new information technology, explore it’s potential uses and
find new ways of using an existing IT to support performance with respect to
work-related tasks in ways that go beyond the established, standardized practices and regardless of how motivating this process is.
During the origination phase of this research, we were aware of the possibility that this applied definition of IT self-leadership might
need to be altered according to findings in both the literature, gathered data and analysis of the conducted interviews. However, we found no grounds to alter this definition and feel that the interviews provide a considerate confirmatory addition towards the definition of IT self-leadership as utilized within this study. As the results section and the appendices of this paper depicts, the findings regarding possible factors of IT self-leadership in a work-related context are extremely extensive and elaborating on all of them would be a very tedious process. Even though all findings are perceived as a valuable basis for further research, only the most prominent findings will be discussed and their accompanying propositions resulting from this study will be stated and provided with accompanying literature.
Influence of the desire to enhance performance on IT self-leadership
28 acceptance of IT that, amongst others, the expected performance and effort are leading determinants of whether a user will accept a certain ICT tool. Based on this, the assumption can be made that the expected and perceived performance and effort regarding achieving a certain work related goal can influence whether someone will search for new ICT’s or new uses of existing ICT’s for completing their work related goals. Based on these findings, both the ambition to enhance personal performance and the expected performance gains regarding the use of new ICT’s or existing ICT’s in new ways are expected to be positively related to IT self-leadership.
Impact of organizational boundaries on IT self-leadership
The presence of restricting forces that prevail in an organization due to rules, licenses and procedures regarding ICT use. These restricting forces can lead to both a decrease in individuals IT self-leadership, often because the individual feels that searching for novel ICT’s is pointless, or an increase in IT self-leadership in order to work around tedious ICT request processes within the organization. Where individuals have the feeling that they are limited in their autonomy or general freedom, creativity and innovation might be inhibited (Curral and Marques-Quinteiro, 2009). Cohen and Ledford (1994) made a similar finding in their study regarding the effectiveness of teams with the freedom of being self-managing. The size of the organization can also have both a positive and a negative relation to IT self-leadership. A large organization can provide a lot of ICT related
knowledge which may stimulate IT self-leading behavior. However, size may also inhibit IT self-leadership because implementing something new is more difficult compared to a smaller organization. This leads to the reasoning that the rules and procedures regarding ICT use within an organization can have an impact on IT self-leadership, but whether this can be seen as a positive or a negative relationship is unclear in this preliminary stage of research regarding the IT self-leadership concept. The same line of reasoning also applies to the possible impact of organizational size on IT self-leadership. As argumented, the size of an organization might be positively related to IT self-leadership due to the fact that organizations generally have more resources to utilize which can support self-leading behaviors. However, this relationship might also be a negative one since organizational size is known to lead to rigidity and inertia which can restrict the individuals’ self-leading behavior or impede the motivation to, for example, introduce new ICT’s due to the assumption that the members of the organization will not take any advantage of it. Relationship between IT enjoyment and IT self-leadership
29 IT self-leadership. As previously mentioned, the ambition to enhance performance is a strong influencing factor in the IT self-leadership behavior of the organizational members interviewed. Reducing time and effort for a task by, amongst others, finding the easiest manner to utilize ICT’s and with this instantaneously increasing personal productivity levels or just fulfilling the desire to be lazy can be seen as an influencing factor within the utilization of IT self-leadership.
Relationship between the pressure of work and IT self-leadership
In contrast to exerting IT self-leadership due to enjoying working with, and learning about, ICT tools, the pressure felt by employees towards meeting deadlines and achieving goals set within the organization or project also prevails to be related to IT self-leadership on first sight. The debate that this finding however raises is, which level of work related pressure that individuals have to cope with provides the optimal balance in which IT self-leadership behavior will be executed instead of hampered? Further research will provide more clarity on this and it is highly recommended to expand on all the assumptions derived from this exploratory research.
Limitations and further research
The broad scope of this research regarding a subject that has not yet been targeted much in the IS field before created an opportunity to pin point an extensive amount of starting points for further research, but since an unexpected high amount of factors related to IT self-leadership
have surfaced during the data collection and analysis, this made the delineation of boundaries difficult. An attempt at establishing certain research boundaries has been made by the choice to only elaborate on the factors explaining a total of 75% of quotes derived from the interviews and to narrow this down further by only discussing the first four factors in the discussion section of this paper.
A very clear limitation of this research which has been stated by more than half of the respondents is that their behavior regarding ICT use is something that occurs unconsciously and that it was therefore really difficult for them to answer my questions with a clear example of their exerted behavior. Two respondents even explicitly mentioned that observing how people work might lead to more information than asking them about their attitude and behavior. This approach is highly recommended for further research.
30 recommended to conduct a similar research within different industries.
As previously mentioned, numerous possible factors of IT self-leadership that have been found have only been mentioned in this paper and not researched more in-depth. However, certain factors that fall out of the scope of this study are expected to enhance the IS field if researched further. Especially the possible influences of physical disabilities of workers on IT self-leadership and the influence of the behaviors and attitudes of colleagues with respect to ICT use on an individual’s IT self-leadership are factors that lend themselves for further research. Besides these factors, one respondent indicated that the interior design of the office was of influence on IT self-leadership. The respondent mentioned that the workplace was designed in an open and playful manner in order to enhance creativity and collaboration. Since many factors have been stated, and this was only mentioned once, this has not been included in the coding scheme or researched further. However this might prevail to be an interesting branch of this study since more and more organizations tend to structure themselves in a manner that encourages innovative and explorative behaviors of their employees. Besides more in-depth study’s on the various factors identified, it is definitely also recommended to research whether the identified factors are actually antecedents of IT self-leadership, as they have been treated throughout this study, or whether the relationships depicted are actually defining a formative IT self-leadership construct. Another
discussion that arises, is whether it is accurate to focus on IT self-leadership as a competency, as done during this research, while there are also grounds to perceive it as a trait.
Conclusion
Instead of actually closing an gap in the IS field, or even providing an answer to a number of questions, this research has led to the occurrence of even more questions, patterns of thoughts and especially various opportunities for conducting further research regarding the IT self-leadership concept. As IT self-leadership has been positioned in this research as more of a competency, a great addition to this study would be to research IT self-leadership as a term used to describe how individuals lead themselves in their ICT use. Approaching IT self-leadership in this manner is expected to provide researchers with more space to research and define various types of IT self leadership. As can be derived from the results of this study, possible types that might come to surface are, for example, the efficiency oriented IT worker, the curious IT self-leading type and early adopter type that responds fast to new industry developments.
31 competency of a trait can also provide valuable ground for further research.
32
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