Toward an Ontology of Workarounds: A Literature Review on Existing Concepts
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paper_title: Workarounds to Barcode Medication Administration Systems: Their Occurrences, Causes, and Threats to Patient Safety

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The authors develop a typology of clinicians' workarounds when using barcoded medication administration (BCMA) systems. Authors then identify the causes and possible consequences of each workaround. The BCMAs usually consist of handheld devices for scanning machine-readable barcodes on patients and medications. They also interface with electronic medication administration records. Ideally, BCMAs help confirm the five “rights” of medication administration: right patient, drug, dose, route, and time. While BCMAs are reported to reduce medication administration errors—the least likely medication error to be intercepted— these claims have not been clearly demonstrated. The authors studied BCMA use at five hospitals by: (1) observing and shadowing nurses using BCMAs at two hospitals, (2) interviewing staff and hospital leaders at five hospitals, (3) participating in BCMA staff meetings, (4) participating in one hospital's failure-mode-and-effects analyses, (5) analyzing BCMA override log data. The authors identified 15 types of workarounds, including, for example, affixing patient identification barcodes to computer carts, scanners, doorjambs, or nurses' belt rings; carrying several patients' prescanned medications on carts. The authors identified 31 types of causes of workarounds, such as unreadable medication barcodes (crinkled, smudged, torn, missing, covered by another label); malfunctioning scanners; unreadable or missing patient identification wristbands (chewed, soaked, missing); nonbarcoded medications; failing batteries; uncertain wireless connectivity; emergencies. The authors found nurses overrode BCMA alerts for 4.2% of patients charted and for 10.3% of medications charted. Possible consequences of the workarounds include wrong administration of medications, wrong doses, wrong times, and wrong formulations. Shortcomings in BCMAs' design, implementation, and workflow integration encourage workarounds. Integrating BCMAs within real-world clinical workflows requires attention to in situ use to ensure safety features' correct use.
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paper_title: Enacting computer workaround practices within a medication dispensing system

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Computer workarounds in health information systems (HIS) threaten the potential for gains in efficiency through computerization aimed at reducing process variability. Eliminating such workarounds is desirable, but information system (IS) researchers tend to treat computer workarounds as black-boxes, whereas HIS researchers are primarily concerned with descriptive or prescriptive remedies. We propose to open the black-box of computer workarounds and study them as situated practices that consist of adjustments to existing computer-based procedures, which are enabled by the negotiated order of a hospital. This negotiative property of a hospital's organizational environment allows for interpretive flexibility, in which physicians stretch certain rules in practice, while inducing others to cooperate. We illustrate this conceptual framework with a non-participant observer case study of a medication dispensing system used in a teaching hospital to support a prior-approval policy for anti-microbial drugs. Within these enacted workaround practices, we found significant variety in roles, timing and interactions, which boil down to a pattern of four practices revolving around one function of an HIS. Our research extends the literature on computer workarounds in IS and HIS by proposing a theoretical understanding of workaround practices based on a contextual healthcare study.
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paper_title: Enacting Integrated Information Technology: A Human Agency Perspective

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Recent perspectives on organizational change have emphasized human agency, more than technology or structure, to explain empirical outcomes resulting from the use of information technologies in organizations. Yet, newer technologies such as enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems continue to be associated with the agenda of organizational transformation, largely because they are assumed to constrain human action. We report an interpretive case study of an ERP system after its implementation in a large government agency. Despite the transformation agenda accompanying the new system, users initially chose to avoid using it as much as possible (inertia) and later to work around system constraints in unintended ways (reinvention). We explain the change in enactments with the concept of improvised learning, which was motivated by social influence from project leaders, "power users," and peers. Our results are consistent with arguments regarding the enactment of information technology in organizations and with temporal views of human agency. We conclude that an integrated technology like ERP, which potentially represents a "hard" constraint on human agency, can be resisted and reinvented in use.
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paper_title: Guerrilla Employees: Should Managers Nurture, Tolerate, or Terminate Them?

