How to Influence Physicians to Use Electronic Medical Records (EMR)? Social Influence Tactics and Their Effects on EMR Implementation Effectiveness

Theoretical and practical knowledge of the important role of social influence tactics as a managerial tool used by system implementers to persuade individuals to make use of an information system (IS) is very limited. I integrate elements from the theory of interpersonal influence and leadership with the theory of attitude change and innovation implementation to investigate the role of various leadership tactics that could be used in IS implementations to persuade physicians to use EMR in large hospitals. I define three types of behavioral responses to IS implementations: compliance, commitment and resistance. I show how different leadership tactics could be used during IS implementations in order to impact behavioral change (foster compliant or committed use) and avoid resistance. I propose hypotheses to investigate direct and interaction effects of these tactics on EMR implementation effectiveness. This research contributes to the IS field by “doing IT research that matters.”