The registration paradox: How a registration and reporting system influences the work practices of social workers A qualitative case study

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The registration paradox: How a registration and reporting system

influences the work practices of social workers

A qualitative case study

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Business Administration Submitted by: Daniel R. Koning S3522636

MSc Business Administration: Change Management Faculty of Economics and Business

University of Groningen

Supervisor: dr. I. Maris-de Bresser Co-assessor: dr. B.C. Mitzinneck

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Abstract

Social work organizations are, most often, obligated to deliver extensive data performance reports to account for their service. Meanwhile, documentation activities appear not to enhance or complement social work practices. This study aims to examine the influencing effects of a registration and reporting system on social work practices by using the concept of affordance potency. Eleven social workers and the managing director, from a single Dutch social service organization, were interviewed. The studied organization opted for voluntariness to use a registration and reporting system to complement a context-driven work approach. Applying the affordance potency concept allowed to examine how the characteristics of the work environment condition the relationship between the social worker’s abilities and IT features at the moment of actualization. Three IT affordances with strong dependency were drawn from the empirical findings: (1) registration, (2) reporting, and (3) informing. These affordances were found to have an indirect positive impact on social work practices. The affordance potency concept gave insight into how social workers perceive affordances according to the social context, and how affordance actualization depends on the perceived contribution(s) to the outcomes of the social work practice. In addition, voluntary use and organizational goals were identified to influence the affordance actualization.

Key words: IT affordances, affordance potency, IT features, social work practices, registration

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Introduction

Compared to the business sector, social service organizations have been slow to adopt information technology (IT) (Zorn, Flanagan, & Shoham, 2011). Social service organizations that introduce IT challenge social workers to expand their realities, as they are expected to integrate the new IT functionalities into their routines, in order to enhance social work practices and reshape social context (Goldkind & Wolf, 2015). Meanwhile, it is questionable whether the use of IT enhances social practice (Burton & Van den Broek, 2008), as the incorporation of IT in social work routines is considered time-consuming compared to its added value (Office of the Chief Social Worker, 2014). The nature of social work is patient-centric and unpredictable, in which the human presence is a fundamental consideration as social work concerns the interface of people, their families, and their communities (LaMendola, 2010).

The potential of IT to transform social work practices requests to increase the pace of technology adoption (Berzin, Singer & Chan, 2015; Goldkind & Wolf, 2015) while simultaneously foreboding dark forecasts of a future in which the relational dynamic of the profession is replaced by technology in order to manage information (Kreuger, 1997; Burton & Van den Broek, 2008). In this conflicting advocacy, there is a gap in empirical research that shows how IT is being used in social work practices, a gap which slows adoption by the social service organization (Berzin et al., 2015). Social workers that use IT in their work routines have encountered several barriers that prevent the intentional integration of IT into the practice (Mishna, Bogo, Root, Sawyer, & Khoury-Kassabri, 2012) — translating into a gap between the practice expertise of social workers and the academic literature on how and when to best integrate IT into the social practice (Mishna, Bogo, & Sawyer, 2015). Besides, the available literature on the integration of IT and practice often comes from psychologists and counselors rather than from social workers themselves (Singer & Sage, 2015). A better understanding of IT-associated change is necessary to understand and manage the disruptive effects of IT on social work practices (Bala & Venkatesh, 2016; Westerman, 2017).

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concept of IT affordances has roots in the sociomateriality approach towards technology (Orlikowski & Iacono, 2001) and is a useful framework to study IT in organizations, as it shifts the focus from the characteristics of the technology itself to what an organization can actually do with it (Kane, 2017). Research shows that IT offers affordances for nonprofit organizations to achieve their social mission, provided that the users of IT take actions to actualize IT affordances (Bobsin, Petrini, & Pozzebon, 2019). This process is referred to as affordance actualization (Burton-Jones & Volkoff, 2017; Strong, Johnson, Tulu, Trudel, Volkoff, Pelletier, & Garber, 2014). Affordance actualization is the process of turning potentials into definitive results; individuals take goal-oriented actions to use IT to achieve an outcome. In order to affect affordance actualization, organizations can attempt to change user’s perception of affordances (Bernhard, Recker, & Burton-Jones, 2013) or strengthen affordance potency (Anderson & Robey, 2017).

To contribute to the knowledge of how IT impacts social work practices and the theoretical knowledge of IT affordances, I formulated the following research question; How do IT affordances

influence social work practices?

To answer this question, I conducted a qualitative case study in a social service organization. The case presents a nonprofit organization, in which management opted for voluntariness in the organizational roll-out of new IT, as it decided to leave adoption and use of the newly implemented online registration and reporting system at the discretion of the individual. To study the effects of the new system, I drew upon the literature of affordance and adapted the model of affordance potency to fit this research (Anderson & Robey, 2017). The concept of affordance potency helps to explore the factors that influence the strength of the relationship between the social context, the abilities of the social worker, and the IT features. I analyzed the IT affordances of the new system on the individual level and how these are actualized in the social context of patient-centric work practices.

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registration and reporting system and how it is voluntarily utilized by social workers in their work practices. Understanding why and how users voluntarily adopt IT and change their work practices could help management design and execute IT implementations (Elbanna & Linderoth, 2015). These influencing conditions of user abilities and IT features provide evidence of the existence of affordance potency. This research responds to the call for more explanatory research on IT affordances (Bernhard et al., 2013; Orlikowski & Iacono 2001). To reach results, I drew upon the theory of affordances actualization (Strong et al., 2014). Therefore, the research further explains this theory by providing knowledge on how affordances are actualized and how IT affects work practices.

The remainder of this paper is structured as follows. First, the theoretical background on IT in social work practices, IT affordances, and the conceptual model is explored in the Literature Review. After that, the research methodology is explained. Next, the findings highlight the most interesting results to answer the research question in the discussion, along with theoretical contributions, managerial implications, research limitations, and suggestions for future research. Finally, the paper ends with a conclusion.