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“Guerrilla government” is Rosemary O'Leary's term for the actions of career public servants who work against the wishes—either implicitly or explicitly communicated—of their superiors. This form of dissent is usually carried out by those who are dissatisfied with the actions of public organizations, programs, or people, but typically, for strategic reasons, choose not to go public with their concerns in whole or in part. Rather than acting openly, guerrillas often move clandestinely behind the scenes, salmon swimming against the current of power. Guerrillas run the spectrum from anti-establishment liberals to fundamentalist conservatives, from constructive contributors to deviant destroyers. ::: ::: Three public managers with significant experience comment on O'Leary's thesis that guerrilla government is about the power of career bureaucrats; the tensions between career bureaucrats and political appointees; organization culture; and what it means to act responsibly, ethically, and with integrity as a public servant. Karl Sleight, former director of the New York State Ethics Commission; David Warm, executive director of the Mid-America Regional Council of Greater Kansas City; and Ralph R, Bauer, former deputy regional administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in the Seattle and Chicago regions, present unique perspectives on the “guerrilla” influence on policy and management, as well as the challenges posed by this ever-present public management phenomenon. ::: ::: Guerrilla: One who engages in irregular warfare especially as a member of an independent unit. ::: ::: —Webster's New College Dictionary, 2008
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paper_title: Analyzing the past to prepare for the future: Writing a literature review

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A review of prior, relevant literature is an essential feature of any academic project. An effective review creates a firm foundation for advancing knowledge. It facilitates theory development, closes areas where a plethora of research exists, and uncovers areas where research is needed.
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paper_title: Organizing knowledge syntheses: A taxonomy of literature reviews

paper_content:

A taxonomy of literature reviews in education and psychology is presented. The taxonomy categorizes reviews according to: (a) focus; (b) goal; (c) perspective; (d) coverage; (e) organization; and (f) audience. The seven winners of the American Educational Research Association’s Research Review Award are used to illustrate the taxonomy’s categories. Data on the reliability of taxonomy codings when applied by readers is presented. Results of a survey of review authors provides baseline data on how frequently different types of reviews appear in the education and psychology literature. How the taxonomy might help in judging the quality of literature reviews is discussed, along with more general standards for evaluating reviews.
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paper_title: Against the Rules: Synthesizing Types and Processes of Bureaucratic Rule-Breaking

paper_content:

Organizational scandals have become all too commonplace; from investment firms' financial improprieties to sexual abuse cover-ups, rule-breaking has become a “normal” feature of organizational life. Although there is considerable scholarly work on rule-breaking, efforts to explain it remain theoretically fragmented. Here we identify two fundamental dimensions of bureaucratic rule-breaking and develop a coherent theoretical conception of it as a structurally patterned and interactionally mediated sociological fact. First, rule-breaking may be permitted or contested by those charged with rule enforcement. Manifestations of rule-breaking take on a routine character only where it is unofficially allowed; where it is not, conflict ensues. Second, the hierarchical structure of bureaucracy is mirrored by an organizational hierarchy of rule-breaking. Rule-breaking can be undertaken by individuals acting alone, it can be coordinated by workgroups, or it can be organized by top management as a matter of unofficial ...
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paper_title: IMPACTS OF IT ACCEPTANCE AND RESISTANCE BEHAVIORS : A NOVEL FRAMEWORK

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Despite the progress that has been made in understanding acceptance and resistance, there remains a need to further clarify into what behaviors they translate and what their impacts are. On the basis of our review, acceptance and resistance are associated with a range of behaviors, which in turn are related to various individual and organizational impacts. We suggest that taking these behaviors at face value is misleading and that a better understanding of their impacts lies in taking organizational intent into account. We develop propositions to provide a theoretical explanation of the impacts of IT-related behaviors associated with acceptance and resistance in light of their conformity with IT terms of use. Generally, acceptance and conformity with terms of use result in positive impacts but may occasionally have adverse consequences. Similarly, resistance and non-conformity typically have negative consequences but may sometimes benefit the organization.
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paper_title: IT Consumerization - A Theory and Practice Review

