Deviance and its facets : a multi-level investigation of deviant behavior in is

Abstract

The pervasiveness of technology in our private and professional lives is causing relevant changes to individuals, organizations, and society. Technology is widely available nowadays and individuals are able to find new solutions and exploit their functionalities autonomously. As a result, employees are finding ways to use consumer technologies from their personal lives in the workplace, which is challenging the traditional way to manage technology within organizations. Within this context, deviant behaviors such as the use of unauthorized technology in the workplace, called shadow IT, is attracting attention as a relevant and underexplored organizational phenomenon. Few studies have addressed shadow IT usage at the individual level, but none addresses shadow IT usage from a group-level perspective. The general objective of this dissertation is to investigate the antecedents and consequences of shadow IT usage considering a multi-level perspective (individual and collective). This research aims to investigate deviant behavior in IS taking shadow IT usage as an instance and examining it from different perspectives and methods. This dissertation provides theoretical implications to individual and collective workplace deviance in the IS domain. It contributes also to the emerging body of knowledge regarding shadow IT usage by investigating the phenomenon from a multi-level perspective. Moreover, this dissertation provides implications for IS police violation and security research by addressing shadow IT as collective deviance. A better understanding of the collective deviant behavior of employees within organizations can aid to cope with IS norms violations, providing new insights about policy development and strategies to mitigate such behaviors and increase information security.