Tricks or Trompe L'Oeil? An Examination Workplace Resistance in an Information Rich Managerial Environment

Management information generated by workflow information systems is often used for planning, costing, decision making and other management activities. By application of the principles of Grounded Theory, this paper summarises studies of acceptance of workflow systems and finds that user resistance is manifest in many forms. The paper also finds that previous divisions of this resistance are simplistic and fail to address the issue of data integrity. The paper attempts to add to the literature on user resistance to surveillance and to categorise the ways in which users work around systems resulting in information that is not a true reflection of actual activities. Thus management decisions are based upon an illusion of actuality and not on the reality of workplace activities. This leads to the usage of the Trompe L’Oeil, a decorative technique translating literally from French as ‘trick of the eye’ and used for example where a window with curtains and view is painted onto a wall to look like a real window and the observer perceives a window where no window exists.