IT Identity: A Measure and Empirical Investigation of its Utility to IS Research

Because use is the critical link between information technology (IT) investments and organizational performance, IS researchers have focused attention on the post-adoption phase—after organizational IT are installed and used by employees in their work. To that end, recent theoretical work introduced IT identity—representing the strength of individuals' self-identification with an IT—as a means to explain richer, post-adoption, IT use behaviors. Utilizing multiple methods and surveys, and focused on use of two different technologies, this study develops theory-based measures to establish IT identity's utility for expanding the understanding of post-adoption use. Results show IT identity predicts different IT use behaviors and richer forms of use. Further, IT identity maintains its predictive validity when embedded in a model with other predictors. Given the importance of such value-creating behaviors in today's multi-functional-platform based IT environments, our findings suggest future research consider IT identity an instrumental part of models seeking to explain IT use in post-adoption contexts.