explain both initial responses to an enterprise system implementation (first-order responses) and responses ..... resource planning, ERP, SAP, Oracle, Peoplesoft, CRM, electronic medical record, .... Sweden / global Study Monitoring. Cordella ...
INSTITUTIONAL LOGICS AND PLURALISTIC RESPONSES TO ENTERPRISE SYSTEM IMPLEMENTATION: A QUALITATIVE META-ANALYSIS * Nicholas Berente, University of Notre Dame Kalle Lyytinen, Case Western Reserve University Youngjin Yoo, Case Western Reserve University Chris Maurer, University of Virginia ABSTRACT We develop a theoretical explanation of first-order and second-order responses to enterprise system (ES) implementations, highlighting how these responses are influenced by pluralistic institutional logics in combination with the relative power organizational actors. Enterprise systems span entire organizations and are congruent with some institutional logics and incongruent with others. Existing research emphasizes various elements of congruence or power in understanding local reactions to an enterprise system, and this existing research generally focuses on immediately post-implementation dynamics. We develop a framework that integrates and extends this work and highlights how congruence, combined with the pressures brought to bear, influence user responses to the ES implementation such as resistance, loose coupling, faithful appropriation, or coopting. We validate the framework through a qualitative metaanalysis of 26 case studies of ES implementations, and further extend the initial framework to explain both initial responses to an enterprise system implementation (first-order responses) and responses over time to ongoing activity (second-order responses). We distinguish between two forms of resistance: congruent resistance and institutional resistance. Congruent resistance can be overcome to attain eventual faithful appropriation by training the users or refining the system. Institutional resistance, in contrast, is borne out of incongruent logics and will likely result in sustained loose coupling or eventual abandonment. The framework highlights the institutional pressure brought to bear during ES implementation, and the relative power of organizational actors involved in the back-and-forth of first-order and second-order responses. KEYWORDS - Enterprise information systems, institutional logics, resistance, implementation, ERP, first-order, second-order responses, qualitative meta-analysis
* Forthcoming at MIS Quarterly
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INSTITUTIONAL LOGICS AND PLURALISTIC RESPONSES TO ENTERPRISE SYSTEM IMPLEMENTATION: A QUALITATIVE META-ANALYSIS
INTRODUCTION For the last two decades, organizations have been implementing enterprise information systems (ES) with the promise of integrating messy, fragmented, and stove-piped information systems in pluralistic organizations (Davenport 1998). Enterprise information systems are comprised of integrated and standardized modules utilizing a central database to process information for tasks and coordinate activities across various business functions of an organization (such as finance, human resources, materials management, sales, and distribution; Pollock & Williams 2009). These functions involve a diversity of groups and professional communities that each have their own goals, assumptions, and ways of doing things. As such, organizations are pluralistic with a multiplicity of institutional logics (Kraatz & Block 2008, Besharov & Smith 2014) that organizational actors – both individuals and groups – draw upon to guide their separate or overlapping practices (such as marketing or accounting). In all practical cases that ESs are implemented, however, they are often consistent with a singular institutional logic (Gosain 2004), which may or may not be compatible with other logics that guide the gamut of practices present in an organization (Berente & Yoo 2012). Existing ES research offers some guidance into how compatibility of logics matters during system implementation. If the logic of the ES is “congruent” with the logics that organizational actors draw on in their work (Gosain 2004, Lyytinen et al 2009), then the ES has the potential to be implemented and appropriated faithfully (DeSantis & Pool 1994). However, if the logic of the system is incongruent with the logics of incumbent practices, then the system cannot be appropriated faithfully without fundamentally changing the nature of the work
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(Devadoss & Pan 2007). In such situations, users typically react to the system by loosely coupling their work with the presentation of that work in the ES (Berente & Yoo 2012). Loose coupling includes temporal buffering (i.e., only periodic reconciliation of the local data with the enterprise system data); human intermediation (i.e. “chauffeurs,” Culnan 1984); work arounds (i.e., bolt-ons or “shadow systems,” Lyytinen and Newman 2015); or creative interpretation of global data that fits the interests of the local context (Berente & Yoo 2012). Loose coupling ensures that the ES can be implemented successfully, while simultaneously providing an acceptable level of local usage for the accountability and data visibility that are the promise of the ES. Although extant research does recognize the relationship between institutional contradictions and loose coupling (e.g., Berente & Yoo 2012), we