Beyond IT Acceptance

Organizations invest in information technology expecting positive outcomes, but to produce the intended results employees must use the technology. This study applies Adaptive Structuration Theory and Social Construction of Technology frameworks to expand research on the relationship among organizational users and mandatory IT artifacts beyond the initial process of acceptance, which currently constitutes the main paradigm in the IS field. A case study analyzes the mandatory use of an academic portal by lecturers and all the changes that users promote to the artifact and the tasks they perform while using it. Our findings show that if the environment provides flexibility for it, participants refute, adapt replace and complement the artifact that was adopted by the organization, while they appropriate it, in order to improve their efficiency in achieving organizational goals or their own