Abstract
The use of Shadow IT systems describes practices where employee(s) engage in" voluntary noncompliance with the IT policies by using unapproved IT systems to perform an IT-based task" (Haag et al. 2019, p. 732). Expectedly, such behavior can have detrimental consequences for organizations, as Shadow IT systems have the potential to become quite complex and perilous (Haag and Eckhardt 2017; Ostermann et al. 2020; Winkler and Brown 2013). There is a significant gap in investigations of this phenomenon from a collectivist or a group-oriented perspective (Haag et al. 2023). This study is designed as a preliminary step towards the greater goal of developing theoretical contributions on the use of Shadow IT systems by collectives (e.g., work groups). The objective is to deploy instruments that embody collectivist behavior (Basic Human Values Theory by Schwartz and Bilsky (1990) and Moral Foundation Theory by Haidt and Joseph (2008)) to help surface patterns of divergence between two extreme groups: progenitors (employees that instigate the use of Shadow IT) and antagonists (who are strictly opposed to its use). To achieve this, we use methods of extreme case sampling and inference justification by way of triangulation and corroboration, as suggested by Miranda et al. (2022) on a publicly sourced qualitative data corpus from Reddit.com.
Thirty-three Shadow IT-specific Reddit discussion threads were identified and manually scanned to shortlist 24 progenitors and 21 antagonists. The longitudinal data corpus containing approximately 2.69 million words from 72 Reddit users (including controls) was analyzed using the Personal Values Dictionary by Ponizovskiy et al. (2020) and the Moral Foundations Dictionary 2.0 (Frimer 2019) in the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC-22) (Boyd et al. 2022) algorithm. We conducted one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) and Tukey's HSD test for post-hoc pairwise comparisons to examine the results.
The results showed divergence patterns between progenitors and antagonists across three emergent concepts. These were the differences in their group orientations, group-directed behavioral impulses, and moral formulations on transgression. Progenitors showed a radically narrower conception of group orientation (in-group defined boundaries) than the antagonists. The group orientation for antagonists was determined by their value for universalism with the impulse to "protect order and harmony in relations". The Moral Foundation Theory showed what constituted transgression or immorality was not uniform for the two groups. For progenitors, to not fulfill the obligations defined by their social order or to disobey and disrespect this order were immoral acts. In addition to these, acts of cheating and betraying were immoral for antagonists. The results showed the individual's conceptualization of their group orientation anchored their behavioral impulses towards their groups.
We identified future research opportunities of interdependency research (how individuals influence each other as part of a group) and normative influence research concerning Shadow IT use (what group norms influence individuals with specific group orientations).
Recommended Citation
Kumar, Animesh; Burtscher, Christoph; and Eckhardt, Andreas, "Progenitors and antagonists of shadow IT use: Results of a computational-driven approach using Reddit data" (2022). WISP 2022 Proceedings. 14.
https://aisel.aisnet.org/wisp2022/14
Abstract Only