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Consumerization of IT refers to privately-owned IT resources, such as devices or software that are used for business purposes. The effects of consumerization are considered to be a major driver that redefines the relationship between employees (in terms of consumers of enterprise IT) and the IT organization. While there has been extensive debate on these matters in practice, IS research has not developed a clear theoretical understanding of the phenomenon. We present a theory and practice review, where the existing literature on consumerization is reviewed and a clear definition of the concept is developed. This study contributes to a theoretical understanding of IT consumerization in relation to fundamental aspects of IS. Our analysis shows, first, which distinct aspects of IS are affected by consumerization. Secondly, we provide an overview over major advantages and disadvantages for employees and organizations by conducting a systematic analysis of current literature available on the topic.
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paper_title: ERP GLOBAL TEMPLATE AND ORGANIZATIONAL INFORMAL STRUCTURES A PRACTICE-BASED STUDY

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Based on an interpretive case study and Activity Theory as a theoretical framework, this contribution shows how local users of an enterprise resource planning system in a Chinese joint-venture of a French multinational corporation have developed an informal organizational structure which eventually led to workaround work practices. The development and quest for alternative practices was justified as indispensable and appropriate to respond to local needs. In that perspective, the formal structure was not sufficient to cover the problems met at the Chinese subsidiary. Our research tackles an original aspect of post ERP implementation since it suggests that informal work practices might eventually lead to the adoption of global IS.
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paper_title: Stealing Fire: Creative Deviance in the Evolution of New Ideas

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What happens when an employee generates a new idea and wants to further explore it but is instructed by a manager to stop working on it? Among the various possibilities, the employee could choose to violate the manager's order and pursue the new idea illegitimately. I describe this action as creative deviance and, drawing on the creativity literature and deviance literature, propose a theory about its organizational conditions and implications.
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paper_title: Enacting Integrated Information Technology: A Human Agency Perspective

paper_content:

Recent perspectives on organizational change have emphasized human agency, more than technology or structure, to explain empirical outcomes resulting from the use of information technologies in organizations. Yet, newer technologies such as enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems continue to be associated with the agenda of organizational transformation, largely because they are assumed to constrain human action. We report an interpretive case study of an ERP system after its implementation in a large government agency. Despite the transformation agenda accompanying the new system, users initially chose to avoid using it as much as possible (inertia) and later to work around system constraints in unintended ways (reinvention). We explain the change in enactments with the concept of improvised learning, which was motivated by social influence from project leaders, "power users," and peers. Our results are consistent with arguments regarding the enactment of information technology in organizations and with temporal views of human agency. We conclude that an integrated technology like ERP, which potentially represents a "hard" constraint on human agency, can be resisted and reinvented in use.
---
paper_title: Against the Rules: Synthesizing Types and Processes of Bureaucratic Rule-Breaking

paper_content:

Organizational scandals have become all too commonplace; from investment firms' financial improprieties to sexual abuse cover-ups, rule-breaking has become a “normal” feature of organizational life. Although there is considerable scholarly work on rule-breaking, efforts to explain it remain theoretically fragmented. Here we identify two fundamental dimensions of bureaucratic rule-breaking and develop a coherent theoretical conception of it as a structurally patterned and interactionally mediated sociological fact. First, rule-breaking may be permitted or contested by those charged with rule enforcement. Manifestations of rule-breaking take on a routine character only where it is unofficially allowed; where it is not, conflict ensues. Second, the hierarchical structure of bureaucracy is mirrored by an organizational hierarchy of rule-breaking. Rule-breaking can be undertaken by individuals acting alone, it can be coordinated by workgroups, or it can be organized by top management as a matter of unofficial ...
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paper_title: Employee Theft as a Reaction to Underpayment Inequity: The Hidden Cost of Pay Cuts

paper_content:

Employee theft rates were measured in manufacturing plants during a period in which pay was temporarily reduced by 15%. Compared with pre- or postreduction pay periods (or with control groups whose pay was unchanged), groups whose pay was reduced had significantly higher theft rates. When the basis for the pay cuts was thoroughly and sensitively explained to employees, feelings of inequity were lessened, and the theft rate was reduced as well. The data support equity theory's predictions regarding likely responses to underpayment and extend recently accumulated evidence demonstrating the mitigating effects of adequate explanations on feelings of inequity.
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paper_title: Formal Ontology in Information Systems

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Research on ontology is becoming increasingly widespread in the com- puter science community, and its importance is being recognized in a multiplicity of research fields and application areas, including knowledge engineering, database design and integration, information retrieval and extraction. We shall use the generic term "in- formation systems", in its broadest sense, to collectively refer to these application per- spectives. We argue in this paper that so-called ontologies present their own methodo- logical and architectural peculiarities: on the methodological side, their main peculiar- ity is the adoption of a highly interdisciplinary approach, while on the architectural side the most interesting aspect is the centrality of the role they can play in an infor- mation system, leading to the perspective of ontology-driven information systems.
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paper_title: Techniques of neutralization: A theory of delinquency.

paper_content:

IN attempting to uncover the roots of juvenile delinquency, the social scientist has long since ceased to search for devils in the mind or stigma of the body. It is now largely agreed that delinquent behavior, like most social behavior, is learned and that it is learned in the process of social interaction. The classic statement of this position is found in Sutherland's theory of differential association, which asserts that criminal or delinquent behavior involves the learning of (a) techniques of committing crimes and (b) motives, drives, rationalizations, and attitudes favorable to the violation of law.' Unfortunately, the specific content of what is learned-as opposed to the process by which it is learned-has received relatively little attention in either theory or research. Perhaps the single strongest school of thought on the nature of this content has centered on the idea of a delinquent subculture. The basic characteristic of the deliquent sub-culture, it is argued, is a system of values that represents an inversion of the values held by respectable, law-abiding society. The world of the delinquent is the world of the law-abiding turned upside down and its norms constitute a countervailing force directed against the conforming social order. Cohen 2 sees the process of developing a delinquent sub-culture as a matter of building, maintaining, and reinforcing a code for behavior which exists by opposition, which stands in point by point contradiction to dominant values, particularly those of the middle class. Cohen's portrayal of delinquency is executed with a good deal of sophistication, and he carefully avoids overly simple explanations such as those based on the principle of "follow the leader" or easy generalizations about "emotional disturbances." Furthermore, he does not accept the delinquent sub-culture as something given, but instead systematically examines the function of delinquent values as a viable solution to the lower-class, male child's problems in the area of social status. Yet in spite of its virtues, this image of juvenile delinquency as a form of behavior based on competing or countervailing values and norms appears to suffer from a number of serious defects. It is the nature of these defects and a possible alternative or modified explanation for a large portion of juvenile delinquency with which this paper is concerned. The difficulties in viewing delinquent behavior as springing from a set of deviant values and norms-as arising, that is to say, from a situation in which the delinquent defines his delinquency as "right"-are both empirical and theoretical. In the first place, if there existed in fact a delinquent subculture such that the delinquent viewed his illegal behavior as morally correct, we could reasonably suppose that he would exhibit no feelings of guilt or shame at detection or confinement. Instead, the major reaction would tend in the direction of indignation or a sense of martyrdom.3 It is true that some delinquents do react in the latter fashion, although the sense of martyrdom often seems to be based on the fact that others "get away with it" and indignation appears to be directed against the chance events or lack of skill that led to apprehension. More important, however, is the fact that there is a good deal of evidence suggesting that many delinquents do experience a sense of guilt or
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paper_title: The IT way of loafing on the job: cyberloafing, neutralizing and organizational justice

paper_content:

Summary Much attention has been devoted to how technological advancements have created a brave new workplace, revolutionzing the ways in which work is being carried out, and how employees can improve their productivity and efficiency. However, the advent of technology has also opened up new avenues and opportunities for individuals to misbehave. This study focused on cyberloafing—the act of employees using their companies’ internet access for personal purposes during work hours. Cyberloafing, thus, represents a form of production deviance. Using the theoretical frameworks offered by social exchange, organizational justice and neutralization, we examined the often-neglected dark side of the internet and the role that neutralization techniques play in facilitating this misbehavior at the workplace. Specifically, we developed a model which suggested that when individuals perceived their organizations to be distributively, procedurally and interactionally unjust, they were likely to invoke the metaphor of the ledger as a neutralization technique to legitimize their subsequent engagement in the act of cyberloafing. Data were collected with the use of an electronic questionnaire and focus group interviews from 188 working adults with access to the internet at the workplace. Results of structural equation modelling provided empirical support for all of our hypotheses. Implications of our findings for organizational internet policies are discussed. Copyright # 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
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paper_title: When flexible routines meet flexible technologies: affordance, constraint, and the imbrication of human and material agencies

paper_content:

Employees in many contemporary organizations work with flexible routines and flexible technologies. When those employees find that they are unable to achieve their goals in the current environment, how do they decide whether they should change the composition of their routines or the materiality of the technologies with which they work? The perspective advanced in this paper suggests that the answer to this question depends on how human and material agencies-the basic building blocks common to both routines and technologies-are imbricated. Imbrication of human and material agencies creates infrastructure in the form of routines and technologies that people use to carry out their work. Routine or technological infrastructure used at any given moment is the result of previous imbrications of human and material agencies. People draw on this infrastructure to construct a perception that a technology either constrains their ability to achieve their goals, or that the technology affords the possibility of achieving new goals. The case of a computer simulation technology for automotive design used to illustrate this framework suggests that perceptions of constraint lead people to change their technologies while perceptions of affordance lead people to change their routines. This imbrication metaphor is used to suggest how a human agency approach to technology can usefully incorporate notions of material agency into its explanations of organizational change.
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paper_title: Ontology Development 101: A Guide to Creating Your First Ontology

paper_content:

1 Why develop an ontology? In recent years the development of ontologies—explicit formal specifications of the terms in the domain and relations among them (Gruber 1993)—has been moving from the realm of ArtificialIntelligence laboratories to the desktops of domain experts. Ontologies have become common on the World-Wide Web. The ontologies on the Web range from large taxonomies categorizing Web sites (such as on Yahoo!) to categorizations of products for sale and their features (such as on Amazon.com). The WWW Consortium (W3C) is developing the Resource Description Framework (Brickley and Guha 1999), a language for encoding knowledge on Web pages to make it understandable to electronic agents searching for information. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), in conjunction with the W3C, is developing DARPA Agent Markup Language (DAML) by extending RDF with more expressive constructs aimed at facilitating agent interaction on the Web (Hendler and McGuinness 2000). Many disciplines now develop standardized ontologies that domain experts can use to share and annotate information in their fields. Medicine, for example, has produced large, standardized, structured vocabularies such as SNOMED (Price and Spackman 2000) and the semantic network of the Unified Medical Language System (Humphreys and Lindberg 1993). Broad general-purpose ontologies are emerging as well. For example, the United Nations Development Program and Dun & Bradstreet combined their efforts to develop the UNSPSC ontology which provides terminology for products and services (www.unspsc.org). An ontology defines a common vocabulary for researchers who need to share information in a domain. It includes machine-interpretable definitions of basic concepts in the domain and relations among them. Why would someone want to develop an ontology? Some of the reasons are:
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paper_title: Workaround Aware Business Process Modeling

paper_content:

Workarounds are an omnipresent part of organizational settings where formal rules and regulations describe standardized processes. Still, only few studies have focused on incorporating workarounds in designing information systems (IS) or as a part of management decisions. Therefore, this study provides an extension to the Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN) by conducting a metamodel transformation, which includes workarounds. As a result, the Workaround Process Modeling Notation (WPMN) (1) leads organizations in designing workaround aware systems, (2) supports managers in deciding how to deal with workarounds, and (3) provides auditors with visualizations of non-compliance. We exemplify how this technique can be used to model a workaround in the process of accessing patient-identifying data in a hospital. We evaluated the model and find it particular suitable as an empirically grounded BPMN extension.
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paper_title: A Situational Perspective on Workarounds in IT-Enabled Business Processes: A Multiple Case Study

paper_content:

Workarounds are still one of the most puzzling phenomena in business process management research and practice. From a compliance perspective, workarounds are studied as control failure and the cause for inferior process quality. From a process reengineering perspective, however, workarounds are studied as an important source of process improvement. In this paper, we advance recent theory on the emergence of workarounds to resolve this puzzle by analyzing empirical evidence from a multiple case study. Our analysis reveals that employees utilize workarounds based on a risk-benefit analysis of the situational context. If the realized benefits (efficiency gains) outweigh the situational risks (exposure of process violations), workarounds will be perceived as process improvement. Erroneous risk-benefit analysis, however, leads to exposure of the same workaround as control failure. Quite unexpectedly, we found that information systems serve as critical cues for the situational balance of benefits and risks. Our result suggests that process-instance-level workarounds are treated as options that are engaged if the situation permits, in contrast to process-level workarounds that manifest as unofficial routines. We also contribute the notion of situational risk-benefits analysis to the theory on workarounds.
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paper_title: Ontology Development 101: A Guide to Creating Your First Ontology

paper_content:

1 Why develop an ontology? In recent years the development of ontologies—explicit formal specifications of the terms in the domain and relations among them (Gruber 1993)—has been moving from the realm of ArtificialIntelligence laboratories to the desktops of domain experts. Ontologies have become common on the World-Wide Web. The ontologies on the Web range from large taxonomies categorizing Web sites (such as on Yahoo!) to categorizations of products for sale and their features (such as on Amazon.com). The WWW Consortium (W3C) is developing the Resource Description Framework (Brickley and Guha 1999), a language for encoding knowledge on Web pages to make it understandable to electronic agents searching for information. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), in conjunction with the W3C, is developing DARPA Agent Markup Language (DAML) by extending RDF with more expressive constructs aimed at facilitating agent interaction on the Web (Hendler and McGuinness 2000). Many disciplines now develop standardized ontologies that domain experts can use to share and annotate information in their fields. Medicine, for example, has produced large, standardized, structured vocabularies such as SNOMED (Price and Spackman 2000) and the semantic network of the Unified Medical Language System (Humphreys and Lindberg 1993). Broad general-purpose ontologies are emerging as well. For example, the United Nations Development Program and Dun & Bradstreet combined their efforts to develop the UNSPSC ontology which provides terminology for products and services (www.unspsc.org). An ontology defines a common vocabulary for researchers who need to share information in a domain. It includes machine-interpretable definitions of basic concepts in the domain and relations among them. Why would someone want to develop an ontology? Some of the reasons are:
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Title: Toward an Ontology of Workarounds: A Literature Review on Existing Concepts

Section 1: Introduction
Description 1: This section introduces the topic of workaround behavior in information systems, discussing its prevalence, varying interpretations, and the identified research gaps.

Section 2: Theoretical Background
Description 2: This section defines workarounds, traces their origins in organizational psychology, and reviews how they have been classified and examined in existing literature.

Section 3: Research Method
Description 3: This section describes the methodology used for the literature review, including the scope definition, search strategy, selection criteria, and the classification process.

Section 4: Results
Description 4: This section presents the findings from the literature review, including the identified types of workarounds, their definitions, and a summary of the relevant studies.

Section 5: Ontology
Description 5: This section outlines the development of an ontology for workarounds, describing the methodological approach and presenting a visual representation of the derived ontology.

Section 6: Discussion
Description 6: This section discusses the implications of the findings, acknowledges the limitations of the study, and explores the potential for future research in the field of workarounds.

Section 7: Conclusion
Description 7: This section summarizes the study's contributions to the understanding of workarounds, highlights key insights, and suggests directions for future research in the domain.