Does the Ability to Choose Matter? On the Relationship between Bring Your Own Behavior and IT Satisfaction

• Published in: Communications of the Association for Information Systems 2018, Vol.43, p.690-710
• Main Authors: Klese, Michael, Kampling, Henrik, Bretschneider, Ulrich, Niehaves, Bjoern
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Smartphones
• ISSN: 1529-3181; 1529-3181
• DOI: 10.17705/1CAIS.04336

Employees increasingly complete organizational tasks using privately owned consumer technologies such as private devices (e.g., smartphones) or private Internet accounts (e.g., email accounts). Higher satisfaction constitutes a major reason for this bring-your-own behavior (BYOB). However, little research has theoretically explored and empirically tested this assumption. This study sheds light on this phenomenon by analyzing the effect of BYOB on IT satisfaction. Drawing from social cognitive theory, we propose choice self-efficacy as a new construct that intermediates the relationship between BYOB and IT satisfaction. Building on results from survey data (n = 400), we provide new evidence that BYOB has a positive effect on IT satisfaction whereby choice self-efficacy plays a vital element as it mediates this relationship. Since IT satisfaction shapes how people use technology and how they perform with it, we derive important implications for future research on IT consumerization. Furthermore, we provide several conclusions for practitioners and discuss how to enhance IT satisfaction and choice self-efficacy.