How Does an Enterprise System Implementation Change Interpersonal Relationships in Organizations

Abstract

Although research has suggested that enterprise system (ES) implementations have major impacts on employee job characteristics and outcomes, there has been limited research that has examined the impacts of ES implementations on interpersonal relationships over time. Building on and extending recent studies that have examined changes in employee job characteristics and outcomes during an ES implementation, this research examined the nature, extent, determinants, and outcomes of changes in an important interpersonal relationship construct—coworker exchange (CWX)—following an ES implementation. CWX is considered a critical aspect of employees’ job and an important determinant of their success in the workplace. Drawing on social exchange theory, we theorize that employees will perceive a change in CWX following an ES implementation. A longitudinal field study over a period of 6 months among 249 employees was conducted. Latent growth modeling was used to analyze the data. We found that employees’ work process characteristics, namely perceived process complexity, perceived process rigidity, and perceived process radicalness, significantly explained change, i.e., decline in our case, in CWX during the shakedown phase of an ES implementation. The decreasing trajectory of change in CWX led to declining job performance and job satisfaction. The role of CWX and its importance in the context of ES implementations is a key novel element of this work.