Moving beyond the single site implementation study: How (and why) we should study the biography of packaged enterprise solutions

Information Systems Research

Volumn 23, Issue 1, 2012, Pages 1-22

  Williams, Robin ^a   Pollock, Neil ^b  

^a UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH   (United Kingdom)

^b UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH BUSINESS SCHOOL   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

Actor network theory; Biography; Enterprise resource planning; Ethnography; Implementation; Sociology

Indexed keywords

EID: 84865093119     PISSN: 10477047     EISSN: 15265536     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1287/isre.1110.0352     Document Type: Article

References (122)

1. Akera, A. 2001. Voluntarism and the fruits of collaboration: The IBM user group, Share. Tech. Culture 42(4) 710-736.
2. Al-Mashari, M. 2003. Enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems: A research agenda. Indust. Management Data Systems 102(3) 165-170.
3. Beekhuyzen, J., L. von Hellens. 2006. An actor-network theory perspective of online banking in Australia. AMCIS Proc., Paper 374. http://aisel.aisnet.org/amcis2006/374.
4. Benders, J., R. Batenburg, H. van der Blonk. 2006. Sticking to standards: Technical and other isomorphic pressures in deploying ERP-systems. Inform. Management 43(2) 194-203.
5. Berchet, C., G. Habchi. 2005. The implementation and deployment of an ERP system: An industrial case study. Comput. Indust. 56(6) 588-605.
6. Bond, B., Y. Genovese, D. Miklovic, B. Zrimsek, N. Rayner. 2000. ERP is dead-Long live ERP II. Gartner Group Research Note (October 4). RAS Services, Stamford, CT.
7. Boudreau, M., D. Robey. 2005. Enacting integrated information technology: A human agency perspective. Organ. Sci. 16(1) 3-18.
8. Brady, T., M. Tierney, R. Williams. 1992. The commodification of industry-application software. Indust. Corporate Change 1(3) 489-514.
9. Bruni, A. 2005. Shadowing software and clinical records: On the ethnography of non-humans and heterogeneous contexts. Organization 12(3) 357-378.
10. Burawoy, M., J. Blum, S. George, Z. Gille, T. Gowan, L. Haney, M. Klawiter, S. Lopez, S. O'Riain, M. Thayer. 2000. Global Ethnography: Forces, Connections, and Imaginations in a Postmodern World. University of California Press, Berkeley, CA.
11. Callon, M. 1986. The sociology of an actor network: The case of the electric vehicle. M. Callon, J. Law, A. Rip, eds. Mapping the Dynamics of Science and Technology. Macmillan, London, 19-34.
12. Callon, M., B. Latour. 1981. Unscrewing the big Leviathan: How actors macrostructure reality and how sociologists help them to do so. K. D. Knorr-Cetina, A. V. Cicourel, eds. Advances in Social Theory and Methodology: Toward an Integration of Micro- and Macro-Sociologies. Routledge and Kegan Paul, Boston, 103-131.
13. Callon, M., J. Law. 1982. On interests and their transformation: Enrolment and counter-enrolment. Soc. Stud. Sci. 12(4) 615-625.
14. Ciborra, C. U. 1999. A theory of information systems based on improvisation. W. Currie, B. Galliers, eds. Rethinking Management Information Systems: An Interdisciplinary Perspective. Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK, 136-155.
15. Ciborra, C. U., O. Hanseth. 1998. From tool to Gestell: Agendas for managing the information infrastructure. Inform. Tech. People 11(4) 305-327.
16. Ciborra, C., K. Braa, A. Cordella, B. Dahlbom, A. Failla, O. Hanseth, V. Vespo, J. Ljungberg, E. Monteiro, K. Simon, eds. 2000. From Control to Drift: The Dynamics of Corporate Information Infrastructures. Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK.
17. Clausen, C., C. Koch. 1999. The role of spaces and occasions in the transformation of information technologies: Lessons from the social shaping of IT systems for manufacturing in a Danish context. Tech. Anal. Strat. Man. 11(3) 463-482.
18. Cornford, J., N. Pollock. 2003. Putting the University Online: Information, Technology and Organisational Change. Open University Press, Milton Keynes.
19. Crowston, K., M. Myers. 2004. Information technology and the transformation of industries: Three research perspectives. J. Strategic Inform. Systems 13(1) 5-28.
20. Czarniawska, B. 2004. On time, space and action nets. Organization 11(6) 773-791.
