Workarounds in retail work systems: prevent, redesign, adopt or ignore?

Abstract

We conducted a case study in a Dutch supermarket chain in order to explore the emergence of workarounds in the retail environment. We studied what types of workarounds occur during the use of retail information systems and how manager can handle the identified workarounds once they become aware of them. The data was acquired qualitatively through interviews, observations, and document analysis, and validated by means of an online survey. After identifying and classifying 29 workarounds, a conceptual framework was developed that links workaround features to workaround categories and then to certain actions as response to them, namely prevent, redesign, adopt and ignore. This study contributes to existing research by categorizing workarounds in an unexplored domain and developing a conceptual framework of workaround categories and responses. We were able to identify patterns of relationships between types of workarounds, some of them similar to those found for other industries and others that appear to be specific to retail work systems, probably due to the inherent characteristics of retail work systems.