Abstract
In an implementation of an ERP system in a large Danish production company, the ways in which the participants made sense of the project changed appreciably during the course of the project. At the start of the project, the predominant mode of thinking was classical, with many actors thinking of the implementation as a standard IT project. Later in the project, this way of thinking had changed: the majority viewed the implementation as an organizational change program. Clearly the experience of the project had changed the sense making of the participants to some extent. We used three theoretical frameworks to investigate and explain this change. Technological frames (Orlikowski and Gash 1994) helped us distinguish the different styles of sense making, but bound particular social groups to particular frames in a way that was not consistent with the empirical situation. Alvesson and Willmott’s (1996) levels of discourse provided a richer picture of inter-linking and evolving styles of sense making, and of actors’ fluency in moving between one and another, but provided no explanation of how or why one discourse should take over from another. In order to explain this change, it was necessary to add actions and outcomes to the picture, and for this a later theoretical contribution of Orlikowski (2000) was useful. In the practice lens, Orlikowski extends her work on structuration theory and technology. Here sense making (structure) and action are dependent upon each other in an emergent process. Since none of these theoretical perspectives offered a convincing explanation of the change in sense making at Omega, it was necessary to construct a new theoretical model in the light of our analysis. Now it was possible to understand how actions (taken in the light of the dominant technological discourse about the ERP implementation) produced outcomes perceived as unfavorable, and how an alternative discourse providing more tolerable and convenient sense making took over.
Chapter PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
Keywords
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
References
Alvesson, M., and Karreman, D. “Varieties of Discourse: On the Study of Organizations through Discourse Analysis,” Human Relations (53:9), September, 2000, pp. 1125–1149.
Alvesson, M., and Willmott, H. Making Sense of Management. London: Sage, 1996.
Argyris, C., and Schön, D. Organizational Learning: A Theory of Action Perspective. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1978.
Barley, S. R. “Technology as an Occasion for Structuring: Evidence from Observation of CT Scanners,” Administrative Science Quarterly 31, 1986, pp. 78–108.
Bang and Olufsen. Annual Report. Copenhagen, 1998/99.
Ben-David, I., and Raz, T. “An Integrated Approach for Risk Response Development in Project Planning,” Journal of the Operational Research Society 521, 2001, pp. 14–25.
Berger, P. L., and Luckmann, T. The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge. New York: Anchor Press, 1966.
Bijker, W. E., Hughes, T. P., and Trevor, P. (eds.). Technology and Culture. The Social Construction of Technological Systems: New Directions in the Sociology and History of Technology. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1987.
Bijker, W., and Law, J. (eds.). Shaping Technology/Building Society: Studies in Sociotechnical Change. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1994.
Borenreider, I. “New Forms of Organizations: The Need for Managing Diversity,” paper delivered at the Third International Conference on Organizational Discourses: Pretexts, Subtexts, and Contexts, Kings College, London, UK, 1998.
Boyd, A. “The Five Maxims of Project Satisfaction,” Aslib Proceedings 53, 2001, pp. 423–430.
Callon, M. “Society in the Making: The Study of Technology as a Tool for Sociological Analysis,” In: W. E. Bijker, T. P. Hughes, and T. Pinch (eds)., The Social Construction of Technological Systems. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1987, pp. 83–103.
Casey, C. Work, Self and Society: After Industrialism. London: Routledge, 1995.
Checkland, P. B., and Davies, L. “The Use of the Term `Weltanschauung’ In: Soft Systems Methodology,” International Journal of Information Management 13, 1986, pp. 109–115.
Ciborra, C. (ed.). From Control to Drift. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.
Deloitte Touche Consulting. Danske erfaringer med implementering of integrerede informationssystemer. Kobenhavn, Danmark: Deloitte Touche Consulting, 1998.
Derrida, J. (ed.). Différance, Margins of Philosophy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982.
DeSanctis, G., and Poole, M. S. “Capturing the Complexity in Advanced Technology Use: Adaptive Structuration Theory,” Organization Science 52, 1994, pp. 121–147.
Douglas, M. How Institutions Think. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1987.
Eden, C. “Cognitive Mapping”, European Journal of Operational Research (36), 1988, pp. 1–13.
Edwards, P. N. The Closed World: Computers and the Politics of Discourse in Cold War America. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1995.
Eisenhardt, K. “Building Theories from Case Study Research,” Academy of Management Review 154, 1989, pp. 532–550.
Giddens, A. The Constitution of Society. Cambridge, MA: Polity Press, 1984.
Goffman, I. Frame Analysis. New York: Harper and Row, 1974.
