Anthropomorphism—the attribution of human-like characteristics to non-human entities— has been widely studied for its influence on user interaction and technology acceptance. However, much of the existing research focuses on functional design elements or surface-level outcomes, resulting in fragmented understanding of how anthropomorphism shapes psychological and behavioral outcomes. As a result, a comprehensive integration and cohesive understanding of its strategic role in technology development, integration, and use remains limited. This assessing review synthesizes Information Systems (IS) research on anthropomorphism to clarify its implications for technology design and adoption. We categorize types of anthropomorphic design stimuli, examine the cognitive mechanisms that trigger anthropomorphic perception, and analyze user responses across a spectrum of perceptual and behavioral outcomes. We also identify key variables that moderate the effectiveness of anthropomorphic design, offering insights into how organizations can strategically leverage or mitigate its effects. Building on these insights, we propose a conceptual framework and research agenda to guide IS scholars and industry leaders in optimizing anthropomorphism for enhanced technology adoption.

Modern organizations face significant information security threats, to which they respond with various managerial techniques. It is widely believed that “one size does not fit all” for achieving employee information security policy compliance; nevertheless, it is yet to be determined which techniques work best to different organizational employees. We further this research stream by finding that different levels of users might be effectively motivated by different types of coercive and empowering techniques that are suitable to their level and position in the organizational chart. Our results suggest that participation in the ISP decision-making process might prove to be a more effective approach to motivate lower-level employees toward compliance and that enhancing the meaningfulness of policy compliance could be the preferred method among higher levels of management. Members within each level of the organization can be effectively influenced to comply with ISPs when such strategies are customized for their level.

In response to the challenge of socializing new IT employees, some IT departments are exploring the incorporation of enterprise social media (hereinafter ESM) as an informal organizational socialization tool. Because this is a relatively new phenomenon, little is known about how ESM facilitate employee socialization. In order to contribute to our understanding of how ESM affects employee socialization, this paper invokes a case study to explore how one organization’s implementation of an ESM for its IT new hire program influenced the socialization process and outcomes. To delve deeply into how the ESM influences socialization, we draw upon technology affordance theory to uncover the various first and second-order affordances actualized by different actor groups and the various outcomes resulting from the affordances. We then identify five generative mechanisms – bureaucracy circumvention, executive perspective, personal development, name recognition, and morale booster – that explain how the actualization of different strands of affordances by various groups of users produces eight different outcomes. Our results provide insights into the different affordances made possible by ESM in the context of a new hire socialization program and how these affordances have repercussions beyond those experienced by the individuals using the ESM. The results have important implications for new hire socialization and technology affordance research.

Organizations seem to be split on their policies governing social networking sites (SNSs) in the workplace. Recent surveys indicate that while many organizations severely restrict or ban SNSs (i.e., Facebook and Twitter) at work, a large majority are actively using, or evaluating the use of SNSs. The purpose of this study is to investigate the implementation of an internal SNS designed to help a large financial institution's IT new hire program. On the basis of a case study informed by boundary theory and the theory of positive emotions, the research describes the SNS, its uses and how it impacted both the employees and the organization. We found that SNSs blur the boundary between work life and social life and that this boundary blurring creates positive emotions for the employees that use the system. These emotions create personal resources, which then have organizational impacts. While some of the non-users of the system, the IT middle managers, experienced isolation, frustration and resentment, the executives overseeing this SNS attribute improved morale, better employee engagement and even reduced employee turnover to the internal SNS.

In recent years, the overload of information has driven companies to develop visualization technologies as a way to graphically represent knowledge for decision making. On the basis of visualization technologies and on knowledge modeling techniques, knowledge maps (Kmaps) help represent the knowledge assets of a company as graphical discrete objects. Yet such systems, because of their visual representation of knowledge, are prone to creating illusions. Using a case study of three firms’ use of Kmaps in their Human Resource departments and drawing upon Bourdieu's social theory, illusion of control theory, and IS as signal and symbol theory, our study provides a critical perspective on the use of Kmaps by groups of actors to reinforce their social domination in business organizations. We find that Kmap use can lead to illusions of knowledge control and illusions of executive control and that in response to the potential for knowledge illusions, three social domination strategies – a signal and symbol strategy, an avoidance strategy and an evidence strategy – are employed. Implications of these results on Knowledge Management and Information Systems Management future research are discussed.