Literature review

IT in social service organizations

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The introduction of IT in the social service practices caused the discussion of measurable standards and extensive reporting of social work practices to justify the performance outcomes in a bureaucratic fashion (Kirkpatrick, Ackroyd, & Walker, 2005). While social workers generally ought to make decisions that are aligned with the social mission and clients best interest, conversely IT and its functionality usually support managerial goals (Burton & Van den Broek, 2008). IT does not directly contribute to the direct outcome of social work, but it instead often enables the collection of client information in a standardized system and synergizes with capabilities such as being able to control, evaluate employees and organizational performance (Kirkpatrick et al., 2005). Consequently, a threatening risk is that ‘the process of making human

services including social work “auditable” is in danger of being destructive, creating a simplistic description of practice and focusing on achieving service outputs with little attention to user outcomes’ (Munro, 2004, p. 1075). Monro's (2004) observation overviews a paradoxical situation

in which social worker has to make the consideration to adhere to the procedure or whether to make accurate assessments. More often, governments grant subsidiary funds according to the data of registered delivery of services; this pressures social service organization to apply protocols and procedures, as sequential phases of social work practices are simpler to document. To create auditable rapports, social service organizations often use IT to enable online documentation. Which results in an increases governmental control of social service performance through service agreements, detailed performance data obligations, and other managerial techniques (Harris & McDonald, 2000; Turner & Martin, 2004).

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documentation, reports, and evaluation. The perception that IT could increase social workers ability and expertise is fueled by myths, as the role of IT failed to support the practices and decreasing workloads (Burton & Van den Broek, 2008). The specific IT system studied was shaped by managerial policies and practices, embedded by risk management requirements during the public sector reforms.

Since the public sector reforms, there is evidence of rising levels of stress, record levels of sickness among the British social care workforce (Kirkpatrick, 2006). Practitioners of social work tend to be drawn to the profession by the relational and caring aspects of the work (Carey, 2003; Harlow, 2004). Such social workers emphasize the human presence in casework as fundamental (LaMendola, 2010). Consequently, in situations where social workers are mandated to report and document to satisfy managerial goals, dilemmas occur when the interests of the client are of a conflictive nature (Kirkpatrick, 2006; Tsui & Cheung, 2004). Hence, the bureaucratic setting in which social work increasingly takes place challenges social workers with the search to find a balance between their accountability toward client, organization, and profession (Sheafor & Horejsi, 2005).

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IT features

IT features are the building blocks, or components, of a technology (Jasperson , Carter, & Zmud 2005; Sun, 2012), also referred to as technical objects by Markus & Silver (2008). IT features are the tools an actor uses within an IT to perform a set of tasks or actions. Functionality is how those features work to afford you with the anticipated outcome. Features are not only about the functionality but also about other properties, such as appearance (Markus & Silver, 2008). Griffith (1999) places IT features along two continuums: concrete versus abstract and core versus tangential. Regarding the first continuum, features are concrete when they can be directly and specifically described and when it is easy to observe and recognize a feature. In contrast, features are abstract when they are described more indirectly, and generally, thus, the verification of the feature is more complicated. The second continuum is about the criticality of the features to the technology’s goal or identity. The more critical the feature is to the technology, the more the feature is placed towards the core end of the continuum. On the other hand, the tangential features are optional and may not be used or perceived to a majority of the users (Jasperson et al., 2005). Features are interpreted and adapted by users through social construction of the technology (Griffith, 1999; Orlikowski, 1992).

The field of interpretive research has shown that the same IT can be used differently by people working in different organizations (Barley, 1986; Edmondson, Bohmer, & Pisano, 2001), or even among people who work in different groups within the same organization (Boudreau & Robey 2005). Poole & DeSanctis (2004) showed empirical evidence that group decision making effectiveness increased if groups appropriated on a similar set of IT features as intended by the designer. The groups who use IT feature in similar ways experience better outcomes than groups that did not. However, there was no evidence of a pattern of group use that could predict technology acceptance in the post-adoption phase (Poole & DeSanctis, 2004).

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features. IT affordances make us look at the IT features and what they are and how they align with individual or organizational goals. Doing so makes the concept of affordance useful to differentiate between design decision of IT developers, embodied as features and functionalities, and the impact of those functions on user’s attitude to shape the actions which decide usages of IT for work practices (Leonardi 2013; Markus & Silver 2008).

Theory of affordances

The concept of affordances was first presented by Gibson (1979; 1986), an ecological psychologist, who used affordances to explain how animals perceive an object. According to Gibson, animals perceive an object in terms of action potentials that it affords instead of its physical properties. Gibson's studies illustrate that conditions that permit actors to interact with their environment include both the properties of the actor and the environment (Gibson, 1986). An affordance defines an action possibility available in the environment to an actor. In which the affordance is independent of the actor ability to perceive the opportunities.

Moreover, affordances were introduced to discussions of technology by Norman (1990, 1999), who argued that technology designers purposefully build affordances into technology to prescribe how the set of features should be used. A good designer of technology should make affordances easy to perceive because it should indicate to the user what the technology can do and how it is to do that thing (Norman, 1999). Norman’s argument is different from Gibson’s in that he states that affordances do not change across different contexts of use.

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Markus and Silver (2008) proceeds the relational view of affordances and notes them as

“the possibilities for goal-oriented action afforded to specific user groups by technical objects”

(p. 622). Markus and Silver (2008) describes IT artifacts in terms of technical objects, functional affordances, and symbolic expressions. Object’s properties represent IT features which can provide affordance information but are inefficient to explain the use. A functional affordance describes what an individual user can do with the technology, with regards to the user's capabilities and goals. Symbolic expressions relate to the relational concept between technical objects and how users may interpret these. Functional affordances and symbolic expression are not only formed from the IT artifact that is implemented, but also from the replaced legacy IT (Goh, Gao, & Agarwal, 2011).

Leonardi (2011b), based on the work of Hutchby (2001) and Markus and Silver (2008), used the concept of affordances to study the interrelation between technology and actors in organizations. In a case study, Leonardi (2011b) discovered that employees change work routines or technologies when they perceive constraints to achieve a goal, on which the change depended their perception of the affordances created from the imbrications of human and material agencies. As an enabler of actions, IT results to a set of affordances and constraints (Leonardi, 2011a; 2013; Volkoff, & Strong, 2013; Wang, Wang, & Tang, 2018), for example: “firewall technology affords

users behind firewalls the enabling affordance of security while at the same time providing constraining affordance of preventing unauthorized access by potential outsiders” (Wang et al.,

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actors to act and makes it an important mechanism to perceive affordances and constraints (Gaver, 1996).

Users of technology develop workarounds to address endured constraints as these limit the actors from achieving their goals (Dini, Sæbo, & Wahid, 2016; Majchrzak & Markus, 2012). Focusing not only on affordances but also on constraining factors allows examining the outcomes for social workers in using IT in relation to their design intentions (Majchrzak & Markus, 2012) and avoiding the pitfall of technological determinism (Parchoma, 2014). Findings of constraints and their explanatory effect provides insight on conditions of affordance actualization (Thapa & Sein, 2017).

Where the affordance is the potential for achieving a goal, the actualization relates to the IT user and conditions regarding the specific actions taken by that user (Volkoff & Strong, 2017). While identifying affordances is a first step for understanding how work practices may change due to new IT, focusing on affordance actualization increases the understanding of the actual influencing effect on social work practice (Strong et al., 2014; Volkoff & Strong, 2017). Strong et al. (2014) defines affordance actualization as “the actions were taken by actors as they advantage

of one or more affordances through their use of technology to achieve immediate concrete outcomes in support of organizational goals” (p. 15).

In a multi-site case study of the implementation of an electronic health records (EHR) system in multiple medical groups, Strong et al. (2014) observed the goals and affordances of the individual and organization. The studied participants drew upon system affordances to achieve their individual goals of patient care, which also contributed to the accomplishment of organizational goals to provide more effective healthcare at a lower cost.

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to be actualized before another affordance while weak dependencies were found between affordances where the absence of the first affordance did not wholly prevent the next affordance. These dependencies illustrated how affordances might strengthen or weaken over time as users enhance their abilities, IT evolves, and the social context continuously changes.

Affordance potency in social work practices

While Strong et al. (2014) laid the theoretical basis for affordance actualization, Anderson & Robey (2017), extend the theory by proposing the concept of affordance potency, which is “the strength of the relationship between abilities of the individual and the features of the

system at the time of actualization, conditioned by the characteristics of the work environment”

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From these theoretical insights, Anderson & Robey (2017) constructed a process model of affordance potency, which helps to explain the affordance actualizations of IT in use, as it focusses on the ease of the individual users to actualize an affordance. The model of affordance potency (Anderson & Robey, 2017) is adapted for this research as understanding how IT affordances vary in their potency to help social workers to perform in their work practices contributes to our understanding how affordances influence work practices. Figure 1 overviews the adapted model of affordance potency (Anderson & Robey, 2017).

Figure 1. Model of affordance potency (adapted from Anderson & Robey, 2017)

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extent the knowledge on affordance actualization by explaining the potential effects of voluntariness on user perception, and organizational goals on user goals.

Methodology

Case site

The case selected is the use of a registration and reporting system called Hello’s Online (further indicate as Hello’s) within a Dutch social service organization. For the remainder of the paper, the pseudonym “SocialCare” is used to refer to the research site. SocialCare is a nonprofit organization employing 60 full-time staff and 600 volunteers. SocialCare provides general social care services on mezzo and micro level for a city with approximately 80.000 citizens in the Western region of the Netherlands. Examples of mezzo level social work include community organizing, solving issues in the neighborhood, management of a social work organization, or focus on institutional or cultural change on group level. Micro social practices are the most common routines of a social worker and involve direct engagement with an individual client or family to aid in issues. Common examples include helping individuals to find appropriate housing, support in financial issues, finding healthcare, individual or family counseling, and the treatment of people suffering from a mental health condition or substance abuse problem.

The IT artifact in this research is Hello’s, which is a registration and reporting system developed explicitly for social service organizations. When SocialCare implemented Hello’s in January 2019, management opted for voluntary choice for users to use Hello’s in their work routines. The system’s architecture follows a modular approach, offering multiple functionalities to facilitate social workers in efficiently performing their jobs. The architecture of Hello’s has several on-demand and customizable functionalities. Hello’s modular architecture allowed SocialCare to adjust the set of features, leaving a selection of original functionalities available for social workers to use.

Research Design

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knowledge to address a new phenomenon that is under research in academic literature (Van Aken, Berends & Van der Bij, 2012). The nature of the research is explanatory as it tries to explain the relationship between the influencing effects of IT on social work practices through using the concepts of affordance potency and actualization.

Anderson’s & Robey’s (2017) affordance potency concept offers a new lens to explore and explain the affordance actualization process. By using the concept of affordance potency, the goal is to provide and extend this theory by trying to explain the relationships between the constructs, while potentially discovering new conditions on how social worker actualizes IT affordances to influence their work-practices. These explanations may provide insights for the causality of why these constructs of affordance potency (e.g., IT features, user abilities, social context) correlate with each other and with user perception and user goals.

To meet the research objectives, the study is designed as a single holistic case study (Yin, 2009) with individual social workers as the unit of analysis to find and examine social work practices, IT affordances, and the influencing conditions of the actualization process. Social workers of SocialCare have a homogeneous job description and are not divided according to their specialization. Their work routines of casework can be described as dynamic because the work conditions of the case vary according to the situation. A case study design is appropriate as these aspects cannot truly be understood without the real-life context they occur in (Eisenhard, 1989).

Data collection

During the data collection, I took measures to meet the criteria of validity, reliability, and controllability (Yin, 2013) to secure the quality in this qualitative case study. The research context and design gave the opportunity to do three different data collection methods to ensure validity. The three different data collection methods were combined to reach triangulation to present stronger evidence of findings (Eisenhardt, 1989) and increased the validity of these findings. The data were gathered via in-depth interviews, observations, and document analysis. The triangulation of data helped to control the instrument bias to support reliability.

