Demystifying the Rhetorical Closure of ERP Packages

Understanding how information technology (IT) transforms individual, organizational, and societal ways of being is becoming increasingly complex and discourses on IT present opportunity and risk as two inseparable sides of the same phenomenon. Among the themes that extend throughout practitioner literature, and have emerged gradually in the academic literature as well, ERP projects are illustrative of the opportunities and risks IT presents. In this essay, I propose a discussion centered on the ERP phenomenon as an exemplary illustration of a major question: why does rhetorical closure dominate some discourses about IT when, in fact, all technologies are social constructions, always open to change? Dealing with ideas borrowed from structurational and social constructivist streams of thinking, I identify occasions of ERP package negotiation and change at three levelsósegment, organization and individualódemystifying the rhetorical closure that seems to dominate public debate

Selling packaged software: an ethical analysis

Within the IS literature there is little discussion on selling software products in general and especially from the ethical point of view. Similarly, within computer ethics, although there is much interest in professionalism and professional codes, in terms of accountability and responsibility, the spotlight tends to play on safety-critical or life-critical systems, rather than on software oriented towards the more mundane aspects of work organisation and society. With this research gap in mind, we offer a preliminary ethical investigation of packaged software selling. Through an analysis of the features of competition in the market, the global nature of the packaged software market and the nature of product development we conclude that professionalism, as usually conceived in computer ethics, does not apply particularly well to software vendors. Thus, we call for a broader definition of professionalism to include software vendors, not just software developers. Moreover, we acknowledge that with intermediaries, such as implementation consultants, involved in software selling, and the packaged software industry more generally, there are even more “hands” involved. Therefore, we contend that this is an area worthy of further study, which is likely to yield more on the question of accountability

Analysing ERP Use with the Structurational Model of Technology

The post implementation period of an ERP implementation in an Australian manufacturing organisation is examined with the aim of understanding and explaining the business consequences that occurred. The description of the case is followed by an analysis using the structurational model of technology. The radical change in the way users needed to understand the business in terms of the new system, coupled with insufficient training and support post implementation, and user resistance to change, impacted on the benefits the organisation gained from the system

Enterprise Information Systems as Objects and Carriers of Institutional Forces: The New Iron Cage?

This paper draws upon the institutional theory lens to examine enterprise information systems. We propose that these information systems engender a duality. On one hand, these systems are subject to institutional forces and institutional processes that set the rules of rationality. On the other hand, they are an important embodiment of institutional commitments and serve to preserve these rules by constraining the actions of human agents. The complexity inherent to enterprise technologies renders them an equivoque. This, when combined with the propensity toward lack of mindfulness in organizations, is likely to lead to acquiescence to institutional pressures. Enterprise information systems bind organizations to fundamental choices about how their activities should be organized; unquestioned choices that tend to appear natural. We suggest implications of this view and develop propositions examining: (1) enterprise information systems as objects of institutional forces in the chartering and project phases, (2) the resolution of institutional misalignments caused by the introduction of new systems, and (3) enterprise information systems as carriers of institutional logics in the shakeout and onward & upward phases

Understanding knowledge management software-organisation misalignments from an institutional perspective:A case study of a global IT-management consultancy firm

Inspired by the proposition that “Enterprise IS configurations chosen by the organisations will encodeinstitutionalised principles into these systems” (Gosain, 2004, p. 169), this study seeks to draw attentionto potential sources of misalignment between knowledge management (KM) software and the imple-menting organisation from an institutional theory perspective. Using a case of a global consultancy firm,the study elucidates such misalignments as the consequence of different institutional contexts wheretechnology developers and adopters operate. This study demonstrates how institutional forces affect theimplementation project and provides some lessons learned for organisations that are rich in high-valuetext-based knowledge for making decisions

The social shaping of packaged software selection

As organisations increasingly engage in the selection, purchase, and adoption of packaged software products, howthese activities are carried out in practice becomes increasingly relevant for researchers and practitioners. Ourfocus in this paper is to propose a framework for understanding the packaged software selection process. Thefunctionalist literature on this area of study suggests a number of generic recommendations, which are based onrational assumptions about the process and view the decision making that takes place as producing the “besttechnology solution.’” To explore this, we conducted a longitudinal, in-depth study of packaged software selectionin a small organisation. For interpretation of the case, we draw upon the Social Construction of Technology, atheoretical framework arguing that technology is socially constituted and regarding the process of development ascontradictory and uncertain. We offer a number of contributions. First, we further our understanding of packagedsoftware selection with the critique that we offer of the functionalist literature, drawing insights from the emergingcritical/constructivist literature and expanding our domain of interest to encompass the wider environment. Second,we weave this together with our experiences in the field, drawing on social constructivism for theoretical support, todevelop a framework of packaged software selection that shows how various actors shape the process

An interpretive field study of packaged software selection processes

Packaged software is pre-built with the intention of licensing it to users in domestic settings and work organisations. This thesis focuses upon the work organisation where packaged software has been characterised as one of the latest ‘solutions’ to the problems of information systems. The study investigates the packaged software selection process that has, to date, been largely viewed as objective and rational. In contrast, this interpretive study is based on a 2½ year long field study of organisational experiences with packaged software selection at T.Co, a consultancy organisation based in the United Kingdom. Emerging from the iterative process of case study and action research is an alternative theory of packaged software selection. The research argues that packaged software selection is far from the rationalistic and linear process that previous studies suggest. Instead, the study finds that aspects of the traditional process of selection incorporating the activities of gathering requirements, evaluation and selection based on ‘best fit’ may or may not take place. Furthermore, even where these aspects occur they may not have equal weight or impact upon implementation and usage as may be expected. This is due to the influence of those multiple realities which originate from the organisational and market environments within which packages are created, selected and used, the lack of homogeneity in organisational contexts and the variously interpreted characteristics of the package in question