Organisational perspectives on ERP systems selection and use

TDEI 13

Özgün Imre

ozgun.imre@liu.se

EIS-IE Linköping University

2015-09-11

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Agenda

• Ivy league

Scott, S.V. & Wagner, E.L., 2003. Networks, Negotiations, and New Times: The Implementation of Enterprise Resource Planning into an Academic Administration. Information and Organization, 13(4), pp.285–313.

• GMs work

Kotter, J.P., 1982. What effective general managers really do. Harvard Business Review, 60(6), pp.156–167.

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ERP in public sector

• ERP in public sector

A few examples:

• Some use the well known packages (t.ex Vingåker kommun, Röda Korset etc: Microsoft)

• whereas some opt for less-known vendors (t.ex Stockholms dramatiska högskola, Dans- och cirkushögskolan och Operahögskolan: KMD Opus)

• Some implement their own (New York City)

• Some opt for open source (Regenesys Univeristy)

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Ivy League

• What is Ivy League?

• Why do we care about them?

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Ivy case

• The decision making is not a stand-alone, rational act

• We have multiple actors that play their role in the game

• These actors are not stable, and continuously re-work the setting

• Actor-network Theory

• Both human and non-human actors are included in ANT

• The relations among the actors have an affect that can not always predicted

• Path dependency

• There activity of the actors change over time, they are not stable

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Ivy case

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Temporal zones

• Time is an important issue

• 3 distinct temporal zones

Any body wants to give them names?

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Temporal zones

• The creation of the need for the ERP (VPs role, Y2K bug)

• Creation of the ordered project (problems Ivy vs Oracle, point of no return)

• Creation of the adhocracy of systems (problems with the system, shadow systems continue)

3 years of “clock time” meant different things to different actors

The project that began as success was a near failure

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Your time to play

• Who (is involved, steered the project etc.)

• What (did they do)

• When (did it happen)

• Why (did they decide to do that; acted in this way)

• How (did they do that)

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Ivy’s AHP

• From the case you have read, can you create a hierarchy as we have seen in the AHP paper?

• Do they match/differ? How?

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After the case

Wei et al. 2005

• These days Cornell is using Peoplesoft – bought by Oracle in 2005

• Univeristy of Indiana is using a module written by Cornell University staff

• Montclair State has sued Oracle for “extortion, lies and rigged demo” over Peoplesoft implementation, and Oracle sued back – in 2013 they settled

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What does a GM do

Wei et al. 2005

• Traditional management studies claim:

• Planning

• Organising

• Controlling

• Directing

• Staffing

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GMs’ day

• Kotter and many others argue that the daily life is not as clear cut

• Figure out what to do under uncertainty and diversity

• Get things done through a large amount of people

A word of caution

• Agenda setting

• Loosely coupled goals and plans for long- medium- and short-term

• Most of is not written in exact forms

• Can cover different time periods

• Can be rather unconnected among each other

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Strategy ?

Mintzberg, 1987

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Why an ERP?

Similar to what we discussed with AHP:

Some questions remain:

Are we that rational?

Do we have complete information?

What can we control within the?

GMs are great at being intuitive and combining that with vast amounts of knowledge

Able to put things into a logical perspective that touches multiple issues

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So you have an agenda

How will you execute the agenda?

Network!!!

Networking with both internal and external actors

They get them working by suggesting, posing questions, persuading them

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So what of our GMs

• Now you have read some cases in the literature

• Do you see what Kotter says about GMs?

• How did they act, did it differ from what Kotter said? How?

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On the reverse

• What role does ERP play in this story?

• How does the GM use ERP? How should the GM use ERP?

• How does ERP effect the GM?

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Some issues around ERP implementation

• Intra-org standardisation

• Inter-org homogenisation

• Default

• Best of practice

• Risk of non-conformance

• Individuals

• Cost

• Methods

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+1 ?

• Technical isomorphism

• Embedding the organisational procedures and notions of working to the technology

• Inscription

• If the system has these inscriptions, when it is adopted they may surface and result in homogenisation of the work environment

• Most of the ERP systems have the centralisation in mind when developed, so they de facto force the organisations to centralise

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www.liu.se

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Some implications

Social worlds/arena/negotiated order can provide a situated, dynamic analysis of issues

Can complement the static view adopted in stakeholder analysis

IS can play the role of the boundary object in such situations, and trigger the negotiations and learning

Using such lens can help iron out differences to find a workable situation, and help out wider IS implementation problems

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Venue 1

• Lots of combinations: would social worlds add to the stakeholder theory?

• Would saying it will add dynamism just be a buzz word?

• Are they the same? Or how can we identify the difference from a bunch of interviews?

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Venue 2

• Negotiated order with stakeholder theory

• Focus on temporality of the order, which is what dynamism is

• Adds non-executives to the system

• Would we see any difference between stakeholders and social worlds?

Would we feel different if we talked to editor x, who is also the dean?