Engaging in Technology Extra-Role Behavior in a Human-IT Relationship: A Psychological Ownership Perspective

Abstract

Users may develop a relationship with an IT service and voluntarily contribute to it. By formally establishing a connection between human-IT relationship and user voluntary contribution, this research looks into the IT service context and focuses on two issues. First, we draw on extra-role behavior literature and propose a new typology, technology extra-role behavior (TERB), for a comprehensive understanding of user voluntary contribution in the IT service context. Second, we supplement the existing works on human-IT relationship and take a psychological ownership (PO) perspective in explaining user voluntary contribution in a user-artifact relationship. Based on PO literature, we construct a research model to depict why users are willing to contribute voluntarily with the perceived psychological possession and how to design an IT service to induce this perception.