FACULTY AND RESEARCH

Post-adoption is crucial to understand the outcomes of the adoption and use of information systems. Most of the research on post-adoption has, however, dealt with intraorganizational technologies. This paper aims at further our understanding of the use of an Inter-Organizational System (IOS) during post-adoption through the analysis of interpretations as well as the power negotiation between the different stakeholders involved and their effect on use. We did so by studying the use of Online Reverse Auctions (ORAs). Based on a qualitative approach, we conducted interviews with the different stakeholders who compose the inter-organizational community (suppliers, buyers and technology initiators). While previous research emphasized the importance of power during adoption, our results extends the role of power during post-adoption. IOS use is anchored in economical stakes and relations of power and coping strategies. We discuss the inefficiency of interventions during post-adoption and analyze the role of rumor and the press which prevailed and thus legitimated the suppliers’ strife. Initiators have then to anticipate such drifts. We examine the coping strategies of the suppliers and their effects on the use of ORAs. These coping strategies can be either carried individually (opportunism boomerang) or collectively (collective boycott to the use of ORAs and lobbying). We demonstrate that they are more efficient in the latter case since they can hinder the use of the technology and trigger a shift in power balance. This emphasizes the capacity of actors to built collective strategies of resistance.