On the complicated coexistence of official and shadow information technologies: The case of digital photographic practices in a healthcare establishment

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The aim of this paper is to explore shadow information systems and their persistence and reduction in organizations. These systems combine software, hardware, and information technologies (IT), which are deployed autonomously within an organization or department without the participation of the IT department (Haag & Eckhardt 2017) and are increasingly common in organizations. They have become unavoidable in the decentralized information technology landscape and constitute major challenges for the governance of information systems, whose managers often seek to limit or eliminate them. Using a single case study in a healthcare organization, we describe the shadow ITs implemented by practitioners to manage digital photographs, as well as the IT governance issues. We also focus on the reinforcement and disabling cycles of shadow ITs, using the framework developed by Furstenau et al. (2017).