A process study of enterprise systems implementation in higher education institutions in Malaysia

Abstract

The implementation of information technology and its impact on organisational change has been an important phenomenon, discussed in the IS literature over the last 30 years. Treating information system (IS) implementation as organisational change is a complex phenomenon. This complexity is mainly due to its multidisciplinary, socio-technical, dynamic and non-linear nature. This challenging nature of IS implementation complexities has a direct relationship to the IS implementation project outcomes - its success or failure. In view of this complexity, this research aims to understand how process studies can improve the understanding of enterprise system implementation. We argue that the socio-technical nature of IS development is inevitable thus the only way to go forward is to explore and understand the phenomenon. Following this, we adopt the stakeholder's perspective solely for the purpose of identification of stakeholders and their embedded interests and expectations. While prior research concentrated on a limited number of stakeholders of IS, we attempt to adopt Pouloudi et al. (2004) in mobilizing a stakeholder perspective to incorporate non-human stakeholders within the analysis. Within the actor-network perspective, complexity is resolved through simplification (black-boxing) - unpacking or collapsing the complexity. However, during this simplification process, the risk of removing useful description of the phenomenon through labelling was avoided. To support this research, the punctuated socio-technical information systems change (PSIC) model was applied. In this model, interactions and relationships between its components (antecedent condition, process, outcomes and organisational context) play a vital role. This research focuses on the implementation of an integrated financial system in three Malaysian universities through three interpretive case studies. Our findings show that each of our case studies provides a unique IS development trajectory. Following stakeholder analysis, the different cases provide interesting combinations of conflicts and coalitions among human and non-human stakeholders which further dictates the project outcomes or the process of IS black-boxing. The relationship between the three case studies on the other hand provides an interesting illustration of IS technology transfer.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo