ABSTRACT: The present article examines the nature and function of human agency within the conceptual model of triadic reciprocal causation. In analyzing the operation of human agency in this interactional causal structure, social cognitive theory accords a central role to cognitive, vicarious, self-reflective, and self-regulatory processes. The issues addressed concern the psychological mechanisms through which personal agency is exercised, the hierarchical structure of self-regulatory systems, eschewal of the dichotomous construal of self as agent and self as object, and the properties of a nondualistic but nonreductional conception of human agency. The relation of agent causality to the fundamental issues of freedom and determinism is also analyzed. The recent years have witnessed a resurgence of interest

To be submitted to Interacting with Computers User frustration with information and computing technology is a pervasive and persistent problem. When computers crash, network congestion causes delays, and poor user interfaces trigger confusion there are dramatic consequences for individuals, organizations, and society. These frustrations not only cause personal dissatisfaction and loss of self-efficacy, but may disrupt workplaces, slow learning, and reduce participation in local and national communities. Our study of 107 student computer users and 50 workplace computer users shows high levels of frustration and loss of 1/3 to 1/2 of time spent. This paper reports on the incident-specific and user-specific causes of frustration, and they raise frustration severity. It examines the frustration impacts on the daily interactions of the users. The time lost and time to fix problem, and importance of task, strongly correlate with frustration levels for both student and workplace users. Differences between students and workplace users are discussed in the paper.

I hereby declare that I am the sole author of this thesis. This is a true copy of the thesis, including any required final revisions, as accepted by my examiners. I understand that my thesis may be made electronically available to the public. ii This paper examines the effect of impression management on goal level and commitment to the goal. Participants involved in a goal-setting program in the United States were asked to complete a web survey regarding their desire to impress superiors and their commitment to the goal. The specific dependant measures were self-set goal and goal commitment. No statistically significant differences were found between high and low desires to manage impressions with respect to goal set, but a higher desire to manage impressions was positively correlated with a higher degree of goal commitment. This finding suggests that triggering impression management is beneficial for situations in which high goal performance is desired as it increases goal commitment. Future studies could verify these results using larger sample sizes and tackle such issues as goal

When hard to use computers cause users to become frustrated, it can affect workplace productivity, user mood, and interactions with other co-workers. Previous research has examined the frustration that graduate students and their families face in using computers. To learn more about the causes and effects of user frustration with computers in the workplace, we collected modified time diaries from 50 workplace users, who spent an average of 5.1 hours on the computer. In this experiment, users reported wasting on average, 42-43 % of their time on the computer due to frustrating experiences. The causes of the frustrating experiences, the time lost due to the frustrating experiences, and the effects of the frustrating experiences on the mood of the users are discussed in this paper. Implications for designers, managers, users, information technology staff, and policymakers are discussed.

The modern workplace is a fast-paced environment where there are many opportunities to be interrupted during the workday. Interruptions lead to postponing work on the interrupted task, influence goal abandonment, and can lead to the experience of negative emotions such as anger, resentment and stress. Few researchers have examined workplace interruptions and their impact on the productivity and well being of the affected employees " This paper will discuss the theory and existing research that applies to interruptions, introduce testable hypotheses, and discuss three empirical studies conducted to

As computer usage has proliferated, so has user frustration. Even devoted and knowledgeable users encounter annoying delays, incomprehensible messages, incompatible files, and indecipherable menus. The frustration generated by these problems can be personally disturbing and socially disruptive. Psychological and social perspectives on frustration may clarify the relationships among variables such as personality types, cultural factors, goal attainment, workplace anger, and computer anxiety. These perspectives may also help designers, managers, and users understand the range of responses to frustration, which could lead to effective interventions such as redesign of software, improved training, better online help, user discipline, and even resetting of national research priorities.

User frustration in the use of information and computing technology is a pervasive and persistent problem. When computers crash, network congestion causes delays, and poor user interfaces trigger confusion there are dramatic consequences for individuals, organizations, and society. These frustrations not only cause personal dissatisfaction and loss of self-efficacy, but may disrupt workplaces, slow learning, and reduce participation in local and national communities. We propose a Computing Frustration Model with incident specific and individual variables to guide research. Our study of 108 computer users shows high levels of frustration and loss of 1/3 to 1/2 of time spent. The importance of the users' goals and the severity of the disruption were correlated with frustration. Those who had strong self-efficacy, indicated by a willingness to stick to solving the problem, reported lower levels of frustration. Implications for users, software developers, managers, and policymakers are discussed.

Abstract. Goals discovering approaches suggested in the requirements engineering (RE) discipline debatably assume that organizational goals are homogeneous in nature and complexities. However, this assumption is contradicted by some streams of research in organizational literature. Additionally, several of the goal discovery approaches arguably adopt a single, abstract, and unidirectional perspective. The consequences of this perspective include a discovery of goals that may be incomplete, non-representational, inconsistent and weak in context. While there may be no ‘silver bullet ’ in resolving these issues, we attempt in this paper to address some of the challenges by proffering an approach for eliciting organizational goals from the operational, tactical, and strategic levels. Drawing on the richness of multidisciplinary research (Strategy, MIS, and RE) we developed three approaches for discovering goals at different organizational levels. We integrated the three approaches into a single approach, which spans the entire organization. The usefulness and usability of this approach was tested in an organization with a newly developed information system and the lessons learned were reported. 1.

The authors wish to acknowledge the financial support of the Intercollegiate Center for Management

technology and work life. The manuscript was written while the second author was a visiting scientist at