identified two major issues with the current understanding. First, existing research emphasizes one of two general classes of explanation - either emphasizing social-theoretic explanations of congruence (values, culture, logics, e.g. Allen 2005, Gosain 2004, Soh & Sia 2004, Wagner & Newell 2004, Wagner et al 2010, Berente & Yoo 2012) or power dynamics (e.g. Lee & Myers 2004, Constantinides & Barrett 2006, Berente et al 2010, Rivard & LaPointe 2012), but rarely are the two combined in terms of their relationship. Their combination, however, can help to explain the variety of responses to an ES. No single framework covers the breadth of potential responses. For example, if loose coupling is the plausible answer for reconciling incongruent logics, why isn’t loose coupling always the response when logics contradict? In many cases we observe outright immediate resistance and implementation failure. Further, what explains how a particular organizational context might tightly couple in some ways and loosely couple in other ways (e.g., Allen 2005)? Likewise, in situations where logics do not contradict each other, why do we still
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find pockets of resistance? Further, existing explanations typically extend only to initial, firstorder responses to the system immediately post implementation, and do not extend to dynamics over time (i.e. “second-order” responses). Why do some loosely coupled implementations remain fairly stable over time (e.g. Wagner & Newell 2006, Berente et al 2016), whereas in other cases responses vary significantly (Boudreau & Robey 2005, Larsen & Myers 1999)? The theoretical departure point of our inquiry is that ES implementations and organizational adoption takes place over time. Organizations spend millions of dollars in implementing and maintaining ESs, and are therefore often sustain commitments to ESs even in the face of initial setbacks involving resistance and signs of failure. The initial implementation is often just the beginning of the story. As such, we look to investigate how organizational actors respond to ES over time. Toward that goal, we begin with an articulation of a framework rooted in the institutional logics perspective (Thornton et al 2012). The framework seeks to explain and predict a range of likely responses to an ES implementation given the broader, plural institutional context. The framework emphasizes the degree of congruence and the degree of pressure as pivotal dimensions influencing implementation responses resulting in four typical classes of user responses: faithful appropriation, loose coupling, resistance, and cooptation. This framework identifies the outcomes of immediate implementation outcomes, which we refer to as first-order responses to implementations. Then, we further extend this relatively static framework to explore ES appropriation dynamics over time, drawing on a qualitative meta-analytic technique (Noblit & Hare, 1988). A qualitative meta-analysis offers rigorous cross-study syntheses of extant qualitative studies. By using this technique, we re-analyze and synthesize the data and findings of 26 case studies of ES implementation. Similar to a quantitative meta-analysis, we deploy standard operationalization of key constructs of the framework to validate the framework by
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using the reported qualitative findings as empirical evidence. Unlike quantitative approaches, qualitative meta-analysis offers the benefit that it affords the sweeping-in of context from rich descriptions to synthesize cases with each other in ways the original authors may not have foreseen, and thus formulate and extend novel theory (Noblit & Hare 1988). Based on the meta-analysis we theorize the dynamics of institutional responses, with several propositions, extending a pluralistic institutional perspective to ES implementation. In particular, we highlight second-order responses in the case of resistance to the ES implementation and posit how such responses will vary over time due to the level of pressure brought to bear. We further identify two forms of resistance: congruent resistance and institutional resistance. Congruent resistance can be resolved through either loose coupling or faithful appropriation; whereas institutional resistance – which emerges when a deep contradiction prevails between the incumbent logic and that of the system - can only be resolved through loose coupling. Absent such loose coupling, implementation failure is likely to follow. Finally, we note the key moderating effect of power in influencing implementation dynamics – both the impact of initial pressure and the relative power relations after initial implementation. Our findings highlight the importance to recognize how relative power combined with institutionalized practice helps understand varying responses to ES implementation over time. The remainder of the paper is organized as follows. First, we outline an institutional view of enterprise system implementation, and develop our tentative framework of responses to an ES implementation. Next we present the research method and explain how we sampled and analyzed included case studies using qualitative meta-analysis. We conclude by extending the framework to second-order responses and discuss implications of our findings for large scale system implementation research and practice.