Interviews. The interviews with social workers were the primary data source. A total of

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followed a sequence of themes, consisting of multiple questions. The questions were inspired by Anderson & Robey (2017) to increase the likelihood to gather theoretical knowledge about the affordance potency and their constructs, which enhances the construct validity. The semi-structured interviews gave additional space to steer the interview and to ask follow up questions to obtain an in-depth insight regarding a discussed matter. Interviews followed four themes that consisted of a variety of questions, as shown in the interview protocol (Appendix A).

The first theme discussed introducing questions regarding the participant's view on social work and organizational goals and how these connect. Hence, participants were asked “How do you view your work practices as an extension to SocialCare's overarching goal?” The second theme discusses Hello’s and how its functionalities influence the earlier discussed social practices. The interview structure allowed to switch back to earlier addressed questions as participants showed difficulty discuss and imagine IT features and functionalities without discussing the social context. For example, participants were asked if they could describe their usages of Hello’s and whether it was an extension to their work routines and activities. The third theme addresses questions regarding the affordance actualization process, such as, “When do you use Hello’s, and why?” Six participants were asked to demonstrate the use of Hello’s to understand how system operates and is used. During the demonstration, the participants were asked whether Hello’s functions in the way it is supposed to. The last theme introduced a selection of statements to dive deeper on user perception by illustrating various situations. These statements were developed overtime, an example of a statement, “If Hello’s would be gone, what would you miss?” Furthermore, questions were asked to summarize and confirm what is said in the interview.

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will be asked for permission to be audio-taped to enhance the reliability of the research. Furthermore, the interviews were taken in a closed-off office room to prevent disturbance.

Table 1 - Interview participant

Observations.During interviews with social workers, I asked and observed six participants demonstrate Hello’s on their phone or laptop. These observations complemented the interviews to discover the sociotechnical interplays, as observing real-time use of Hello’s provided insights into the IT features and the user ability to work and perceive the functionalities. Doing so gave a better understanding of the relationship between IT features and user ability. It also allowed asking more in-depth questions regarding the relationship. These insights contribute a stronger substantiation of constructs (Eisenhardt, 1989) and to the validity of the research (Yin, 2013).

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findings (Straus & Corbin, 1998). These notes assisted with the data analysis as these excerpts contained analytical thoughts and insights that were not be captured on the recording (Patton, 2002).

Documents. The study of documents provided the first set of data, as it gave prior to the

interviews information regarding the research site and Hello’s (Yin, 2013). These insights provided input for the formulation of the interview protocol. The documents used for analysis were the articles of incorporation of SocialCare, the subsidiary grant application 2017-2018, the manual of Hello’s, and the licensing agreement between SocialCare and the IT vendor. Analyzing the vendor licensing agreements provided insights on agreed upon the functionality of the system and IT features to identify potential affordances that may result from a pairing of those features with individual abilities. All documents were received on request.

Data analysis

Document analysis. Document were obtained and analyzed prior to the interviews and provided

insights of SocialCare and Hello’s features. Analyzing the licensing agreement of Hello’s provided insights regarding features and the planned affordances, as Hello’s functionalities are formally documented in terms of service level agreements. Moreover, the IT vendor website gave knowledge regarding the planned affordance, as it overviewed the IT features and along with anticipated user abilities. The website provided microblogs regarding the usefulness of the system in designer’s anticipated work conditions.

The articles of incorporation state the goals of SocialCare as a nonprofit organization. It outlines and defines the key characteristics such as; its nonprofit nature, purpose, incorporators, directors, and the board. This information was complemented by the subsidiary grant application. The grant gave additional information as it qualitatively accounts for the financial expenses by overviewing the progression of 2017-2018 and ambition objectives for 2018-2019.

Interviews. Data collection and data analysis occurred iteratively by adding and removing

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inductive codes to mark interesting elements (e.g., dynamic work practices, organizational goals). The inductive codes were expected as the affordances actualization process is influenced by actual conditions in the social context (Bygstad, Munkvold, & Volkoff, 2016; Strong et al., 2014). After all interviews were conducted and openly coded, the process of axial coding started by identify concepts from the codes that contained the most references in the data. Finally, through selective coding, links between affordances, the affordance potency concept, and the influence on social work practices were identified. Selective coding elaborated on the process of how Hello’s affordances influenced social work practices at SocialCare and concentrated on the concepts that occurred most often in the transcripts. Examples of the coding process can be found in Table 4 and the whole codebook is shown in appendix B.

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Findings

In this section, results from the interviews and data-analysis are presented. First, the organizational goals and the system’s implementation are explained. Second, social work practices and Hello's affordances are identified. Third, affordance potency, in addition to the user’s perception and goals, is overviewed to explain the actualization of these affordances. Finally, the influencing effect on social work practices is described.

Organizational goals and Hello’s

Social workers work with clients, families, or situations which are referred to as cases. SocialCare’s social workers aim to make the clients within the case self-sustainable, as is formally incorporated in the statutes: "The foundation aims to improve the quality of life and social quality

in the neighborhood and offers support to individuals and groups to participate fully and independently in society." (Articles of incorporation SocialCare)

SocialCare does not apply standardized protocols or procedures. Instead, there is an outspoken work philosophy to practice a context-driven approach in order to do what is necessary for the client. To make the context-driven approach work, the managing director opted for voluntary choice for social workers to use Hello’s in their work routines. This provides the social worker the autonomy to act in the best interest of the client. Forcing the social workers to use Hello’s would be inappropriate for a context-driven mindset and unnecessary as the managing director indicated that it does not need client or performance data for managerial purposes, as the organization does not have the obligation to report performance in order to receive subsidiary funds. The applied subsidiary is instead approved by the government by an audit of service agreements through a qualitative method. The managing director measures individual performance through qualitative means, as participant M states: “If I discuss cases with my social workers; you

will naturally notice how social workers are involved and how they act.”

Goal of Hello’s implementation. Hello's was implemented due to the request of social

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Excel. The introduction of Hello’s was facilitated by an user manual and two training session which were organized by Hello’s vendor. These sessions were visited by half of the participants, as the training was voluntary to visit and as the system is easy to use.

Interviews with the managing director and Hello’s designer show that SocialCare had a significant influence on the system design. On SocialCare’s requests, the vendor of Hello’s stripped down the features of the system to only offer the functionality to create a case file, in which information can be stored, and could be archived in Hello’s database. According to the designer, the system and its functionality had to support the social worker in his practice. The designer initially came from the field of social work profession and made an accurate judgment of the anticipated the social workers' ability to work with the system, as the participants’ statements regarding Hello’s shared many similarities with the intentions of the designer. The designer design intention focus on low effort requirements, which corresponds with how the system is perceived by participants. Since the implementation, no adjustments have been made to Hello’s. The system can both be operated on laptop and mobile phone, and social workers can choose to use their personal device of choice or have it facilitated by SocialCare.

Hello’s use. The majority of participants (9/11) indicate that they used Hello’s but differ

in terms of usage according to their expertise and the case characteristics. Social workers vary among each other in terms of expertise and work focus. Participants who focus on financial, legal, or coordinative work tasks use Hello’s more often. These cases consist of tasks which benefit from administrative support. For example, the financial and legal aspects often involve calculations and paperwork; besides, these aspects often go together in cases that consist of multiple issues.

Two participants indicated that Hello’s does not fit in with their goals due to the social context and IT features. One participant mainly works ambulatory in the neighborhood. The other focuses mainly on goal-setting with youth. Both participants do not use Hello’s in their work approach as they perceive the system’s functionality of registration and reporting to be ineffective and unnecessary. Nonetheless, they sometimes need to store information, such as planned activities and agreements. However, for this they use individual systems, such as a paper notepad or Google Drive.

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Social work practices and IT affordances

Social work involves the interactive consultation of the issues, needs, and goals of individual cases (e.g., a person, family, or neighborhood). Casework consist of six activities: (1) case intake, (2) assessment, (3) rapport building, (4) treatment & intervention, (5) overview & monitor, and (6) termination. These activities do not follow a routine path-dependent sequence, instead most activities are optional and can follow an iterative journey. Apart from case intake, this means that some cases activities are not executed at all, as participant C says: “There is no

clear answer or procedure for the work, it depends on the situation and circumstances." This

statement echoes SocialCare’s context-driven work approach and is shared among interviewed participants and fits with the nature of work, as cases concern people, which adds another layer of complexity: “People are people, there is nothing as complicated as people and the moment you

stick to a fixed plan, that won't work. " (Participant F). The context-driven approach does not

consist of a set of rules, instead it guides social workers to do what is necessary at that moment, which may result in the relinquishment of certain activities. The social work practices of assessment, treatment or intervention have a more direct effect on the outcomes. Participants mentioned that the human interaction during these activities is favored than using a system like Hello’s. Instead, Hello’s has a potential role for case intake, rapport building, and overview & monitor. Apart from case intake, these activities have an indirect impact on the outcome. Figure 2 resembles the journey of social work practices along with Hello’s affordances.

Affordances. The arrows between social work practices and affordances present a process

sequence which show how the affordances are potentially actualized through the dynamic milieu of social work practices.

The term "registration" denotes the act of capturing and archiving information on new case files. Registration of a case creates a case file which enables the other affordances of reporting and informing. Compared to other activities, case intakes are necessary: “With the intake, you enter a

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After a case intake, the client is (1) taken in the social worker's caseload, (2) enrolled to a colleague or different humanitarian organizations, or (3) rejected. All outcomes may be followed up with a registration, which adds the client as a case file in Hello’s database. For example, a client can be rejected, yet registration is actualized to inform other social workers regarding the rejected client to prevent double work: “Sometimes you have rejected client who goes to another colleague

to try to get something you denied.” (participant J).

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Dependency. The arrows between affordances reflect strong dependency as registration is

required to actualize the affordance of reporting and informing. Reporting requires a case file, which is created through registration, and stores the case file in Hello’s database. Single or multiple case file(s) can be retrieved from the database for informing purposes in a later phase of the case trajectory. The case file and database of case files are the outcomes of registration and reporting and enable the affordance of informing.

Whether Hello’s is used or not can depend on whether registration happened; however, not every intake of a case is followed up with registration. For example, some cases are small and solved in a short time, then registration is perceived as unnecessary. If registration is actualized, it does not consistently follow up with reporting or informing for same reasons.

The next paragraph discusses from the affordance potency perspective how affordances vary in their potency to help social workers to perform in their work practices.

Registration, reporting and informing potency

As previously discussed in the literature review, affordances are behavioral opportunities for action and possess a potency that is a product of that variability, which, in addition to social workers’ perception and goals, influences the actualization process. Registration, reporting, and informing are situated from the relationship between Hello’s features and social workers’ abilities, which is conditioned by the social context. The strength of the relationship is unique for each social worker because it is based on the implemented IT features and actual abilities of the individual social worker working with the social context of a case at a particular moment. The findings regarding the relationship between the user abilities and IT features is first explain, before continuing with the social context.

User abilities and IT features. While Hello’s is voluntary to use, some participants have

expressed ambiguous feelings to the system, as expressed by participant H: “While I heard that

Hello’s was coming, I first was enthusiastic. On the other hand, it was a registration system again. How did that happen? From SocialCare’s vision we chose not to register.” Registration and

reporting systems in general are negatively perceived by participants which have worked in organizations where data documentation was mandatory. These systems do not support the social workers in their practices, as explained by participant C: “But then you are not concerned with the

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However, most participants state that Hello’s is not like the typical legacy system they have worked with. Hello’s is as simple, user friendly, and self-explanatory: “It is also clear, it has a

good color, easy font, good interface. The structure, it all counts." (Participant G). Moreover,

Hello’s being digitally designed as a one-in-all system strengthened the potency of all affordance. All participants stated that Hello’s design is user-friendly compared to other registration and reporting system they have using experience with. Table 4 overviews the seven major IT features of Hello’s. Figure 3 shows the interface of a social worker’s individual caseload, which is stated as a simplistic design that enables them quick access to do registration or reporting by clicking on the symbol “nieuwe aanmelding” or “nieuwe rapportage” in pink menu.

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26 Table 4. Description of Hello’s seven major features.

On SocialCare request Hello’s is stripped down to offer basic functionalities with low effort requirements to actualize affordances. Registration could be actualized by brief notion of either a name, address, or phone number, which is easily done in Hello’s: “it is not a difficult system, it is

a small effort to register someone.” (Participant J). Hello’s is referred to as being clear and

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overview or via a database of case files. Within the database of case files all social workers can see which colleague is involved to which case.

Three conditions were identified to weaken the informing potency and related to the relationship of Hello’s features and the social workers’ abilities. During observations, the participants mentioned to not be familiar with Hello’s search function to find and filter cases or were used to the search functionality of other system. Which resulted that three participant mentioned that the search function does not function as expected: “The search function is not like

Google, like if you type certain words you will find the client. (Participant J). Another point of critique, which two participants with a coordinating role mentioned, is the inability to produce informative rapports, as the system is not able to visualize data to produce the desired overview required for coordinating tasks. For example, the informing potency weakens due to the experiences the actualization of informing to be time intensive: “It would be better if the overview

could show me which colleague is on which case in one sight. Not that I have to click on each person to see what case they are on. That is so much click work." (Participant F). The functionality

of the used hardware also is influential. The mobile phone device does not substitute the laptop for any affordance as no participant mentioned consistent use of Hello’s on their mobile phone. That indicates that the functionality of the laptop is superior or that the functionality of Hello’s on a mobile phone device is weak. Three participants were observed using Hello’s on the mobile phone. These participants experienced the compatibility of Hello’s to be poor. This was also observed during an interview with participant K in which Hello’s showed poor performance on the mobile phone. During another interview a different participant mentioned that Hello’s often returns to the log-in interface if it was not used for a while, which interferes with the expectations of the functionality of the system: “Look at this [pointing to screen], if you haven't been in Hello’s for a

while, then it automatically goes to the home screen, (…) then I have to log in again." (Participant H).

Social context. The work environment and conditions of social work conditions are often

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In simple terms, this can mean whether using Hello’s is ingrained in the work approach to do a case with specific characteristics. Hence, given the social context, social workers adjust their work approach, which indicates that social workers’ goals vary among each other and according to the social context of a case.

Social workers that have been working in the social profession for some time mention a shift from location-bound work to more ambulatory conditions since they have been employed by SocialCare, as these participants mention this transition: “You are no longer sitting neatly in a

room, having conversations. (…) you go to the client.” (Participant F). The ambulatory aspect of

the social context weakens the affordance potency as participants mention misfit to sit down with a laptop with their work routines: “You have travel time, so what are you going to do? Register?

You don't have time for that.” (Participant F). In addition, the majority of the participants dislike

the use of any IT with the client as it hinders human connection; what is experienced as crucial for a context-driven work approach: “The direct human contact. That is very valuable. (..) You pay

attention to someone and that is very important in our work.” (Participant B). Instead, registration,

reporting, or informing is actualized after or before the interaction with the client. However, social workers advising clients on more complicated topics such as law, financial, or housing mention to sometimes do use a laptop while sitting down with a client. Moreover, the recent changes regarding clients’ data and privacy made social workers obligated to ask permission before putting client information into the system. More often, permission is given, but when a client denies, the social worker is constrained: "Ultimately, the customer must give permission, because if people do not

cooperate, you cannot register." (Participant G).

The case intake is formal activity in which the client or family discusses with the social worker about the case objective. The social worker perceives the impression a client to interpret the social context. The impression is substantial influence on the potency to register the case: “Like

today, I had an intake with a family. Then I wonder, is this one-off or will they come back? I need to consider whether or not to put them in Hello’s.” (Participant C). How a social worker interprets

the case characteristics and social context produces information about the suspected case trajectory. The assessment process can leave ambivalent feelings whether the decision is correct:

I'm still worried about that, what is advisable and useful. Should I just put everyone in it or is that client a one-time visit, so it's not necessary.” (Participant C). Discussing the potential of Hello’s,

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case: “It at least must have some added value.” (participant C) Hence, social worker perception of Hello’s value strengthens or weakens affordance potency and due to voluntariness to use the system resulted that affordances are optionally actualized during social work practices. As achieving a positive outcome for the client does not depend on Hello’s use.

A pattern was identified that social workers deal with cases that vary in severity and complexity. Regularly clients come to SocialCare with cases that can be described as small, non-severe, nor complex. More than half of the participants perceive registration and reporting as unnecessary because the tasks and decision made in these cases are often ad hoc and low risk in terms of impact. Rapport building does not contribute to the outcome of the simple case, as mentioned by participant J: “90% of the reports you make are useless. They represent numbers to

show you did something.” Besides, social workers could make decisions without information

retrieved from informing.

Participants argue that the system's potential better aligns in complex cases, as Hello’s affordances have more to offer in cases that consist of one or more complexities such as long-term, involving a child or legal aspect, include multiple goals & agreements, or would require collaboration from other social workers or third-party organizations. Participants reasoning to use Hello’s often lead to a conversation regarding the work environment and its conditional aspects indicating the social context that surrounds the case. For example, a case with financial and legal aspects would strengthen the potency of registration as creating a case file is perceived as beneficial for the potential reporting or informing capability that may be needed in a later phase of the case trajectory. Moreover, registration and reporting tend to have a stronger potency if the social worker perceives less effort to actualize the affordance as opposed to potential negative consequences such as double work. In practice, it is difficult to predict the case trajectory, as case details and complications are hidden and occur unexpectedly.

User perception and goals. As mentioned before, SocialCare does not work with

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and the challenge to satisfy all involved parties: “But my interpretation does not always work in

the best of the organization and that of the organization does not always work well for the client.” (Participant F).

To reach the preferred outcome of the case; to make the client self-sustainable, social workers have to make considerations whether actualizing affordance is necessary. For example, registration is considered the most important, as the outcome creates a casefile which is essential for reporting and informing. Affordance actualization is conditioned by users’ goal: “My goal is

to help people, that's my goal. So if I have helped people, I will not worry about the fact that I did not register them in Hello’s." (Participant I). Meanwhile, participants understand that once a case

is registered in a database, other potentials come to existence which can positively influence their goal. So registration is not directly efficient. However, you will understand the effect of registering

later, that is not always the situation." (Participant G).

The affordance of informing has chain interactions with registration and reporting as for how it is perceived or integrated into work routines. The affordance potency strengthens for cases that require collaboration. This is illustrated in an example in which cases get enrolled from a third-party organization, where a group of social workers actualizes affordances for overview and monitoring purposes: “Neighborhood mediation is a case that often gets enrolled to us, which we

pass it to our mediators (…) I have to know how that process is going, so I need to have an overview of that or else I forget it.” (Participant D). The social context of social work practices helps to

shape the goal of the social worker, and predicts the actualization of Hello’s affordances with greater or lesser potency whatever the actual abilities or appropriations of Hello's features.

Influence on social work practices

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Increased efficiency. Over half of the participants mentioned that registration positively

influenced the activity of case intakes. Registration of a new case is important due to the substantial amount of enrolment channels within SocialCare, which lead to the problem of misuse or abuse by clients that reach out through numerous access points: “We often get people who have

previously been told no. (…) Once we told them no, they go shopping to try to get the help they want, instead of the help they need." (Participant F). Registration creates a file case with

information that makes the case and people involved visible. Visibility influences social work practices positively due to an increase in efficiency as it prevents double work (e.g., multiple case intakes of the same client). During a case intake, the social worker can check whether the person is known in Hello’s database by searching and informing regarding his case file.

Increased efficiency through registration, reporting, and informing happens through the chain of interaction between registration to informing or from registration and reporting to informing. Hello’s affordances are interpreted by participants to have a supportive role in the journey of social work practices as the benefits of registration and reporting are often experienced through informing in the future. Participant G expresses it in an example from his practice:

For example, when applying for guardianship, well, if you know what kind of conversation you have had and then listed the finances and managed to find time to report and store the information. Then in six months, it turns out that the person needs to be placed under guardianship, then it is nice that you can retrieve those reports and immediately make an effective decision to start that process. If you do not have that information because you did not register it, you must do so again." (Participant G)

Using Hello’s for all cases is perceived as inefficient and a waste of time. So with voluntariness to use Hello’s, the social worker has to make considerations when to do activities which directly contribute to the outcome of the case or do activities of case intake, rapport building, and overview & monitor along and actualize the corresponding affordances.

Enhanced outcomes. Some participants suggested that some degree of reporting, in

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32 “So that client was wrongly evicted from his home. I was summoned to court by the housing association and had to testify against my client, that is really not done. Due to my good documentation, I could prove that the client had no blame.” (participant H)

Moreover, reporting can also be in the best interest of the social worker. Actualizing registration and reporting enables and increases the value potential of informing, which supports social workers’ memory during daily activities: “If someone calls me. Then I think, who are you,

then I look it up in the system." (Participant B). Moreover, reporting can also protect the social

worker to account for the actions taken, as is illustrated in a case that involves a legal aspect: “But

it can also happen that someone makes a complaint against you, (…) then you can prove what you have agreed with someone who claims totally different things. That protects you as a worker.”

(participant H)

Communication leads to efficiency. Actualizing registration and reporting contributes to

Hello’s database of case files and enables communication through the system. Communication leads to an efficient case trajectory, as participant F mentions how Hello’s prevents colleague disturbances: "The moment a client first sits down with me, and I have made up a treatment plan,

and then another colleague goes to work with this client with a different plan. That does not work, as it influences the treatment process.”

The collaborating social workers may only be informed through Hello’s if the chain of affordance are actualized by one or more social workers. Registration and reporting provides communicative information in a case file which other group members can actualize informing.

Hence, the capabilities of the group already improve when one member of the group actualizes registration and reporting. Participants explain how informing has more potential in complex cases in which collaboration happens between multiple social workers or third-party organizations. As informing increases the effectiveness of the collaboration. These participants perceived the effectiveness if everybody involved in the case is informed, as it contributes to the process of working towards a set of goals and eventually the outcome of the case.

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does something with the finances, and someone does the conversations about parenting of the children.” (participant D). Within such a collaboration, the group is collectively actualizing

different affordances as the case progresses and according to the social workers specialization role. The functionality of creating a case file offers the flexibility to collaborate in groups. Collaborating social workers experience an increase in efficiency through sharing the case file: “Well, then you

can share a case file in Hello’s. Then you immediately have all the information together in one place.” (participant D)

Discussion

The objective of this research was to examine how the affordances of an online registration and reporting system influenced social work practices. A single case study on individual social workers has been conducted in a Dutch social service organization which recently implemented a new registration and reporting system called Hello’s. The managing director opted for voluntary use for social workers to integrate the functionality of Hello’s into their practices. Hence, the research question that guided this research was: How do IT affordances influence social work

practices? Three IT affordances with strong dependency were found to have an indirect potential

to influence social work practices. These affordances are: registration, reporting, and informing. The studied social work practice was casework, which involved a trajectory which may consist of six general work activities: case intake, assessment, rapport building, treatment & intervention, overview & monitor, and termination. From eleven interviews with social workers, it is found that the system was primarily used during case intake, rapport building, and overview & monitor. The dependency between affordances since a case intake could be followed up by registration to create a case file which enables reporting for rapport building purposes. Hence, the created case file is stored in Hello’s database and can be retrieved for informing during the activity of overview & monitor.

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To understand the variation, the affordance potency perspective gives insight into the relation between the user ability and Hello’s features which were deemed user-friendly and self-explanatory. The relation resembled a moderate strong potency as no social worker showed an insufficient ability to operate the system or mentioned lacking typing skills that influenced affordance actualization. Moreover, Hello’s strengthened affordance potency as its functionality facilitated the chain interaction of registration and reporting with informing. However, this strengthening factor is overshadowed by the user abilities, complemented by user goals and perception, to use Hello’s in presence of clients. Social workers favored the human connectivity above the use of Hello’s during cases. Therefore, affordance actualization happened before or after treatment to document valueable information. As participants understand that this information is retrieved via informing, and can only be actualized when registration and reporting is actualized. Because cases follow a trajectory affordance actualization did not directly influence social work practices. Instead, the benefit of actualizing registration and reporting happens through informing in the later phase of the case trajectory.

