IS Reappraisal and Technology Adaptation Behaviors

Employees have to adapt to newly implemented information systems (IS) because they are often perceived as radical changes or disruptions. To understand such adaptation behavior, IS research suggests that employees first appraise the new IS and second perform technology adaptive behaviors. However, while the psychology literature indicates that adaptation is a continuous process unfolding over time, previous IS literature treats adaptation towards IS implementation as a rather singular, noniterative process. As firms continue to implement IS, an understanding of reappraisal and the influence of technology adaptation behavior is vital to ensure successful implementations. Therefore, the present paper investigates reappraisal and the influences of four different technology adaptation behaviors. We conducted a longitudinal study and used hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) to validate our research model. The findings reveal that employees reappraise the newly implemented IS over time regarding perceived opportunity, threat, and controllability and demonstrate that technology adaption behaviors influence such reappraisal. One specific finding is that employees might get into positive or negative reappraisal loops. We thereby contribute to research by extending the adaptation behavior literature and add a new piece of the puzzle to understand how employees adapt towards newly implemented IS over time.