Users Behaving Badly: Phenomena and Paradoxes from an Investigation into Information Systems Misfit

Abstract

In its formative years and during the 1990s, Global Energy PLC (GE)1 went through a series of structural changes precipitated by the deregulation of the electricity industry in the UK. The severity of these changes had a disruptive effect on its enterprise information systems, which were found unable to adapt to the new and constantly emerging organizational realities. GE’s experiences illustrate the vulnerability of information systems in turbulent environments, provide for a rich description of the causes of misfit due to contextual change, and establish the ability of a system to flex and adapt as a dependent success variable. In addition, the idiographic details of this interpretive field study raise interesting questions about a number of assumptions we hold regarding the development of information systems and the means by which flexibility can be attained.