Dominant actors, political agendas, and strategic shifts over time: a critical ethnography of an enterprise systems implementation

Abstract

Much of the literature on enterprise systems implementation suggests that ERP systems should support the strategic objectives of the organization. In fact some ERP vendors tend to assume that implementing their products is a straightforward translation from strategy to IT-enabled business processes. But the strategic management literature reveals that corporate strategy is often contested terrain. Conflict over strategy has the potential to delay or derail ERP implementation efforts, leading to cost overruns, failures, and lack of expected benefits. This paper seeks to understand and explain how conflicts over strategy can affect the success of ERP implementations. We studied one firm's attempt to pursue information technology-enabled enterprise integration using critical ethnography. The firm is a small-to-medium sized enterprise within a large conglomerate in the Asia-Pacific region. Our findings show that, as the dominant actors and political agendas changed, so too did the company's enterprise integration strategy. The ERP system was designed to support a future corporate world and work environment that never arrived.