Análisis factorial exploratorio

of the organisations implementing ERP and is usually taken for granted as a technical capabil- ity of the system that could be straightforwardly delivered. This chapter focuses on organisational othering and how it could hinder this essential

function of the system. It emphasises the im- portance of understanding the social logic that dominates the organisation when managing ERP implementation projects. It doubts the no- tion that ERP systems straightforwardly enable organisations to coordinate across geographically dispersed locations (Davenport, 1998) and sug- gests that the implementation of ERP requires organisations to do so. Along the same line, ERP does not redefine previously known organisa- tional boundaries (Brehm, Heinzl, & Markus, 2001; Foremski, 1998), yet it strongly requires organisations to bridge their social, behavioural, and structural barriers and prejudices.

Through the notion of organisational othering, the chapter reveals the historical and long-standing social logic of othering embedded in the business units’ relationships in Drinko and reveals that othering can be reproduced and inscribed in the system, resulting in unusual and costly configura- tion. The reproduction of organisational othering and the subsequent creation of a separate structure for service centres despite the implementation of the integrated ERP system agrees with Quat- trone and Hopper’s (2005) observation that “ERP reproduced existing structure,” yet Drinko’s focus was on the effect of this on management control and not on understanding how this hap- pened. This explains what researchers sensitively observed that organisation-wide integration is not always feasible and could be problematic, and that organisations, in many cases, reach a country-specific customisation of the system within the ERP framework (Markus, Tanis, & Fenema, 2000).

The team involved in ERP implementation tends to be large and heterogeneous, which makes it a complex entity to manage (Kay, 1996; Ward & Peppard, 1996). It involves staff from differ- ent organisational units. Together, these people lead the decision making concerning how the organisation’s processes will be mapped or reconfigured to take advantage of the integra- tive functionality embedded in the ERP system

(Sawyer, 2001b). This study reveals yet another aspect of the complexity of managing these teams stemming from institutionalised prejudices and othering. It demonstrates that careful monitoring and managing of the political sensitivity of the teams involved can overcome some of the conflicts and avoid the configuration of isolated modules and isolated business units. In this regard, it agrees with the remark that ERP project management is deemed to fail if it does not account for the business politics that comprise the framework within which the ERP project takes place (Besson & Rowe, 2001).

Studies on intragroup conflicts during IS de- velopment tend to divide the nature of the conflict into relationship- and task-related conflicts and focus on the task-related conflict and its effect on performance (Besson, 1999; Besson & Rowe, 2001; Sawyer, 2001a). This study reveals that arbi- trary categorisation of the nature of conflicts and the decision of ERP researchers’ to focus on one aspect or another a priori (Besson & Rowe) could cause one to miss the complexity of the encoun- tered conflict. The application of ANT provides a vehicle to avoid any a priori categorisation and leave it as an empirical matter for the actors in the field to decide upon. The concept of organisational othering helps to unravel the historical roots and fixed perceptions (relationship conflict) behind the surfaced task-related conflicts. This concept adds a new dimension to the politics of implementing IS and the intragroup conflicts involved based on the combination of organisational history, culture, and institutionalised marginalisation of some groups within the organisation. The incorporation of nonhumans as actors in the organisational politics and the revealing of their role in the conflict and its resolution contribute to the ongoing discussion on the politics of IS implementation (Brooke & Maguire, 1998; Cavaye & Christiansen, 1996; Doolin, 1999; Markus, 1983).

For the practice of implementing ERP systems, the findings invite practitioners to reconsider the view that the technical integration capability of



ERP can be straightforwardly materialised, cross- ing the previous organisational boundaries and leading to a successful cooperation between previ- ously isolated groups. Instead, they should be open to examining the roles of all actors, which have the power to affect not only the implementation project but also the system being implemented. Organisational othering should be accounted for, monitored, and managed before it gets inscribed into the ERP system, which could result in repro- ducing organisational boundaries. At the same time, practitioners can seize the opportunity of ERP implementation to loosen the established organisational barriers and tackle prejudices between different organisational groups.

references

AMR Research. (2004). ERP market. Retrieved March 21, 2005, from http://www.amrresearch. com

Beall, J. (1997). Valuing difference and working with diversity. In J. Beall (Ed.), A city for all: Valuing difference and working with diversity (pp. 2-37). London: Zed Books Ltd.

Besson, P. (1999). Les ERP a l’epreuve de l’organisaton. Systemes D’Information et Man- agement, 4(4), 21-52.

Besson, P., & Rowe, F. (2001). ERP project dynamics and enacted dialogue: Perceived un- derstanding, perceived leeway, and the nature of task-related conflicts. The Data Base for Advances in Information Systems, 32(4), 47-66.

Bhabha, H. K. (1986). The other question: Dif- ference, discrimination and the discourse of co- lonialism. In F. Barker, P. Hulme, M. Iversen, & D. Loxley (Eds.), Literature, politics and theory (pp. 148-172). Methuen & Co. Ltd.

Bijker, W. E., & Law, J. (Eds.). (1997). Shaping technology/building society: Studies in socio-

technical change (2nd _{ed.). Cambridge, MA: The} MIT Press.

Bloomfield, B. P., Coombs, R., Knights, D., & Littler, D. (Eds.). (1997). Information technology and organizations: Strategies, networks, and integration. Oxford University Press.

Brehm, L., Heinzl, A., & Markus, L. M. (2001). Tailoring ERP systems: A spectrum of choices and their implications. Paper presented at the 34th Hawaii Conference on Systems Sciences, HI. Brooke, C., & Maguire, S. (1998). Systems de- velopment: A restrictive practice? International Journal of Information Management, 18(3), 165- 180.

Cadili, S., & Whitley, E. A. (2005). On the inter- pretive flexibility of hosted ERP systems (Work- ing Paper Series No. 131). London: Department of Information Systems, The London School of Economics and Political Science.

Callon, M. (1986). Some elements of a sociology of translation: Domestication of the scallops and the fishermen of St Brieuc Bay. In J. Law (Ed.), Power, action and belief: A new sociology of knowledge (pp. 196-233). London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

Cavaye, A., & Christiansen, J. (1996). Under- standing IS implementation by estimating power of subunits. European Journal of Information Systems, 5, 222-232.

Davenport, T. H. (1998). Putting the enterprise into the enterprise system. Harvard Business Review, 121-131.

Davenport, T. H. (2000). Mission critical: Real- izing the promise of enterprise systems. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.

Dong, L. (2000). A model for enterprise systems implementation: Top management influences on implementation effectiveness. Paper presented at the Americas Conference on Information Systems, Long Beach, CA.

Doolin, B. (1999). Sociotechnical networks and information management in health care. Account- ing, Management and Information Technology, 9(2), 95-114.

Foremski, T. (1998, September 2). Enterprise resource planning: A way to open up new areas of business. Financial Times, p. 6.

Hall, S. (Ed.). (1997). Representation: Cultural representations and signifying practices. Sage Publications.

Holland, C. P., Light, B., & Gibson, N. (1999, June). A critical success factors model for enterprise resource planning implementation. Paper pre- sented at the the Seventh European Conference on Information Systems, Copenhagen, Denmark. IDC. (2004). Worldwide ERP application market 2004-2008 forecast: First look at top 10 vendors. Retrieved June 9, 2005, from http://www.IDC. com

Kaplan, B., & Maxwell, J. A. (1994). Qualita- tive research methods for evaluating computer information systems. In J. G. Anderson, C. E. Aydin, & S. J. Jay (Eds.), Evaluating health care information systems: Methods and applications (pp. 45-68). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Kay, E. (1996, February 15). Desperately seeking SAP support. Datamation, pp. 42-45.

