Interproject Conflict Management Through Cooperation in an Enterprise System Implementation Program

Abstract

To achieve desired business benefits from the implementation of an enterprise system (ES), current practitioners often adopt a multiple-project (program) approach instead of a conventional single-project strategy. Unfortunately, during such an implementation, issues arising from task-related conflicts among different teams within the ES program are frequently observed; to successfully resolve these task-conflict issues, the adoption of a collaborative problem-solving strategy is essential. Collaborative conflict management theory encourages parties to develop solutions for the problems they encounter. However, less explanation has been provided about how collaborative problem-solving strategy influences the relationship between interteam conflicts and the final ES implementation program outcome. In this study, based on conflict management theory, we propose that interteam cooperation effectiveness serves as a critical partial mediator between the interteam task conflict and final ES program implementation performance, whereas interteam dialectical problem solving provides a direct positive influence on interteam cooperation effectiveness. Furthermore, the negative impact of interteam task conflict on ES implementation performance is moderated by interteam cooperation effectiveness. For this study, a survey examines the relationships among the aforementioned factors in ES program implementation. The results confirm that both interteam dialectical problem solving and interteam trust serve as antecedents of interteam cooperation effectiveness.