IT-Induced Adaptation and Individual Performance: A Coping Acts Model

Recent IS literature stresses the importance of IT-related adaptation behaviors and points out our lack of understanding of them. Drawing on coping theory in individual psychology, this paper attempts to shed new light on this phenomenon. Our model suggests that user adaptation behaviors can be conceptualized as coping acts, which are mainly determined by an initial assessment a user makes of a new IT. Coping is hypothesized to be positively associated with levels of integration of IT and with user task performance. The main premise of this study is that higher levels of integration between the user, IT, and the working system will be related to higher individual performance at work. A survey of 262 account managers was conducted in two large Canadian banks to test our conceptual model.