BEYOND THE ERP IMPLEMENTATION STUDY

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EYOND THE

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MPLEMENTATION

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TUDY

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EW

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PPROACH TO THE

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TUDY OF

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ACKAGED

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NFORMATION

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YSTEMS

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HE

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IOGRAPHY OF

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RTEFACTS

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RAMEWORK

Robin Williams & Neil Pollock University of Edinburgh, UK Corresponding Author: Neil Pollock School of Business,University of Edinburgh,George Square, Edinburgh EH8 9JY UK Email: Neil.Pollock@ed.ac.uk

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Abstract

Whilst scholarship addressing the social and cultural issues surrounding enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems is blossoming, many of the studies, framed within well established modes of research, and constrained within particular loci, timeframes,disciplinary perspectives and concerns, are producing unhelpful readings of the characteristics of these systems and their implications for organizations. In particular research on particular socially and temporally bounded locales – the typical ERP implementation case study – has become the norm and given undue emphasis within Information Systems (IS) scholarship. Often influenced by constructivist frameworks and qualitative methodologies - including Actor Network Theory (ANT) and ethnography - scholars have developed actor centered analysis and rich local pictures of the immediate response by organizations and users to these systems. However we are skeptical that the most useful way to study ERP is solely at the place where the user encounters it. One implication of focusing only on certain locales or moments (like implementation) is that important influences from other levels and timeframes are missed from analysis. Lest we forget, ERP is typically a generic and global technologies designed at some remove from the place and time where it is used. It is also often instantiated at multiple sites and across distributed contexts. After setting out what we think are the limitations of current approaches we propose an alternative research approach - the emerging ‘Biography of Artefacts Framework’ - that attempts to take seriously the multiple locations and different timeframes in which ERP systems operate and evolve. We argue that if IS researchers our to fully understand these and related organizational systems they need more adequate spatial metaphors to understand the influence of technology supply and of the broader historical setting on the unfolding of ERP as well as approaches able to track both the trajectory of these artefacts over time. The framework developed is based on a review of relevant scholarship from Science & Technology Studies, Organization Studies, Cultural Psychology and IS research.

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Introduction

Scholarship addressing the more fine grained implications of enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions for organizationsappears to be blossoming. There are now entire journal issues and conference sessions devoted to understanding not justthe impact of ERP but also the more contextual and social influences surrounding its design, implementation and use. Arecent special issue in the

Journal of Strategic Information Systems

(JSIS 2004, 2005), for instance, makes a plea for further research on ERP and related technology “…within and across contexts so that we can examine the ways that such systemsshape and are shaped by individual and group interests and preferences as well as organizational and societal structuresand cultures” (Howcroft et al. 2004: 271). We welcome such calls not only because they break new ground in demonstratingthe complex interplay between the social, institutional, cultural and technical elements that make up the typical ERP projectbut they also highlight important issues of research design and methodology. The authors note the need for studies that“focuses on different levels of analysis as well as research that adopts a processual perspective, examining [enterprisesystems] design and use over time” (

ibid.

272). We agree with this statement but wish to take it further. This is because inreviewing the most recent literature on ERP we must admit to finding aspects of this work to be weak in theoretical andconceptual terms, particularly in its understanding of the processes of innovation and the evolution of technology over timeand across space, but also in its reluctance to consider issues of methodology and epistemology. A large number of studiesappeared to be framed, somewhat unreflexively, within particular well-established modes of research, constrained withinparticular loci, timeframes, disciplinary perspectives and concerns. Our contention is that these framings are producingunhelpful readings about the character and implications of the bulk of today’s organisational information systems. Inparticular, studies of socially and temporally bounded locales are being given undue emphasis within information systems(IS) scholarship; the typical ‘ERP implementation’ case study has become the norm. Added to this, there has also been asurge in interest in deploying various constructivist approaches and micro-sociological forms of analysis to understand thefine-grained nature of these systems – including (and despite the fact it has at its core the aim to move

beyond

the study of specific locales) Actor Network Theory (ANT). With powerful but highly uneven analytical tools, which include the deploymentof qualitative methodologies and ethnographic forms of analysis that build rich local pictures and ‘actor-centered’ analysis,these approaches have focused attention predominately on the

local interactions

and

choices

surrounding implementationand use (see the recent studies of ERP by Boudreau & Robey [2005], Pozzebon & Pinsonneault [2005], Wagner & Newell[2006] and Quattrone & Hopper [2006]).

Category:	Research > Business & Economics
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Upload Date:	06/26/2009
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