Basics of qualitative research: Grounded theory procedures and techniques

What makes organizations so similar? We contend that the engine of rationalization and bureaucratization has moved from the competitive marketplace to the state and the professions. Once a set of organizations emerges as a field, a paradox arises: rational actors make their organizations increasingly similar as they try to change them. We describe three isomorphic processes-coercive, mimetic, and normative—leading to this outcome. We then specify hypotheses about the impact of resource centralization and dependency, goal ambiguity and technical uncertainty, and professionalization and structuration on isomorphic change. Finally, we suggest implications for theories of organizations and social change.

The iron cage revisited: Institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields (Chinese Translation)

Extant literature has increased our understanding of specific aspects of digital transformation, however we lack a comprehensive portrait of its nature and implications. Through a review of 282 works, we inductively build a framework of digital transformation articulated across eight building blocks. Our framework foregrounds digital transformation as a process where digital technologies create disruptions triggering strategic responses from organizations that seek to alter their value creation paths while managing the structural changes and organizational barriers that affect the positive and negative outcomes of this process. Building on this framework, we elaborate a research agenda that proposes [1] examining the role of dynamic capabilities, and [2] accounting for ethical issues as important avenues for future strategic IS research on digital transformation.

Understanding digital transformation: A review and a research agenda

Normal accidents. Living with high-risk technologies

This paper reports on a comparative case study of 13 industrial firms that implemented an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. It compares firms based on their dialectic learning process. All firms had to overcome knowledge barriers of two types: those associated with the configuration of the ERP package, and those associated with the assimilation of new work processes. We found that both strong core teams and carefully managed consulting relationships addressed configuration knowledge barriers. User training that included both technical and business processes, along with a phased implementation approach, helped firms to overcome assimilation knowledge barriers. However, all firms in this study experienced ongoing concerns with assimilation knowledge barriers, and we observed two different approaches to address them. In a piecemeal approach, firms concentrated on the technology first and deferred consideration of process changes. In a concerted approach, both the technology and process changes were undertaken together. Although most respondents clearly stated a preference for either piecemeal or concerted change, all firms engaged in practices that reflected a combination of these approaches.

Learning to Implement Enterprise Systems: An Exploratory Study of the Dialectics of Change

Organisations often appear to be unaware of fundamental differences that exist between their organisational context and that which is assumed by ERP package developers. This has undermined expected benefits from ERP implementation, and in extreme cases of package-organisational misalignment, has led to project and even organisational failure. In this study, we explain package-organisational misalignments as the result of differences between the structures embedded in the package and those embedded in the organisation. These differences reflect the different institutional context of the package developers and implementing organisation. Some organisational structures are imposed while other structures are voluntarily adopted. The organisation has less control in the case of imposed structures and misalignments associated with imposed structures are therefore more likely to be resolved through package customization. We apply the framework to three hospitals implementing the same ERP package, identify the structural sources of the misalignments, and analyze the relationship to the type of resolution (package customization or organisational adaptation). We found that imposed structures were indeed overwhelmingly resolved through package customization, while most voluntarily acquired structures were resolved via organisational adaptation. We identified the different context specific sources for these structural differences and contribute to the research on ERP implementation, institutional theory, as well as draw implications for practice in managing package–organisation misalignments.

An institutional perspective on sources of ERP package–organisation misalignments

This paper explores ERP as an ambivalent technology of power. On the one hand, it may tighten management control by bringing a new level of panoptic visibility to organizational activities; on the other hand, the embedded business model within the ERP may drive empowerment of employees and greater control relaxation through the configuration of new process design. How will the implementation of an ERP system affect organizational control? Our This research seeks to understand how the different forces play out in the context of ERP implementation, and to explore the implications for traditional power distribution in organizations.This paper adopts a mixed qualitative-quantitative methodology in an intensive case study of a restructured hospital in Singapore. A survey of 260 users was administered, supplemented by approximately 27 hours of individual interviews with 23 people. Results reveal that although ERP as a technology can facilitate both empowerment and panoptic control, management has consciously resisted empowerment by working to re-institute the "loss of power" driven by power lost through the ERP implementation. On the other hand, the new panoptic visibility, though partially unintended, appears to have evolved naturally and was readily learnted and applied in the organization. This study is significant in exposing the likelihood of ERP implementation as a technology to that perpetuates management power. At least in the context of the hospital studied, it is yet another means of enlarging the management authority for "total control."

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems as a technology of power: empowerment or panoptic control?

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems are often not fully aligned with the implementing organization. It is important to understand their sources of misalignments because they can have significant implications for the organization. From a dialectic perspective, such misalignments are the result of opposing forces that arise from structures embedded in the ERP package and the organization.

http://www3.cis.gsu.edu/dtruex/courses/CIS8670/Articles/Soh-MisalignmentinERP%20Implementation-EngineeringMngt-2009.pdf

Misalignments in ERP Implementation: A Dialectic Perspective

The information technology project control literature has documented that clan control is often essential in complex multistakeholder projects for project success. However, instituting clan control in such conditions is challenging as people come to a project with diverse skills and backgrounds. There is often insufficient time for clan control to develop naturally. This paper investigates the question, "How can clan control be enacted in complex IT projects?" Recognizing social capital as a resource, we conceptualize a clan as a group with strong social capital (i.e., where its members have developed their structural, cognitive, and relational ties to the point that they share common values and beliefs and are committed to a set of peer norms). We theorize that the enactment of clan control is a dual process of (1) building the clan by developing its social capital dimensions (structural, cognitive, and relational ties) or reappropriating social capital from elsewhere and (2) leveraging the clan by reinforcing project-facilitating shared values, beliefs, and norms, and inhibiting those that impede the achievement of project goals. We explore how clan control was enacted in a large IT project at a major logistics organization in which clan control was quickly instituted to avoid an impending project failure. Our research contributes to theory in three ways: (1) we reconcile the two differing views of clan control into a single framework, (2) we explain the role of controllers in enacting clan control, and (3) we clarify how formal control can be employed to develop clan control.

/pdf/enacting-clan-control-in-complex-it-projects-a-social-4o6de3joqm.pdf

Enacting clan control in complex it projects: a social capital perspective

Even with today's ‘best practice’ software, commercial packages continue to pose significant alignment challenges for many organisations. This paper proposes a conceptual framework, based on institutional theory and systems ontology, to assess the misalignments between package functionality and organisational requirements. We suggest that these misalignments can arise from incompatibility in the externally imposed or voluntarily adopted structures embedded in the organisation and package, as well as differences in the way the meaning of organisational reality is ontologically represented in the deep or surface structure of packages. The synthesis of the institutional-ontological dimensions leads us to identify four types of misalignments with varying degrees of severity – imposed-deep, imposed-surface, voluntary-deep, and voluntary-surface – and to predict their likely resolution. We test the predictions using over 400 misalignments from package implementations at three different sites. The findings support the predictions: the majority of imposed-deep misalignments were resolved via package customisation. Imposed-surface and voluntary-deep misalignments were more often resolved via organisational adaptation and voluntary-surface misalignments were almost always resolved via organisational adaptation. The extent of project success also appeared to be influenced by the number of misalignments and the proportion of imposed-deep misalignments. We conclude by suggesting strategies that implementing organisations and package vendors may pursue.

https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1057%2Fpalgrave.ejis.3000700.pdf

Siew Kien Sia

Papers

An institutional perspective on sources of ERP package–organisation misalignments

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems as a technology of power: empowerment or panoptic control?

Misalignments in ERP Implementation: A Dialectic Perspective

Enacting clan control in complex it projects: a social capital perspective

An assessment of package–organisation misalignment: institutional and ontological structures