Cognition, Behavior, and Team Structure in Enterprise Systems Implementation: A Comparative Study

Abstract

The METRICS framework was developed during a landmark enterprise-wide system implementation in a Brazilian university. It was designed as a tool for managing the social subsystem (cognition, behavior, and structure) of customer teams as they work with external technology and business teams. Our research draws on METRICS to verify the stability of cognitive, behavioral, and structural attributes that are expected to impact the performance of customer teams in projects. We compare two studies developed in different periods, with different methods, theories, projects, and types of teams, and in different geographical, cultural, and economic regions of Brazil—the south and the northeast. Data collection and analysis were based on personal constructs theory and the repertory grid technique applied to select information technology professionals from external teams (that worked with customer teams) in the northeast. With 77.3% (68/88) of the original measures verified empirically, the framework was considered stable across multiple settings. Given that enterprise-wide system implementation usually involves global technology vendors, and since Brazil is an illustrative case of Latin America and the developing world, our research contributes with insights into the social aspects of customer teams that impact project performance.