Resistance to system use has long been recognized as a problem to successful implementation of informationsystems (IS). However, most studies have focused on studying system acceptance and construed resistance asbeing the flip side of it or have totally ignored its relationship with acceptance. As such, research models havebeen developed primarily to explain acceptance with the underlying assumption that non-acceptance wouldbe tantamount to resistance or without any reference to it at all. Both these approaches are inadequate for athorough examination of successful system implementations. Using several cases of systems implementationwe argue that examining the relationship between acceptance and resistance is critical to an understandingof both constructs and analyzing factors influencing successful system implementation. To this end, we developa framework to understand system implementations both from an acceptance and resistance perspective.Implications for IS researchers include the need to re-examine the construct of resistance vis-à-vis acceptanceand study how well the models of acceptance explain resistance. For IS managers we offer some basicprescriptive measures to identify and manage various forms of resistance.
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