Social Cognitive Theory in IS Research - Literature Review, Criticism, and Research Agenda

A multitude of research studies have been published investigating individual behavior from the viewpoint of Social Cognitive Theory. We have now reached a point where making sense of such a large number of studies has become a difficult task and where future research efforts must integrate past SCT findings but also express the full potential of SCT in IS research. The aim of the present paper is to organize the literature to provide a clear depiction of the use of SCT in IS research. A review the IS literature which used Social Cognitive Theory of the past 14 years yielded 62 papers that investigated individual behavior using the SCT perspective. This vast literature is mapped into the SCT framework, thus highlighting the main successes but also pitfalls of past research in using the theory. Future research directions are then identified and discussed.