The social influence of users’ emotional expression on the acceptance of information systems by peer users

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The social influence of users’ emotional expression on the acceptance of information systems by peer users

Journal Title: Journal of Emerging Trends in Marketing and Management - Year 2016, Vol 0, Issue 1

Abstract

Information systems have crucial functions in a modern organization. Yet, for such technologies to fulfil their goals, they must be accepted and used by the employees in their organizations. Present models explaining acceptance and use of technology are somewhat limited due to their strong focus on the cognitive and behavioral factors influencing user adoption of information systems, while mostly ignoring affective factors that are likely to play an important role in this process. Research that does consider affective factors typically focuses on the affective reactions of users of the systems and how these influence aspects such as system acceptance. Recently, psychological research has established the crucial role of emotions and other affective states in basic human functioning. In particular, psychological research has stressed the important social function of emotions by indicating how the emotion of one individual may affect others. This study examined the effect on one user's emotional expressions, emitted in response to his or her experience of assimilating a new information system, on peer observers who are also about to be exposed to the new system and intend to use it. Specifically, the research examined the effect of anger and shame versus emotional neutrality, expressed by users of a new information system on peer observers who also are about to be exposed to the new system in aspects of positive and negative emotions, perceived performance expectancy, perceived effort expectancy, the observer's expectation that important others think he should use the system and observer's intentions to use the IS. In two different studies, participants, students from university of Haifa, were asked to carry out a search task in the university search system after being exposed to emotions such as anger and shame, expressed by early users who used the same system. The participants were asked to answer questionnaires checking the impact of the exposure to the emotions on their perception of the information systems. In the first study, emotion exposure was implemented by observing the earlier user's answers to questions about his feelings after using the information system, exhibited on a computer screen. In the second study, before committing the search task, participants watched a short film explaining the study procedure, and were exposed to actors playing earlier users, expressing their feelings after using the new information system. The results show that exposure to emotions expressed by peer users have an impact on the observer and his perception of the Information System and intentions to use it. This study opens a window to further research in the context of emotions-Information Systems relationships and has potential implications for Information system adoption in organizations.

Authors and Affiliations

Moshe Goren, Shlomo Hareli

Keywords

EP ID EP265702
DOI -
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