21. DeSanctis, G., M. Poole. 1994. Capturing the complexity in advanced technology use: Adaptive structuration theory. Organ. Sci. 5(2) 121-147.
22. Elbanna, A. 2006. The validity of the improvisation argument in the implementation of rigid technology: The case of ERP systems. J. Inform. Tech. 21(3) 165-175.
23. ERP Research Group. 2006. ERP systems and related issues bibliography: 600 articles (updated 5 May 2006; accessed 15 May 2007). Victoria University Australia, Available online: http://www.business.vu.edu.au/sap/Research.html#ERP_Systems_and_Related_Issues_Bibliogr.
24. Esteves, J., J. Pastor. 2001. Enterprise resource planning systems research: An annotated bibliography. Comm. AIS 7(8) 1-52.
25. Finkelstein, A., G. Spanoudakis, M. Ryan. 1996. Software package requirements and procurement. Proc. 8th Internat. Workshop Software Specification Design, IEEE Computer Society Press, Schloss Velen, Germany, 141-146.
26. Fleck, J. 1988a. The development of information integration: Beyond CIM? Edinburgh PICT Working Paper 9, Research Centre for Social Sciences, Edinburgh University, Edinburgh, UK.
27. Fleck, J. 1988b. Innofusion or diffusation?: The nature of technological development in robotics. Edinburgh PICT Working Paper No. 4, Research Centre for Social Sciences, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK.
28. Fleck, J. 1993. Configurations: Crystallizing contingency. Human. Factors Manufacturing 3(1) 15-36.
29. Fleck, J., J. Webster, R. Williams. 1990. The dynamics of IT implementation: A reassessment of paradigms and trajectories of development. Futures 22(6) 618-640.
30. Gieryn, T. 1999. Cultural Boundaries of Science: Credibility on the Line. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
31. Grabot, B., V. Botta-Genoulaz. 2005. Editorial: Special issue on enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. Comput. Indust. 56(6) 507-509.
32. Hanseth, O., K. Braa. 2000. Technology as traitor: Emergent SAP infrastructure in a global organization. R. Hirschheim, M. Newman, and J. I. DeGross, eds. Proc. Nineteenth Internat. Conf. Inform. System, Atlanta. ICIS, 188-196.
33. Hislop, D. 2002. The client role in consultancy relations during the appropriation of technological innovations. Res. Policy 31(5) 657-671.
34. Ho, X., M. Tan. 2004. Leveraging methodological pluralism in interpretive IS research: The example of ERP as a complex phenomenon. L. T. Saarinen, T. Klein, eds. Proc. Twelfth Euro. Conf. Inform. Systems, Turku School of Economics and Business Administration, Turku, Finland.
35. Howcroft, D., S. Newell, E. Wagner. 2004. Editorial: Understanding the contextual influences on enterprise system design, implementation, use and evaluation. J. Strategic Inform. Systems 13(2) 271-277.
36. Hutchins, E. 1995. Cognition in the Wild. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.
37. Hyysalo, S. 2004. Uses of innovation: Wristcare in the practices of engineers and elderly academic dissertation. Academic Dissertation, Department of Education, University of Helsinki, Finland.
38. Hyysalo, S. 2010. Health Technology Development and Use: From Practice-Bound Imagination to Evolving Impacts. Routledge, London.
39. Johannessen, L., G. Ellingsen. 2009. Integration and generification: Agile software development in the health-care market. Comput. Supported Cooperative Work 18(5-6) 607-634.
40. Jones, M. 2000. The moving finger: The use of social theory in WG 8.2 conference papers, 1975-1999. R. Baskerville, J. Stage, J. DeGross, eds. Organizational and Social Perspectives on Information Technology. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Boston, 15-32.
41. Jørgensen, U., O. Sørensen. 1999. Arenas of development: A space populated by actor worlds, artifacts, and surprises. Tech. Anal. Strategic Management 11(3) 409-429.
42. Judd, M. 2006. Open and flexible. Internat. Audit. Bus. Risk June 34-38.
43. Kallinikos, J. 2004a. Farewell to constructivism: Technology and context-embedded action. C. Avgerou, C. Ciborra, F. Land, eds. The Social Study of Information and Communication Technology: Innovation, Actors, and Contexts. Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK, 141-161.
44. Kallinikos, J. 2004b. Deconstructing information packages: Organizational and behavioural implications of ERP systems. Inform. Tech. People 17(1) 8-30.
45. Kaniadakis, A. 2006. The Agora of techno-organisational change. Unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Research Centre for Social Sciences, University of Edinburgh, UK.
46. Keil, M., E. Carmel. 1995. Customer-developer links in software development. Comm. ACM 38(5) 33-44.
47. Knorr-Cetina, K. D. 1981. Introduction: The micro-sociological challenge of macro-sociology: Toward a reconstruction of social theory and methodology. K. D. Knorr-Cetina, A. V. Cicourel, eds. Advances in Social Theory and Methodology: Toward an Integration of Micro- and Macro-Sociologies. Routledge and Kegan Paul, Boston, 1-47.
48. Knorr-Cetina, K. D., U. Bruegger. 2002. Global microstructures: The virtual societies of financial markets. Amer. J. Soc. 107(4) 905-950.
49. Koch, C. 2003. ERP-software packages: Between mass production communities and intraorganisational political processes. D. Preece, J. Laurila, eds. Technological Change and Organizational Action Routledge, London, 56-76.
50. Koch, C. 2005. Users? What users? Shaping global corporations and generic users with ERP. Yngve Sundblad, Ȧke Waldins, eds. Proc. Workshop User-Driven IT Design Quality Assurance, Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, 43-53.
51. Koch, C. 2007. ERP-A moving target. Internat. J. Bus. Inform. Systems 2(4) 426-443.
52. Kopytoff, I. 1988. The cultural biography of things: Commoditization as a process. A. Appaduraied, ed. The Social Life of Things: Commodities in a Cultural Perspective. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 64-91.
53. Latour, B. 1987. Science in Action, How to Follow Scientists and Engineers Through Society. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA.
54. Latour, B. 2005. Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory. Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK.
55. Law, J. 1994. Organizing Modernity. Blackwell, Oxford, UK.
56. Law, J. 2004. After Method: Mess in Social Science Research. Routledge, London.
57. Law, J., V. Singleton. 2005. Object lessons. Organizations 12(3) 331-355.
58. Leonardi, P. M. 2009. Crossing the implementation line: The mutual constitution of technology and organizing across development and use activities. Comm. Theory 19(3) 277-309.
59. Leonardi, P. M., S. Barley. 2008. Materiality and change: Challenges to building better theory about technology and organizing. Inform. Organ. 18(3) 159-176.
60. Lewis, L. K., D. Seibold. 1993. Innovation modification during intraorganizational adoption. Acad. Management Rev. 18(2) 322-354.
61. Lewis, L. K., D. Seibold. 1998. Reconceptualizing organizational change implementation as a communication problem: A review of literature and research agenda. M. Roloff, ed. Communication Yearbook, Vol. 21. Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA, 93-151.
62. Light, B., S. Sawyer. 2007. Locating packaged software in information systems research. Euro. J. Inform. Systems 16(5) 527-530.
63. Locke, J., A. Lowe. 2007. A biography: Fabrications in the life of an ERP package. Organization 14(6) 793-814.
64. Lyytinen, K., M. Newman, A. Al-Muharfi. 2009. Institutionalizing enterprise resource planning in the Saudi steel industry: A punctuated socio-technical analysis. J. Inform. Tech. 24(4) 286-304.
65. Mabert, V., A. Soni, M. Venkataramanan. 2001. Enterprise resource planning: Common myths versus evolving reality. Bus. Horizon 44(3) 69-76.
66. MacKenzie, D. 1988. Micro versus macro sociologies of science and technology? Edinburgh PICT Working Paper 2, Research Centre for Social Sciences, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK.
67. Magolda, P. 2000. Being at the wrong place, wrong time: Rethinking trust in qualitative inquiry. Theory Into. Practice 39(3) 138-145.
68. Marcus, G. E. 1995. Ethnography in/of the world system: The emergence of multi-sited ethnography. Ann. Rev. Anthropology 24 95-117.
69. Mingers, J. 2001 Combing IS research methods: Toward a pluralist methodology. Inform. Systems Res. 12(3) 240-259.
70. Monteiro, E. 2000. Actor-network theory. C. Ciborra, K. Braa, A. Cordella, B. Dahlbom, A. Failla, O. Hanseth, V. Hespo, J. Ljungberg, E. Monteiro, K. Simon, eds. From Control to Drift: The Dynamics of Corporate Information Infrastructures. Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK, 71-86.