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INSTITUTIONAL LOGICS AND ENTERPRISE SYSTEM IMPLEMENTATIONS Organizational actors (individuals and groups) draw upon a variety of institutions to guide their actions. Broad, societal institutions (i.e., capitalism, the state, democracy, family, religion, science), as well as meso-level institutions (i.e., professions, governments, universities, institutionalized organizations) are rooted in the practices of actors who continually reproduce these institutions through situated actions. These institutions, in turn, guide and coordinate those micro-level practices (Powell & DiMaggio 1991). Each institution can be said to possess its own “institutional logic” with alternative scripts, values, norms, assumptions, and beliefs (Friedland & Alford 1991). Organizational actors typically cling to the institutional logics that have guided their actions in the past, have given them meaning, and informed their identity. Organizational actors have invested in their institutional logics and they will not easily bend to and absorb new, conflicting, institutional logics (Thornton et al 2012). In contrast, they fiercely defend incumbent institutional logics since they are fundamental in defining the actor’s identity: “The routines of each institution …define the order of the world and one’s position within it, rituals through which belief in the institution is reproduced” (Friedland & Alford 1991, p. 250). No single institutional logic guides all the behaviors of all actors within an organization. To the contrary, organizations form a nexus of diverse, often conflicting logics (Kraatz & Block 2008). The multiplicity of logics in organizations allow people with different identities, norms, belief and values still coordinate their action. We refer to this multiplicity of institutional logics in an organization as the manifestation of “institutional pluralism” of that organization (Berente & Yoo 2012, Besharov & Smith 2014). Logics are typically reflected in diverse professions or functional groups in an organization. Examples of pluralistic logics in an industrial organization would involve those of Manufacturing, Marketing, Procurement, Human Resource, and Finance,
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each of which may or may not be consistent with one another, depending on the practice in question (Fligstein 1993). Since the use of ESs cuts across multiple functional and professional boundaries, it is through the use of these systems in different corners of the organization where incongruent institutional logics manifest. Berente & Yoo (2012) found that NASA’s personnel drew upon distinct logics during the use of the financial ES system – sometimes that of scientific or project management profession, sometimes that of managerial efficiency logics – depending on the particular practices the users enacted while using the ES. Institutional logics are expressed in social systems through multiple “carriers,” including rules, norms, buildings and their arrangements, and technological systems such as ES (Gosain 2004). In the IS literature, the institutional logic underlying ES is generally represented uniformly. Table 1 summarizes the institutional logics associated with ES rooted in Berente & Yoo’s (2012) four dimensions: organizing principles, causal assumptions, identities, and domains. Organizing principles refer to the goals and values associated with a particular institution; causal assumptions refer to the implied means-end relationships between actions and goal realization; institutional identities express ways actors identify with particular roles implied by the institution; and, domain denotes an appropriate practice field for drawing on and enacting an institutional logic. Table 1. Elements of Institutional Logic Associated with Enterprise Systems Dimension
Characterization of enterprise system logic
Principles
Integration & control.
Selected sources
Identity
Top-down structure implies rationalized bureaucracy in line with functional managerial interests; user discipline.
Ciborra 2000, Hanseth et al 2001, Davenport 1998, Sia et al 2002, Newell et al 2003, Kallinikos 2004, Markus 2004, Boudreau & Robey 2005, Allen 2005 Robey et al 2002, Davenport 1998, Markus et al 2000, Markus & Tanis 2000, Soh et al 2000, Boudreau & Robey 2005, Wagner & Newell 2004, Elmes et al 2005, Sia et al 2002, Allen 2005, Berente & Yoo 2012, Berente et al 2010, Berente et al 2016 Davenport 1998, Soh et al 2000, Pollock & Cornford 2004, Boudreau & Robey 2005, Soh & Sia 2004, Gosain 2004
Domain
Highly explicit and repetitive administrative routines.
Davenport 1998, Soh et al 2003, Kallinikos 2004, Markus & Tanis 2000, Wagner & Newell 2004, Berente & Yoo 2012
Integration through standardization. Assumptions Control through visibility.