Klein, H. K., & Myers, M. D. (1998). A set of prin- ciples for conducting and evaluating interpretive field studies in information systems. Retrieved December 11, 1998, from http://www.auckland. ac.nz/msis/isworld/mmyers/klien-myers.html Krumbholz, M., Galliers, J., Coulianos, N., & Maiden, N. A. M. (2000). Implementing enterprise resource planning packages in different corporate and national cultures. Journal of Information Technology, 15, 267-279.

Latour, B. (1987). Science in action: How to follow scientists and engineers through society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Latour, B. (1988). The pasteurization of France (A. Sheridan & J. Law, Trans.). Harvard Univer- sity Press.

Latour, B. (1991). Technology is society made durable. In J. Law (Ed.), Sociology of monsters: Essays on power, technology and domination (pp. 103-131). London: Routledge.

Latour, B. (1999). Pandora’s Hope: Essays on the reality of science studies. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Law, J. (1992). Notes on the theory of the actor- network: Ordering, strategy, and heterogeneity. Systems Practice, 5(4), 379-393.

Markus, M. L. (1983). Power, politics and MIS implementation. Communication of the ACM, 26(6), 430-444.

Markus, M. L., Axline, S., Petrie, D., & Tanis, C. (2000). Learning from adopters’ experiences with ERP: Problems encountered and success achieved. Journal of Information Technology, 15, 245-265.

Markus, M. L., & Tanis, C. (2000). The enterprise system experience: From adoption to success. In R. W. Zmud (Ed.), Framing the domains of IT research: Glimpsing the future through the past. Cincinnati, OH: Pinnaflex Educational Resources, Inc.

Markus, M. L., Tanis, C., & Fenema, P. C. v. (2000). Multisite ERP implementations. Communications of the ACM, 43(4), 42-46.

Mendel, B. (1999). Overcoming ERP projects hurdles. InfoWorld, 21(29).

Monteiro, E. (2000a). Actor-network theory and information infrastructure. In C. U. a. o. Ciborra (Ed.), From control to drift (pp. 71-83). New York: Oxford University Press.

Monteiro, E. (2000b). Monsters: From systems to actor-networks. In K. Braa, C. Sorensen, & B. Dahlbom (Eds.), Planet Internet. Lund, Sweden: Studentlitteratur.

0

Norris, G. (1998). SAP: An executive’s compre- hensive guide. New York: J. Wiley.

Orlikowski, W. J., & Baroudi, J. J. (1991). Study- ing information technology in organizations: Re- search approaches and assumptions. Information Systems Research, 2(1), 1-28.

Quattrone, P., & Hopper, T. (2005). A “time- space odyssey”: Management control systems in two multinational organisations. Accounting, Organizations & Society, 30(7/8), 735-764. Ross, J. W., & Vitale, M. R. (2000). The ERP revolution: Surviving vs. thriving. Information Systems Frontiers, 2(2), 233-241.

SAP AG. (2004). SAP annual report 2004. Au- thor.

SAP’s rising in New York. (1998, August 1). The Economist.

Sawyer, S. (2001a). Effects of intra-group con- flict on packaged software development team performance. Information Systems Journal, 11, 155-178.

Sawyer, S. (2001b). Socio-technical structures in enterprise information systems implementation: Evidence from a five year study. Paper presented at the IEEE EMS International Engineering Man- agement Conference, Albany, NY.

Themistocleous, M., Irani, Z., & O’Keefe, R. M. (2001). ERP and application integration: Ex- ploratory survey. Business Process Management Journal, 7(3), 195-204.

Walsham, G. (1995). The emergence of inter- pretivism in IS research. Information Systems Research, 6(4), 376-394.

Walsham, G. (2001). Making a world of difference: IT in a global context. John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Ward, J., & Peppard, J. (1996). Reconciling the IT/business relationship: A troubled marriage in need of guidance. Journal of Strategic Informa- tion Systems, 5, 37-65.

Xia, W., & Lee, G. (2004). Grasping the complex- ity of IS development projects. Communications of the ACM, 47(5), 95-74.

Chapter IV