71. Morrison, A. 2002. Researching ICTs in context. InterMedia Report 3/2002, University of Oslo, Oslo.
72. Nandhakumar, J., M. Rossi, J. Talvinen. 2005. The dynamics of contextual forces of ERP implementation. J. Strategic Inform. Systems 14(2) 221-242.
73. Orlikowski, W. J. 1992. The duality of technology: Rethinking the concept of technology in organizations. Org. Sci. 11(4) 404-428.
74. Orlikowski, W. J. 1996. Improvising organisational transformation over time: A situated change perspective. Inform. Systems Res. 7(1) 63-92.
75. Orlikowski, W. J. 2006. Material knowing: The scaffolding of human knowledgeability. Euro. J. Inform. Systems 15(5) 460-466.
76. Orlikowski, W. J., S. Barley. 2001. Technology and institutions: What can research on information technology and research on institutions learn from each other? MIS Quart. 25(2) 145-165.
77. Orlikowski, W. J., C. Iacono. 2001. Research commentary: Desperately seeking the "IT" in IT research-A call to theorizing the IT artifact. Inform. Systems Res. 12(2) 121-134.
78. Pollock, N. 2005. When is a work-around? Conflict and struggle in computer systems development. Sci. Tech. Humam Value 30(4) 496-514.
79. Pollock, N., J. Cornford. 2004. ERP Systems and the University as an "Unique" Organization. Inf. Tech. Peop. 17(1) 31-52.
80. Pollock, N., R. Williams. 2007. Technology choice and its performance: Toward a sociology of software package procurement. Information Organ. 17(2) 131-161.
81. Pollock, N., R. Williams. 2009a. Software and Organizations: The Biography of the Enterprise-wide System or How SAP Conquered the World. Routledge, London.
82. Pollock, N., R. Williams. 2009b. The sociology of a market analysis tool: How industry analysts sort and organise markets. Inform. Organ. 19(2) 129-151.
83. Pollock, N., R. Williams. 2010. The business of expectations: How promissory organisations shape technology and innovation. Soc. Stud. Sci. 40(4) 525-548.
84. Pollock, N., R. Williams, L. D'Adderio. 2007. Global software and its provenance: Generification work in the production of organisational software packages. Soc. Stud. Sci. 37(2) 254-280.
85. Pollock, N., R. Williams, R. Proctor. 2003. Fitting standard software packages to non-standard organisations: The "biography" of an enterprise-wide system. Tech. Anal. Strat. Man. 15(3) 317-332.
86. Pozzebon, M., Pinsonneault. 2005. Global-local negotiations for implementing configurable packages: The power of initial organizational decisions. J. Strat. Inform. Systems 14(2) 191-242.
87. Pozzebon, M., E. van Heck. 2006. Local adaptations of generic application systems: The case of Veiling Holambra in Brazil. J. Infor. Tech. 21(2) 73-85.
88. Quattrone, P., T. Hopper. 2006. What is IT? SAP, accounting, and visibility in a multinational organization. Infor. Org. 16(3) 212-250.
89. Regnell, B., M. Höst, J. Natt och Dag, P. Beremark, T. Hjelm. 2001. An industrial case study on distributed prioritisation in market-driven requirements engineering for packaged software. Req. Eng. 6(1) 51-62.
90. Robey, D. 1996. Diversity in information systems research: Threat, promise and responsibility. Inform. Systems Res. 7(4) 400-408.
91. Rose, J., M. Jones, D. Truex. 2005. Socio-theoretic accounts of IS: The problem of agency. Scandinavian J. Inform. Systems 17(1) 133-152.
92. Rowlands, N. 2010. Turning buyers into sellers: The spread and spreading of ERP in American higher education. Presentation, September 2-4, 2010, European Association for the Study of Science and Technology, Trento, Italy.
93. Sahay, S., E. Monteiro, M. Aanestad. 2009. Configurable politics and asymmetric integration: Health e-infrastructures in India. J. Assoc. Inform. Systems 10(5) 399-414.
94. Sawyer, S. 2001. A market-based perspective on information systems development. Comm. ACM 44(11) 97-101.
95. Sawyer, S., R. Southwick. 2002. Temporal issues in information and communication technology-enabled organizational change: Evidence from an enterprise systems implementation. Inform. Soc. 18(4) 263-280.
96. Scott, S. V., E. Wagner. 2003. Networks, negotiations, and new times: The implementation of enterprise resource planning into an academic administration. Inform. Organ. 13(4) 285-313.
