USER PSYCHOLOGICAL APPRAISAL
OF ENTERPRISE WEB 2.0-DEPLOYMENT
Sacha Helfenstein
Agora Human Technology Center, University of Jyväskylä, Finland
Keywords: Enterprise Web 2.0, User Psychology, Technology Adoption.
Abstract: Effective exploitation of emerging Web-based social information and communication tools has become the
new mandate in contemporary enterprise IT-strategy. However, current assessments and recommendations
are generally biased in favouring normative considerations from a technical and business angle; and
deficient in their emphasis of the implementation- over the adoption-perspective on technology deployment.
The current paper propagates the enhancement of Enterprise Web 2.0-research, discourse, and practice by
placing it into the focal point of a multi-disciplinary scientific approach comprising services, design, and,
importantly, user science. User psychological insight serves as basis for contending essential human
adoption barriers and arising dissonances between technical and human use-related promises of Web 2.0;
both of which need to be recognized and productively dealt with in the organizational context of Enterprise
Web 2.0.
1 INTRODUCTION
In the wake of the industrial “going online”-era a
new competitive arena has arisen with regard to
leveraging the value of emerging social information
and communication technologies (also: social
software) for advantageous and creative business
conduct. Web 2.0, and with it Enterprise 2.0, have in
the last 5 years become the associated buzz terms
and guiding paradigms to capture modern enterprise
IT strategy and development. This awareness is
already widely developed with large enterprises
(e.g., Lamont, 2007), however, it is safe to predict
that the new wave of the Web will reach all of use
(McCormack, 2002).
In spite of the many identified success factors
(e.g., Carter), there is a genuine risk in the context of
fast-pace base capability and mobility development
of social ICTs, that Enterprise Web 2.0-
opportunities remain ill-exploited. The most
compelling threat in the author’s judgement pertains
to two mutually related concerns. The first entails a
discrepancy between business- and computing-
related visions of technology implementation on the
one hand versus the socio-psychological reality of
adoption and use on the other hand. And the second,
more general concern relates to an implicit
divergence between technical and human
assessments and promises of the future of the Web,
including its industrial and business implications.
What is needed to support successful and sustainable
enterprise Web 2.0-innovation is (1) the
establishment of an appropriate academic evaluative
frame, (2) an understanding of the essential human
barriers regarding effective adoption and use of
novel tools and practices, and (3) the carving out of
core conflicts, i.e., dissonances, between technical
and human use-related promises of Web 2.0.
The current position paper briefly addresses
these aspects, however, without reiterating in detail
the properties of Web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0
regarding their various components and business
argumentations (see e.g., McCormack, 2002; Carter,
2007). The implicit focus is on organizational
adoption by workers and employees themselves, as
this is assessed to be the prerequisite of any
Enterprise Web 2.0 endeavour.
2 ACADEMIC EVALUATIVE
FRAME FOR ENTERPRISE
WEB 2.0 ADOPTION
The matters implicated by Enterprise Web 2.0
naturally relate to a variety of traditional fields and
concepts, involving the disciplines of information
systems, computer science and software engineering,
business science and economics, human and social
sciences, as well as arts and others. Condensed to
424
Helfenstein S. (2008).
USER PSYCHOLOGICAL APPRAISAL OF ENTERPRISE WEB 2.0-DEPLOYMENT.
In Proceedings of the Tenth International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems - HCI, pages 424-427
DOI: 10.5220/0001727404240427
Copyright
c
SciTePress
essential perspectives the study and implementation
of Enterprise 2.0 necessitates the alliance of three
key scientific approaches. These are services
science, design science, and, importantly, user
science (see Figure 1).
Figure 1: Multidisciplinary Approach to Enterprise Web
2.0 Research.
At the interjunctions of these scientific fields we can
define on a more fine-grained level a variety of
research areas that are concerned with information
system development (ISD), group work and
collaborative technologies (including CSCW, CVE,
computer-mediated communication etc.), business
models, management and leadership, and industrial
and organizational functioning with focuses on
change and development, and finally, user
psychology (including Human-Computer Interaction
[HCI], ergonomics, human factors, usability etc.).
The main current appeal concerns the valuation
of user scientific concepts, methods, and
intervention knowledge in order to effectively
understand and manage enterprise Web 2.0-
deployment. With technological inventions as driver,
organizational learning and enterprise IT-
management models as enabler, the propagated
focus roots in the conception of humans as the actual
executers and consummators of progress and
innovation.