The chain of affordances varies in their influence on social work practices due to how social workers perceive the case context in terms of complexities. The likelihood of affordance actualization is higher when a social worker perceives that a case might be complex. Conversely, actualization is lower for simple cases. Figure 4 puts cases on a continuum from simple to complex cases and visualizes the likelihood of actualization and the potential benefit for the work practice.

Figure 4. Continuum of case context.

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The social worker’s goal is to do what is necessary for the case and explains how affordances vary in value because the simple cases benefit less from Hello’s affordances compared to cases with more complexity. As a result, the potency strength of an affordance is highly conditioned to the given social context, as argued by Anderson & Robey (2017).

However, the case context is often hidden and unforeseen circumstances arise during the trajectory, which explains how cases are challenging to be perceived as simple or complex at the moment of actualization of registration and reporting. Besides, even if the case is complex in terms of case characteristics, a social worker can decide not to use Hello’s and actualize affordances, as the social workers may voluntarily use Hello’s. Voluntary use influences the user perception to perceive affordance, and also decide whether the potential benefit is worth actualization. Voluntariness shifts the frame of thinking to what an affordance can offer given perceived social context.

Proposition 1: Voluntary use for the social worker to use the system influences the user perception of affordances.

While voluntariness empowers the social worker with the autonomy to make appropriate choices to do what is necessary for the case. High autonomy is also resembled in organizational goals, which reflects user goals as social workers develop and stick to a preferred approach to achieve the best outcome for organizational goals (Strong et al., 2014). With no work protocols and procedures to follow, the actualization process is conditioned by the user goal and his perception of the social context to understand what is needed in the clients’ best interests, as social workers serve towards making the involved client self-sustainable. Hence, organizational goals influence the social worker’s goal, as these goals were conditioning the boundaries of a social worker work approach (user goal) to do affordances actualization. Thus, Hello’s affordance may be actualized if the outcomes serve the principles of the organizational goal.

Proposition 2: Organizational goals influence a social worker’s approach (user goal).

Theoretical contributions. The qualitative case study received insight on how social

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Doing so answers the call for more empirical evidence regarding IT use in the social work profession via data collection from social workers (Singer & Sage, 2015). Findings show how IT could improve social work practices in certain case situations, which contradicts to the results of Burton & Van de Broek (2008) in which the social workers mention that using IT did not enhance social work practices. The social workers in this study perceived high autonomy and control over the choice whether to use the system, which was different in Burton & Van de Broek (2008) in which the social workers felt they had little discretion and choice over the flow of registration and reporting.

Moreover, this research describes the effects when the management of social service organizations opts for voluntary use of IT. As a result, the registration and reporting system transitions towards having a supportive role in work practices. This is combined with the influencing effects of organizational goals on system design to make the IT supportive in social work practices, which contributes to the knowledge on how to incorporate IT effectively in social work practices (Mishna et al., 2015). The research also examined the social worker’s perception and intentions to use IT in the extension of their goal, increasing our understanding of how social workers react to IT. These insights could benefit IT implementation in social work practices and increase successful integration of IT and foster the pace of adoption (Zorn et al., 2011; Berzin et al., 2015).

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situated affordance potency, created via the relation between the IT features and user abilities, is actualized whether if the perceived social context potentially benefits from actualization. Therefore, the social context and user perception were identified as the main conditioning factors for whether the affordance actualization and provide evidence that the strength of an affordance potency is unique for each user because of user perception and social context of the actual work environment (Anderson & Robey, 2017). Moreover, the study overviews how user perception is influenced by voluntariness to use IT in work practices. The findings favor that voluntariness is a perception of the environment (Moore & Benbasat, 1991) and contributes to our understanding of why and how users voluntarily adopt IT and change their work routines (Elbanna & Linderoth, 2015).

Managerial implications. Management of social service organization should acknowledge that leaving the voluntary choice to use IT with the social worker, in combination with the dynamic social context, triggers ambivalence. The current research shows that some social worker disputed whether his actions were invariably in the best interest of the client. I refer to this as the registration paradox. The paradox is caused by social workers’ internal tension to make a decision now that could affect the future outcome. As for registration and reporting, the definite advantages of both are experienced in a later stage and at unforeseen circumstances. For social work practice, it is asserted to be ineffective and time-consuming to record every action and conversation (Burton & Van den Broek, 2008).

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Limitations and recommendations for future research. The first limitation is the generalizability being restricted for social service organization dealing with a wide selection of general practices. The practices of interviewed social workers varied from goal setting and coaching to legal and financial advisory, to severe substance abuse issues. Future research could be extended to more social service organizations which differ in size and management to get a broader and more generalizable perspective. This study examined a social service organization which is unique in regards to their organizational goals. Interesting findings would be the comparison differences from voluntariness to use the registration and reporting system. Certain social work practices require benefit more from a systematic approach, in which a registration and reporting system would have a different role — for example, specialized social service organizations working with validated working methods and procedures to account for the set of actions taken. Further research in a social service organization, in which the use of a system to register and report is mandated, could provide interesting findings, such as other affordances or different conditions and effects of organizational goals on user goals and perception.

The current research focused on three IT affordances, which influenced social work practices on an individual level. Next to the selected affordances, Hello’s offered more potentials; for example, social workers found the functionality to use for reflective purposes, as social workers can use the system to evaluate and reflect their approach. For focus, the study was bound to a selection of the most important practices and affordances that were shared by more participants. Future research could extend the list of affordances on both an individual and organizational level. Additionally, the present research primarily used interviews as the method of data collection. Regarding affordances actualization, using observations would be a valuable research method, as participants in this research showed that how they think about their behavior is not always the same as what they actually have done.

Conclusion

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The registration paradox: How a registration and reporting system influences the work practices of social workers A qualitative case study