97. Shoib, G., J. Nandhakumar, M. Jones. 2006. Using social theory in information systems research: A reflexive account, in quality and impact of qualitative research. A. Ruth, ed. Quality and Impact of Qualitative Research, 3rd Annual Qual. IT Conf., Institute for Integrated and Intelligent Systems, Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia, 129-147.
98. Silverstone, R., E. Hirsch, D. Morley. 1992. Information and communication technologies and the moral economy of the household. R. Silverstone, E. Hirsch, eds. Consuming Technologies: Media and Information in Domestic Spaces. Routledge, London, 115-131.
99. Smith, W. 2009. Theatre of use: A frame analysis of information technology demonstrations. Soc. Stud. Sci. 39(3) 449-480.
100. Sørensen, K. H. 1996. Learning technology, constructing culture: Socio-technical change as social learning'. STS Working Paper No. 18/96, Centre for Technology and Society, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway.
101. Sørensen, K. H., N. Levold. 1992. Tacit Networks, Heterogeneous Engineers, and Embodied Technology. Sci. Tech. Human Values 17(1) 13-35.
102. Sørensen, K., R. Williams. 2002. Shaping Technology, Guiding Policy: Concepts, Spaces and Tools. Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, UK.
103. Star, S. L., ed. 1995. Ecologies of Knowledge. State University of New York Press, New York.
104. Star, S. L., K. Ruhleder. 1996. Steps toward an ecology of infrastructure: Design and access for large information spaces. Inform. Systems Res. 7(1) 111-134.
105. Strannegård, L., M. Friberg. 2001. Already Elsewhere: Play, Identity and Speed in the Business World. Raster, Stockholm.
106. Suchman, L. 1987. Plans and situated actions: The problem of human-machine communication. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK.
107. Suchman, L. 1994. Working relations of technology'. Comp. Supp. Coop. Work 2(1-2) 21-39.
108. Suchman, L. 2007. Human-Machine Reconfigurations: Plans and Situated Actions. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK.
109. Swanson, E. B. 2010. Consultancies and capabilities in innovating with IT. J. Strategic Inform. Systems 19(1) 17-27.
110. Swanson, E. B., N. Ramiller. 1997. The organizing vision in information systems innovation. Organ. Sci. 8(5) 458-474.
111. Tingling, P., M. Parent. 2002. Mimetic isomorphism and technology evaluation: Does imitation transcend judgement. J. Assoc. Inform. Systems 3(5) 113-143.
112. Tingling, P., M. Parent. 2004. An exploration of enterprise technology selection and evaluation. J. Strategic Inform. Systems 13(4) 329-354.
113. Von Hippel, E. 1994. The Sources of Innovation. Oxford University Press, UK.
114. Von Hippel, E. 2005. Democratizing Innovation. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.
115. Wagner, E., S. Newell. 2004. Best for whom? The tension between "best practice" ERP packages and diverse epistemic cultures in a university context. J. Strategic Inform. Systems. 13(4) 305-328.
116. Walsham, G. 1997. Actor-network theory and IS research: Current status and future prospects. A. S. Lee, J. Liebenau, J. DeGross, eds. Information Systems and Qualitative Research. Chapman & Hall, New York, 469-480.
117. Walsham, G. 2001. Making a World of Difference: IT in a Global Context. Wiley, Chichester, UK.
118. Wang, P., N. Ramiller. 2004. Community learning in information technology fashion. ICIS 2004 Proc., Paper 4. ICIS, Atlanta. http://aisel.aisnet.org/icis2004/4.
119. Wang, P., E. Swanson. 2008. Customer relationship management as advertised: Exploiting and sustaining technological momentum. Inform. Tech. People 21(4) 323-349.
120. Webster, J., R. Williams. 1993. Mismatch and tension: Standard packages and non-standard users. P. Quintas, ed. Social Dimensions of Systems Engineering. Ellis Horwood, Hemel Hempstead, UK, 179-196.
121. Williams, R. 1997. Universal solutions or local contingencies? Tensions and contradictions in the mutual shaping of technology and work organisation'. I. McLoughlin, D. Mason, eds. Innovation, Organizational Change and Technology. International Thompson Business Press, London, 170-185.
122. Wylie, L. 1990. A vision of the next-generation MRP II computer integrated manufacturing. Scenario S-300-339. Gartner Group, Stamford, CT.