In order to understand the idiosyncratic contents
and paths of technology use adoption, normative
scientific approaches are deficient. An empiricist,
stochastic user scientific approach is needed. Hereto
the user psychological approach (Saariluoma, 2004)
is proposed as appropriate research frame, which
simultaneously reasserts the need to enhance the
applied scientific impact of psychology in the areas
of services businesses and design (Landauer, 1987;
Moran, 1981; Münsterberg, 1913).
3 USER PSYCHOLOGICAL
ADOPTION HURDLES
Micro-level (individual) adoption and effective use
is the natural prerequisite of organizational
spreading and enterprise level technology
exploitation. This perspective is believed to fit the
credentials of Enterprise Web 2.0 all the more as the
therein involved technologies and practices
emphasize the core principles of user involvement
and participation.
Adoption of any new technology use-related
behaviour is always a dynamic user need and
experience-driven socio-psychological process.
Under- and ill-use are its direct antipodes. By
focusing on these antipodes, and thereby
complementary to the majority perspective that
concentrates on the attractive side of technology, it
is the distinct intention of this paper to highlight
distracting adoption factors. In fact, it is contended
that not just instead, but in spite of available positive
values of new technologies, their adoption can be
hampered by several use antagonists. Below is a list
of the six core hurdles that need to be overcome in
the course of any successful service or tool adoption
process. They are absence or lack of: (1) awareness /
knowledge; (2) understanding / comprehension; (3)
interest / motivation / belief; (4) need / use fit; (5)
capability / opportunity / resources; (6) prior
success / satisfaction.
In short, considering for instance a particular
application software tool, potential users must be
aware of the availability of the new tools and they
must have a primary conception of what the tool is
for and how it is used (irrespective of how apt this
conception is), from which they develop further
attitudinal beliefs about value of the product. Next,
in order to translate adoption attitudes into use
intention and actions, the utility and interaction
requisites must fit the users’ intrinsic or extrinsic
(e.g., corporate decree) needs and customs or
generate according ones and users must be equipped
with the necessary opportunity, resources, and
capacity to acquire, explore, and apply the tools.
Finally, users will evaluate the triggered experiences
and effects of interacting with the tool, including
past ones that a user deems to see related to the
current tool and its use, and accordingly recalibrate
their tool conception and attitudes toward it. This is
a very important point relating to positive and
negative use transfer effects (Helfenstein, 2005).
Traditionally, a user’s willingness to adopt any
new technology is seen as connected to user’s
judgment of their potential benefits (Ajzen &
Fishbein, 1980; Davis, Bagozzi & Warshaw, 1989).
Here, the frequent neglecting of two critical issues
related to user needs and motives is contemplated.
First, tools and practices that are placed in the focus
of user adoption are commonly not unique or
original, neither with respect to users’ learning and
USER PSYCHOLOGICAL APPRAISAL OF ENTERPRISE WEB 2.0-DEPLOYMENT
425
use biographies, nor with respect to purpose-
equivalent alternative means to satisfy the same
needs. And secondly, the accustomed user practices
often provide a series of competing (factual or
imagined) spin-off benefits: Taking care of banking
deeds at the counter in town instead of in the
Internet may provide an elderly with a reason to
leave the own four walls. It is very frequently
exactly these alternative sources for behavioural
justification that unveil themselves as real stumbling
blocks when introduced to novel practices.
Finally, the most basic of all reasons for not
discontinuing a use habit is our innate reluctance
toward change (e.g., Toffler, 1970), the innate
antagonist to the human exploration instinct and a
long debated phenomenon also in organizational
settings (e.g. Leavitt & Whisler, 1958).
Considering enterprise adoption of Web 2.0-
tools it is quite intuitive that organizational context
(business nature, size, heterogeneity etc.) and IT
deployment management play essential roles in
promoting or inhibiting adoption and use. Creating
and sustaining a “highly receptive culture” (McAfee,
2006) is seen as crucial to best support Enterprise
Web 2.0-technology adoption in on organizational
context. Therefore, executives should be concerned
with minimizing the above mentioned adoption
hurdles through a set of governance measures and
the nurturing of a constructive use breeding
environment. In doing so, they further should be
aware of impending dissonances between
technology- and human-oriented assessments of
Enterprise Web 2.0.
4 DISSONANCES BETWEEN
TECHNICAL AND HUMAN
USE-RELATED PROMISES OF
WEB 2.0
Based on the user psychological contemplations and
in reviewing a wide range of literature, surveys, and
case studies
1
on the state and prospects of Enterprise
Web 2.0 development, a set of general dissonances
between technical
2
and human/social use-related
1
Nearly two dozens case studies from openly accessible
Web-resources were included.
2
The notion of technical promises does not refer to the
technical layer of Web 2.0 in terms of programming
and software engineering but only to the nominal
utility of Web 2.0-technologies (applications and
services) involved.
promises were distilled, which potentially burden
effective Web 2.0 technology deployment and
adoption. They pertain to the mutually overlaying
issues of utility, design and innovation paradigm,
deployment and control, and outcome expectation.
Utility Dissonance. While technological solutions
become more quick to develop and sophisticated,
they inevitably get also increasingly numerous and
heterogeneous. This suggests that in future we suffer
no longer from a lack of technology or use skills, but
from the mass as well as partial redundancies and
incongruities of systems and related user
experiences. This utility trade-off addresses a lack of
transfer between interaction settings as well as
deficient system unity and use consistency, all of
which jeopardizes rather then assures ease-of-use
and value of the available tools in people’s every-
day interaction.
Because businesses are fundamentally people-
based, the ability to capitalize on technological
innovation will depend directly on the employment
of standards and platforms that ensure a ready and
smooth use management of new tools available.
Design Approach/Innovation Dissonance. Web-
tools are all-too-often developed mainly for a
technically inventive and commercial end; less to
encourage organizational work innovation in a
feasible way. This disparity between a technology-
and a use-driven design paradigm reflects a critical
shortage of action-oriented research efforts, resulting
in naïve conceptions of intuitivity in design.
In order to overcome this gap, innovation must
be distinguished from invention, and appreciated as
socially constructive process of adoption and use,
closely tied to incumbent user work practices and
experiences on the individual and organizational
level of business operations. Further, a soothing
counterforce to the disruptive impact of IT
inventions is needed; one that accentuates
conformities and emphasizes deep-seated user
conceptions.
Deployment and Control Dissonance. The
participative and democratic mandate of Web 2.0
makes firm top-down introduction and
implementation obsolete and raises the vital question
of how private user involvement and expertise
among employees can be turned to advantage in the
organizational context (i.e., bottom-up deployment).
A key question is therefore how to successfully
combine formal and informal technology roll-out by
effectively atuning change leadership and IT-
governance measures. On the other hand, increased
ICEIS 2008 - International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems
426
egalitarianism and user emancipation in IT-
deployment also put to the test traditional
organizational and business process structures as
well control expectations of managing officers;
frequently surfacing in security concerns of
Enterprise Web 2.0. Indeed, successful business
alignment and integration of IT may just mean to
substitute dogmatic information structures with
organic ones (e.g., so called “unstructured” tools).
Outcome Expectation Dissonance. Dealing with
over-laden expectations by concentrating on
rudimentary application needs and goals is essential
both on the individual user as well as on the
enterprise (business) level. Not everything is greener
on the other side of the Web 2.0-fence. Blogs, for
instance, risk even to broadcast the already evident
problem of local link and bookmark-management
into a wider web-user arena.
Compelling web-applications or services are
further scarce – an obvious side-effect of the current
Web 2.0-development boom that lifts quantity over
quality. Skimming through hundreds of Firefox
extensions, for instance, one can find only a handful
that would truly converge existing services into an
integrated browsing experience.
The conjecture is warranted, that much of the
industrial promises associated with novel web-usage
does not reflect the superiority of emerging tools as
such, but merely (a) the inapt and therefore inferior
internet technologies used extensively in business
today (e.g., e-mail, Intranets; Davenport, 2005), and
(b) their potential when aligned successfully with
business processes and servicing nature.
5 CONCLUSIONS
Although contemplations about technology adoption
are not exclusive to the case of Enterprise Web 2.0,
they are very timely, of clear economic value, and of
unique relevance in the context of the participative
technology use and development paradigms.
Research and discussions on the matter needs
therefore to be re-stimulated and enriched with
insights and arguments stemming from a user
scientific approach.
In order to understand the socio-psychological
dynamics of the adoption process the paper proposed
a model comprising six, interdependent adoption
hurdles or barriers that need to be overcome. This
hurdle-conception, although appearing simply
antagonistic to the adoption benefit view serves a
complementary theoretical purpose. It further
incorporates technology use transfer issues that are
especially vital in the context of the current second
wave of Web-effects.
Finally, various arguments about broad conflicts
between technical and human use-oriented promises
of (enterprise) Web 2.0-adotpion were ordered into
four dissonances (utility dissonance, design
approach dissonance, deployment dissonance, and
expectation dissonance).
It is the insight into this climate of dissonances,
which is claimed to constitute the ground for
comprehending user challenges and managerial
significance concerning enterprise Web 2.0-
adoption.
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