The Dynamics of enterprise resource planning implementation in a complex organizational and environmental context

Abstract

In the Information Systems (IS) discipline, there has been a continued interest in understanding how organizations and technology appropriation co-evolve over time. Such an understanding has been particularly critical for companies implementing Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems due to the high investments, long-term commitments and implications and also the high risk of failure. This thesis aims to advance the understanding of the nature and dynamics of ERP implementation and use processes co-emerging with complex organizational and environmental changes. To achieve this aim, the thesis provides a theoretical and empirical argument. Firstly, the thesis draws from extensive IS literature on ERP implementation, use and implications in complex organizational contexts; it also engages with organization studies literature on absorptive capacity and technological frames in order to provide a theoretical foundation for empirically studying an example of ERP implementation and use. Secondly, the thesis presents the results from a longitudinal study of an ERP implementation project in a manufacturing group (Omega) which started from almost zero IS experience. Thirdly, by analyzing and interpreting the empirical material, the thesis examines the major research question: How do organizational business processes and ERP implementation co-emerge and mutually affect each other? This leads to the exploration of the dynamics of the ERP implementation project and organizational changes focusing on more specific research questions: How do an organization s absorptive capacity and its IT group s technological frames condition an ERP implementation and the changes of organizational business processes? How in turn do the emerging ERP implementation, use and ongoing changes of business processes affect the transformation of absorptive capacity and technological frames? How do contextual changes trigger the shifts of technological frames and lead to the transformation of practices of ERP system implementation and use? The case study demonstrates that ERP is not an independent external force that has a deterministic influence on the user organization, but instead an actor which interplays with the human actors and intertwines with the organization through the complex ongoing implementation process. The major contribution of this thesis is a dynamic model of ERP implementation and use which describes the co-evolving processes of technology appropriation, transformation of business practices, changing organization absorptive capacity and shifts of technological frames over time. The model advances the understanding of the complex and emergent nature of ERP implementation and use in changing environments. It has practical relevance for organizations to the better planning, monitoring and managing of ERP implementation and organizational change.