Routine and Innovative Use of Enterprise System: Intricacy of Change Management Levers, System Characteristics, and Regulatory Focus

This study explores how organizational contexts, system design, and individual differences shape employees’ use of enterprise systems (ESs) and their impact on job outcomes. By examining leadership styles (transactional versus transformational), support structures (impersonal versus personal), and system characteristics (modularity and complexity), we highlight the role of employees’ situational regulatory focus (prevention versus promotion) in determining routine and innovative use of ES. Our findings show that leadership and support structures affect ES usage through employees’ regulatory focus, with transactional leadership and impersonal support fostering routine use and transformational leadership and personal support encouraging innovative use. System modularity enhances the relationship between prevention focus and routine use, whereas complexity strengthens the link between promotion focus and innovative use but weakens the relationship between prevention focus and routine ES use. Both routine and innovative ES use influence the employees’ job outcomes, including job performance and satisfaction. For organizations, this means that effective change management and ES design should align with employees’ regulatory focus and leadership strategies to maximize system adoption and improve performance. This study offers practical insights for designing more effective ES implementation strategies and tailoring support to boost employee engagement and outcomes.