Social Factors Affecting Users' Intrinsic Motivation to Explore Enterprise Systems' Features and Applications: An Exploratory Empirical Study

To reap the purported benefits of enterprise systems (ES), adopting firms are required to integrate ES with their core business processes and create firm-specific tacit knowledge. It is well established that the generation of innovative ideas of technology applications relies on users, rather than the management or IT people. Therefore, research on how to encourage users to explore ES features and applications is of great significance. However, prior IS research has focused on users' passive acceptance of ES, rather than proactive exploration of these systems. As such, there is a lack of studies on salient factors that affect users' motivation to explore ES. The research-in-progress study reported in this paper aims to address this shortfall. Drawing upon theories in motivation, information systems, leader-member exchange and leadership, we derive our research model. In particular, we submit that the quality of a user's relationship with his/her immediate supervisor, effective interactions with IT staff, perceived human relation orientation of organizational climate and top management's leadership positively affect users' motivation to explore ES technology features and innovative applications. We will collect data with enterprise system users to test our research hypotheses. Potential theoretical contributions and managerial implications of this study are discussed.