Generative mechanisms of workarounds, discontinuance and reframing: a study of negative disconfirmation with consumerised IT

Abstract

This study investigates the observed behavioural outcomes when users experience negative disconfirmation with consumerised IT artefacts with the aim to identify the generative mechanisms of these outcomes. We analyse blogposts, authored and published by tablet users, where they narrate their experience with an IT artefact. We employ grounded theory method techniques, and through the lens of Critical Realism and the application of abduction and retroduction, we identify three user accommodating practices following negative disconfirmation, namely discontinuance behaviour, workarounds and reframing, and two generative mechanisms with enduring properties and causal power over them: solution identification and cost/benefits assessment. Our work contributes to the literature of volitional IT use and the consumerisation of IT, by uncovering the mechanisms that pave the way towards observed user behaviours.