Self-efficacy, Commitment and Attitudes

Self-efficacy, commitment, and attitudes toward the computers are identified from the manner how the persons told about themselves related to computing and work in gene- ral. This is also done in order to understand the end users as application developers, especially their motivation. These categories are related to how the person relates him or herself within the work he or she is doing.

The personal position against computers refers to how he or she perceives him or herself, computers and computer related tasks. The most apparent categories derived from the data concerning personal features are presented in the Table 4.1.

Table 4.1 Computer Self-Efficacy, Commitment and Attitudes

The concept of computer self-efficacy (CSE) refers to how confident the person feels with the computer. A definition for computer self-efficacy in this study is referred from Marakas et al. (1998) as to "an individual's perception of efficacy in performing specific computer-related tasks within the domain of general computing". In this study the interviewers' opinion of computer self-efficacy was not asked explicitly, but it can be derived from the answers to other questions.

The dimensional range for computer self-efficacy is defined as follows:

Low The person does not express very many perceptions about his or her ability to manage with computer related tasks.

Intermittent

The person speaks about his or her ability to manage with computers.

He or she names and demonstrates applications he or she has developed.

High The person expresses very positive perceptions about his or her ability to manage with computers. He or she also demonstrates the applications he or she has developed and gives arguments about their usefulness to the organisation.

The concept commitment can be defined through the person's own behaviour or the efforts he or she is willing to do in his work. According to Abrahamsson (1999) (based on Humphrey 1989, Salancik 1982, and Brown 1996), commitment is defined "as a level to which a person explicitly demonstrates his/her commitment by his/her behaviour or intended behaviour …". It is to some extent close to the concept of "specific computer performance" in Marakas' (1998) study. Porras and Hoffer (1996) define the level to what extent the person demonstrates the commitment into nine categories. The categories are C1: Communicating openly, C2: collaborating, C3: taking responsibility, C4: maintaining

Category/ Personal features Properties Dimensional range Computer high - intermittent - low self-efficacy

Commitment high - intermittent - low Attitudes positive - neutral - negative

a shared vision, C5: solving problems effectively, C6: respecting/supporting, C7: facili- tating interactions, C8: inquiring and C9: experimenting.

Commitment always has a focus (Brown 1996). In the case of the EUAD, commitment refers to the person's willingness to use and sustain the use of computer in his or her work. In our study, the higher level of commitment includes behavioural features that take the EUAD activity in a deeper sense, seeing it as a part of organisational development, like C6-C9 in Porras’ and Hoffer’s category above. In this case, it refers to the willingness to share his or her responsibility outside his or her own job in the organisation.

The dimensional range for commitment is defined as follows:

Low The person communicates and collaborates openly. He or she is also ready to take responsibility and demonstrate it.

Intermittent

The person is ready to collaborate and taking responsibility. He has a problem-solving and goals-end orientation to his or her work. He or she is willing to take initiatives to develop his or her work and demonstrate it.

High The person has an inquiring and experimenting orientation to his or her work. He or she has a respecting and supporting behaviour towards others. He or she develops applications that help to solve problems also in the organisational level.

The concept of attitudes is quite many-sided. The most obvious approach is to note the person's positive and negative sides about computers. The intension of this concept bears the idea about a person's positive or negative attitude toward computing in general. We expect that this attitude can be seen in a person's expressions about the usefulness of computers in his or her work.

All three of these concepts, Computer Self-efficacy, Commitment and Attitudes are related to each other. It has been shown (Marakas 1998) that the specific computer performance i.e. commitment is dependent on computer self-efficacy. Additionally, Abrahamsson (1999) binds the concept of commitment and attitudes together. According to him the changes in attitudes are consequences of changes in behaviour. As he writes "the individual becomes bound by his actions and through these actions to beliefs that sustain these actions". Actually, it is very difficult to make the difference between the attitudes that refer to computers in general, commitment or computer self-efficacy. The positive attitudes toward computers indicate strong commitment as well as computer self-efficacy.

Among our interviewees the utterances concerning his or her computer self-efficacy were quite high (see Table 4.2). It was quite characteristic because all persons also developed applications and they also told the researcher about it. Two of them (A and L) said that actually they do not like programming, but in spite of this, they expressed very positive perceptions about their efficacy related to programming.

"…it is easy in the sense that it is you who has to know what they want." (A)

Table 4.2 Self-efficacy, Commitment and Attitudes

Only one (J) said that he had suspicion about his ability to manage with the task. This case was special in the sense that the task was very challenging and it was his first application. Most of the utterances were in such a form that there was a problem and he or she just had to solve it.

"I had personally never done it before, I had only the perception that it was possible. How it happens, will become clear later."(G)

"You just double-click it and so it gradually starts going." (B)

When asked about difficulties and problems, no explanations were given as to why he or she did not manage to perform the task. The persons seemed to have quite a realistic view about their computer self-efficacy in more challenging tasks related to IT-professional work. One person (J) tried to professionally carry out the analysis but could not do it.

Category/ Personal factors Properties Dimensional range

Computer high ABCDEGHJKL

self-efficacy intermittent low

Commitment high CDEGHJ

intermittent ABKL low

Attitudes positive ABCDEGHJKL

neutral negative

One person mentioned that he had problems, which he could not solve straightaway.

"I just did not understand it in my head." (B) However, he managed to solve the problem.

"It just took a week or two… I still feel I beat those computers."(B)

The commitment focussed on using computers was measured by viewing the level of the EUAD activity. The general commitment toward the company was measured analysing how the person describes his or her contribution to the company as a whole. The more the person describes his or her applications by terms of organisational usefulness the more committed he or she is. The highly committed people also make initiatives and visions of organisational computing. Six of the persons demonstrated their commitment in terms of organisational development (C, D, E, G, H, and J). They also showed a high level of inquiring and experimenting stance to their own job as well as problem solving orientation in the organisational level. The initiatives varied from new application ideas to visions how the IT function and the EUAD should be organised as a whole. Most of the ideas were more or less connected to their own work. Most of new application ideas were applications that they thought they could develop.

All of the others showed at least an intermittent level of commitment. They all described their systems in terms of usefulness in their own work. They usually compared the usefulness of the earlier application the new EUA. No one showed a low level of commitment. This is quite apparent because of the selection criteria of the informants.

The attitudes toward the computers were mostly positive. That is quite obvious because of the nature of the special group of end users. The attitudes come out throughout the interview in the opinions about organisational goals, management, other staff members, etc. Even though the attitudes towards the managers and fellow workers where not asked directly the positive opinions were expressed on their own initiative.

The attitude toward the organisation was mostly positive. Only one person (J) complained the management in his workplace. The boss was mostly considered positive and being supportive. In one opinion (H) the boss was mentioned to be even "hyper intelligent". Also the person's perception about other staff members’ attitudes toward the EUAD activity, express the person's own attitudes too. When asked about what the other people thought about his or her EUAD activity, the answers were mostly that the other people did not argue against it (A, B, C, D, E, G, H and L).