Towards an understanding of the relationship between institutional theory, affective events theory, negative discrete emotions, and the development of feral systems when using human resource information systems

This article is theoretical in nature and sets out to explore how human resources software systems create “hassles” for human resource practitioners (HRPs) that elicit negative discrete emotions (e.g., anger, frustration, exasperation, etc.) and how HRPs create feral systems (workarounds) to alleviate these elicited negative discrete emotions. Feral systems have the potential to undermine wider organisational strategic efforts aimed at successful human resource information systems (HRIS) implementation, and the overall intended benefits (e.g., productivity) that may be derived from these systems’ use in HR workflows. As such, HRPs are bound by normative pressures (i.e., conforming to the demands of others) that are presented to them by their professional governing body (e.g., human resource institutions) and their organizations. Therefore, Institutional Theory is used as the primary theoretical framework for guiding the themes of this article. Affective Event Theory (AET) forms the secondary basis for additional arguments.