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190 Mullany and Lay
The Choice of an Instrument to Measure User Resistance
Had the link between user satisfaction and user resistance been assumed, an
instrument which measures user satisfaction could have been chosen to yield a
converse substitute measure for user resistance. Pearson’s instrument for measuring
user satisfaction has been acclaimed as one of the best in the IS literature to date.
However, its length (and even the length of the modified version suggested by Ives,
et al.) must raise criticism. If the respondent were to complete and return the form
on a voluntary basis, then the sample gathered would tend to contain the more
conscientious respondents; namely, those who are prepared to fill in and return
lengthy questionnaire forms. Since conscientiousness is claimed by Kirton (1984)
to be associated with an adaptive cognitive style, the risk of bias is immediately
evident with this questionnaire. An instrument other than a self-report questionnaire
of the above type was thus indicated.
Ives, et al (1983) developed the notion of substitute or “surrogate” measures
for entities not capable of direct measurement themselves. In the light of this and the
reservations just expressed, an alternative instrument was devised, which constituted
a quantified expression of dissatisfaction to a person independent of the user’s
organization. The potential weakness inherent in allowing respondents to complete
and return their own forms was removed by collecting data at personal, confidential
interviews with the users. The user of each system under investigation was asked
to enumerate all the problems that he considered or heard had occurred during the
implementation or early life of the system. He was effectively invited, in confidence,
to make complaints against the system and/ or its manner of development and
implementation. Each complaint was recorded, and then the user was asked to
weight his complaints in terms of severity on a seven-point scale (see Appendix).
The sum of the weights for each complaint was taken as the user’s “resistance
score” or “R-score”.
The validity of the R-score is argued on the basis that user resistance can only
be exhibited in one of four ways: by what the user says or by what the user does
(overt resistance), or by what he doesn’t say or doesn’t do (covert resistance).
Anyone (or any combination) of these four phenomena, if measured and quantified,
would be expected to provide an observable measure of user resistance. Furthermore,
as an independent party is not part of the political structure of the organization,
comments made to him about the system are likely to be more objective than hearsay
filtering back to the management.
However, there are two issues that require clarification. Firstly, there is the
question of whether or not overt user dissatisfaction, expressed in the form of
complaints, is a legitimate measure of user resistance. Both the studies by
Hirschheim and Newman (1988) and Markus (1983) suggest a significant associa-
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