Article Preview
TopIntroduction
The research stream examining adoption and acceptance is one of the richest and most mature streams in the IS field (e.g. Davis, 1989, Venkatesh & Davis, 2000; Venkatesh, Morris, Davis & Davis, 2003; Venkatesh & Bala, 2008). But, in contrast, post-adoptive use behavior is still under-researched, and often conceptualized as increasing intensity or greater frequency of use (Jasperson, Carter & Zmud, 2005). Some efforts have already been made and show that post-adoptive use behavior may also diminish over time with gained experience (Bhattacherjee, 2001), or on the other hand become habitualized and routinized in individuals’ work routines (Jasperson et al., 2005). Undoubtedly, research on technology acceptance and initial use can enrich our understanding of post-adoptive use behaviors (Hernandez, Jimenez & Martin, 2008), but distinctions between pre- and post-adoptive beliefs and behaviors have already been observed (Agarwal & Karahanna, 2000). Understanding the three different dimensions of effective use in a specific BIS utilization context is central to this work. Deng and Chi (2013) argue that the Business Intelligence (BI) application context offers an ideal opportunity to examine a variety of post-adoptive system uses.
In the IS literature, the positive impact of the information provided by Business Intelligence Systems (BIS) on decision-making has been emphasized, particularly when organizations operate in highly competitive environments (Popovič, Hackney, Coelho, & Jaklič, 2012; Harison, 2012). These technological innovations are one of the main sources of competitive advantage for the long-term survival of organizations (Jourdan, Rainer & Marshal, 2008), although their benefits can only be fully realized in situations where these promising innovations are completely accepted and effectively used. User acceptance is also crucial to BIS success, but in this context, in contrast with operational information systems (IS), there is a particularly pronounced difference between using or accepting the system and long-term routinization (Bhattacherjee, 2001) of the use of information provided by the system as part of management of the organization and business processes (Popovič et al., 2012).
There are two motivations for this study. First, previous research in the field of IT acceptance has mainly focused on general IS and thereby only considered the narrower aspect of use, merely the frequency of use and not how IS is used (Davis, Bagozzi & Warshaw, 1989; Venkatesh & Davis, 2000; Venkatesh & Bala, 2008), treating system use simply and solely as a measure of the relevant behavior consequent to technology acceptance. This work represents a step in the direction advocated by Jasperson et al. (2005) who call for richer conceptualizations of system use by also treating system use as a theoretical construct. Second, it also responds to the call by Burton-Jones and Straub (2006) to develop the conceptualization of usage and select usage constructs and measures for specific contexts. The specific features of BIS use as compared to operational IS motivate the three conceptualizations of BIS use. For BIS it is important if BIS are deeply embedded within the business (Shanks et al., 2012). Therefore, BIS use behavior should be measured by several dimensions to yield a rich understanding of its utilization. In addition to quantitative measures of how much a BIS is used (frequency or duration) (Davis et al., 1989), we are also interested in a qualitative measure of how a BIS is used in the organization. The aims of this study are therefore to:
- •
Conceptualize and develop relevant measures for the three constructs of BIS use behavior, namely intensity, extent, and embeddedness; and
- •
Empirically test and evaluate the construct reliability and validity of these three conceptualizations of BIS use.