From Use to Effective Use: A Representation Theory Perspective

Andrew Burton-Jones () and Camille Grange ()
Additional contact information
Andrew Burton-Jones: UQ Business School, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, Queensland, 4072 Australia; and Sauder School of Business, University of British Columbia, Vancouver V6T 1Z2, Canada
Camille Grange: Sauder School of Business, University of British Columbia, Vancouver V6T 1Z2, Canada; and HEC Montréal, Montréal, Québec H3T 2A7, Canada

Information Systems Research, 2013, vol. 24, issue 3, 632-658

Abstract: Information systems must be used effectively to obtain maximum benefits from them. However, despite a great deal of research on when and why systems are used, very little research has examined what effective system use involves and what drives it. To move from use to effective use requires understanding an information system's nature and purpose, which in turn requires a theory of information systems. We draw on representation theory, which states that an information system is made up of several structures that serve to represent some part of the world that a user and other stakeholders must understand. From this theory, we derive a high-level framework of how effective use and performance evolve, as well as specific models of the nature and drivers of effective use. The models are designed to explain the effective use of any information system and offer unique insights that would not be offered by traditional views, which tend to consider information systems to be just another tool. We explain how our theory extends existing research, provides a rich platform for research on effective use, and how it contributes back to the theory of information systems from which it was derived.

Keywords: effective system use; performance; goals; representation theory; system structure (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (23)

Downloads: (external link)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/isre.1120.0444 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:inm:orisre:v:24:y:2013:i:3:p:632-658

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Information Systems Research from INFORMS Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Asher ().