Grint, K., and Woolgar, S. The Machine at Work. Cambridge, MA: Polity Press, 1997.
Hayes, N., and Walsham, G. “Competing Interpretations of Computer-Supported Cooperative Work in Organizational Contexts,” Organization (7:1), 2000, pp. 49–67.
Heracleous, L., and Barrett, M. “Organizational Change as Discourse: Communicative Actions and Deep Structures in the Context of Information Technology Implementation,” Academy of Management Journal (44:4), 2001, pp. 755–778.
Hopper, P. “Emergent Grammar,” Berkeley Linguistics Society 13, 1987, pp. 139–157.
Kremrnergaard, P., and Rose, J. “Managerina Competencies for EPR Journeys,” Information Systems Frontiers,forthcoming.
Kohn, B. “Implementering of ratmnesystemr til ekonomistyring - Glem hvad du har lært - det meste er forkert,” Dkonomistyring og Informatik, Copenhagen Business School, Denmark, Volume 11 ârgang, Number 6, 1996.
Kuhn, T. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1962.
Latour, B. “Technology Is Society Made Durable,” In: J. Law (ed.), A Sociology of Monsters: Essays on Power, Technology and Domination. London: Routledge, 1991, pp. 103–131.
Law, J. (ed.). A Sociology of Monsters: Essays on Power, Technology and Domination. London: Routledge, 1991.
Monteiro, E., and Hanseth, O. “Social Shaping of Information Infrastructure,” In: W. J. Orlikowski, G. Walsham, M. Jones, and J. I. DeGross (eds.), Information Technology and Changes in Organizational Work. London: Chapman and Hall, 1996.
Motwani, J., Mirchandani, D., Madan, M., and Gunasekaran, A. “Successful Implementation of ERP Projects: Evidence from Two Case Studies,” International Journal of Production Economics (75:1/2), 2002, pp. 83–96.
Myers, M. D. “Critical Ethnography in Information Systems,” In: A. S. Lee, J. Liebenau, and J. I. DeGross (eds.), Information Systems and Qualitative Research. London: Chapman and Hall, 1997, pp. 276–300.
Orlikowski, W. J. “The Duality of Technology: Rethinking the Concept of Technology in Organizations,” Organization Science 33, 1992, pp. 398–429.
Orlikowski, W. J. “Using Technology and Constituting Structures: A Practice Lens for Studying Technology in Organizations,” Organization Science (11:4), July-August, 2000, pp. 404–428.
Orlikowski, W. J., and Gash, D. C. “Technological Frames: Making Sense of IT in Organizations,” ACM Transactions on Information Systems (12:2), 1994, pp. 174–207.
Orlikowski, W. J., and Robey, D. “IT and the Structuring of Organizations,” Information Systems Research (2:2), 2, 1991, pp. 143–169.
PA Consulting Group. Unlocking the value of ERP. Copenhagen, 2000.
Pillai, A. S., and Rao, K. S. “High Technology Product Development: Technical and Management Review System,” International Journal of Technology Management (19:7/8), 2000, pp. 685–698.
Rose, J., and Scheepers, R. “Structuration Theory and Information Systems Development; Frameworks for Practice,” paper delivered at the European Conference on Information Systems, Bled, Slovenia, 2001.
Truex, D. P., Baskerville, R., and Klein, H. K. “Growing Systems in an Emergent Organization,” Communications of the ACM (42:8), August 1999, pp. 117–123.
Walsham, G. “Interpretive Case Studies in IS Research: Nature and Method,” European Journal of Information Systems 4, 1995, pp. 74–81.
Walsham, G. Interpreting Information Systems. Chichester: Wiley, 1993.
Weick, K. E. The Social Psychology of Organizing. Reading, MA: Addison Wesley, 1979.
Weick, K. E., and Bougon, M. G. “Organizations as Cognitive Maps: Charting Ways to Success and Failure,” In: H. P. Sims and D. A. Gioca (eds.), The Thinking Organizations: Dynamics of Organization Social Cognition, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1986, pp. 102–135.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2003 IFIP International Federation for Information Processing
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Rose, J., Kræmmergaard, P. (2003). Dominant Technological Discourses in Action: Paradigmatic Shifts in Sense Making in the Implementation of an ERP System. In: Wynn, E.H., Whitley, E.A., Myers, M.D., DeGross, J.I. (eds) Global and Organizational Discourse about Information Technology. IFIP — The International Federation for Information Processing, vol 110. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-35634-1_21
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-35634-1_21
Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA
Print ISBN: 978-1-4757-5328-8
Online ISBN: 978-0-387-35634-1
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive