How does IT feature use spread within an organisation: insights from an ethnography

The need to understand user-technology interactions to appropriately design socio-technical information systems and generate effective outcomes by using technology is always present. The interaction of users with existing information technology (IT) is of growing interest as the technology enables the user to generate effective outcomes or solve problems. This research addresses the gap in understanding IT Feature Use beyond the initial adoption phase, focusing on how users modify their use of IT features over time. While existing studies highlight the adoption process, little is known about users’ ongoing changes within their IT Feature Use. Our study explores the factors that facilitate changes in IT Feature Use, facilitating the post-adoption phase and emphasising the role of informal networks in spreading IT Feature Use across an organisation. Conducting an ethnographic study in a hospital, we examine how IT Feature Use spreads within an organisation. Our findings reveal that informal networks, driven by user interactions and social influences, are crucial in spreading and encouraging the adoption of new IT features and changes in the Use of IT Features. We identify three key mechanisms for spreading IT Feature Use: Team rotation, Intra-team knowledge sharing, and Informal knowledge exchange across teams. These mechanisms are explained using the network theory of informal networks. Our study contributes to a deeper understanding of post-adoptive IT Feature Use, offering insights that improve the effectiveness of IT system use and organisational outcomes.