Apport de la théorie de l’action humaine à la compréhension des usages des systèmes d’information

Abstract

The objective of this research is to explain how an ERP end users’ usage patterns evolve after its adoption in an organisation. Researches carried out by Boudreau and Robey (2005) and Chu and Robey (2008), using the ‘human agency’ theory, propose a theoretical framework which seems to be relevant for enhancing our understanding of usage patterns of an ERP according to three dimensions: past iterations, future projectivity and practical evaluation in the present. Using an interpretive research approach, we have focused our analysis on an objective description of what was observed from the end users’ practices, as well as the perceptions they expressed about the use of an ERP on their daily work. We studied an organisation over a period of seven years, during the post implementation phase. This was characterised by a transition from a phase of transformation to a phase of relative stability. The results of our study show the importance of integrating the end user’s  o interpretation f the temporal dimension, into his usage IT usage. In our case study, the end users initially showed an attitude of inertia by keeping their past practices, then they improvised their usage in response to urgent demands (improvisation) and finally they reinvented the use according to their own interpretations of future needs (reinvention). On a managerial level, the results of our study indicate the necessity, for software editors and organisations, to understand how the end users’ practices are constituted and how they evolve in the post-implementation phase so that the gains expected when ITs are introduced can be fully achieved.