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Enterprise systems in most cases embody a particular managerial institutional logic emphasizing efficiency, integration, and control (Gosain 2004, Berente & Yoo 2012, Berente et al 2016). This managerial logic manifests itself through a “technological imperative” (Davenport 1998); rationalized logic or structure (Sia et al 2002, Gosain 2004, Elmes et al 2005); or procedural focus (Soh et al 2003, Kallinikos 2004). The principles associated with the enterprise system are those of control (Ciborra 2000, Sia et al 2002, Elmes et al 2005, Berente et al 2016) and integration (Davenport 1998, Markus et al 2000, Volkoff et al 2005, Soh et al 2003, Allen 2005). The objectives are met through standardization and best practices (Soh et al 2003, Newell et al 2003, Kallinikos 2004, Wagner & Newell 2004); and data visibility and resulting observability of other areas of an organization (Sia et al 2002, Elmes et al 2005) that promote efficiency (Lyytinen & Newman 2015). Enterprise systems also inscribe assumptions inherited from reference industries and countries (Pollock & Cornford 2004, Soh & Sia 2004); managerial interests (Soh & Sia 2004, Gosain 2004); and management trends (Pollock & Williams 2009), which typically convey bureaucratic, administrative practices well-suited to highly explicit organizational behaviors (Davenport 1998, Kallinikos 2004, Wagner & Newell 2004). Structurally, ESs involve a family of structured data fields organized into a centralized database, and a complex set of standardized administrative procedures encoded in the software. In a sense, ESs are classic managerial logics made durable and mobile (Kallinikos 2011). Because of this institutional bias of ES and due to highly pluralistic institutional logics in many organizations, different parts of organizations typically respond differently to ES implementation. The responses largely depend on whether the local practices easily conform to the imposed data structures and procedures of the ES (Ciborra 2000, Allen 2005, Wagner & Newell 2004). The value of the institutional logic lens is that it allows the linking of prevailing, 8
broad, reproduced social structures made durable, such as those associated with ES software, with local-level idiosyncratic responses and to theorize about regularities of such responses during implementation (Berente & Yoo 2012). Responses to Institutional Pressure Historically, institutional theory has been criticized for painting organizational actors as passive recipients and mindless followers of institutional pressure (Powell & DiMaggio 1991). To remedy this problem, Oliver (1991) identified five categories of actor’s responses to institutional pressure that accompanies a logic: acquiescence, compromise, avoidance, defiance, and manipulation. These responses express progressively higher levels of an actor’s resistance to the pressure imposed by a specific logic. Goodstein (1994) later indicated that these responses were based on the congruence of logics with one another (congruent / incongruent), and the level of institutional pressure mounted to follow the institutional order (strong / weak). Goodstein’s notion of congruence highlights whether the goals and policies of the new institution are accommodated while actors try to maintain faithfulness to pre-existing goals and practices. Logics conflict when incongruent cognitive schemata and their normative implications need to be simultaneously applied to the same situation (DiMaggio 1997). Such conflict results in dissonance felt by actors that limits their ability to continue with established practices (Bacharach et al 1996). In line with this, we conceive of two situations when institutional logics are congruent: (1) inconsistent logics are applied to separate domains whereby they never conflict; or (2) two or more institutional logics are applied to the same practices without generating dissonance between and within those practices. Accordingly, we define incongruent institutional logics as any set of logics that, when simultaneously applied to a situation, cannot
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guide an actor’s practices without creating a dissonance that calls for fundamentally changing those practices to reconcile the dissonance. The force of a new institution needs to be assessed by the degree of coercion, enforcement, vigilance, and sanctions associated with its (non)-application (Oliver 1991). If the “consequences of nonconformity are highly punitive” (ibid p.168), then the pressure towards conformity is strong. If conformity is strictly voluntary, the pressure is weak. We define a strong institutional pressure to be involuntary compliance where significant, negative, and largely punitive consequences (financial, reputational, symbolic) flow from nonconformity. Conversely, weak institutional pressure allows actors space for voluntary adoption and comes with little or no significant negative consequences for nonconformity. Table 2 summarizes Oliver’s (1991) and Goodstein’s (1994) institutional frameworks of responses. Table 2. Institutional frameworks of responses to a new institutions (Oliver 1991) New institution Response (adaptation of Definition Forms of response strategies Goodstein 1994) Conformity to institutional Habit (unconscious, passive) Strong pressure; Acquiescence prescriptions and implied social Imitation (mimetic isomorphism) logics congruent order. Compliance (conscious obedience) “Partial conformity” to explicit Balance (parity among multiple interests) Strong pressure; institutional prescriptions Compromise Pacify (conform to minimal standards) logics incongruent without necessarily the implied Bargain (extract concessions for conformity) social order. Concealment (disguise conformity) “Partial conformity” to either a Strong pressure; Buffering (reduce scrutiny, decoupled) Avoidance portion of the institutional logics incongruent Escape (exit domain in which pressure prescriptions or none at all. exerted) Non-conformity with a portion of Dismissal (ignore institutional rules) Weak pressure; Defiance the institutional prescriptions Challenge (actively challenge institution) logics incongruent within the applicable domain. Attack (intense and aggressive challenge) Co-opt (take ownership of the source) Weak pressure; Actively direct the institutional Manipulation Influence (“manipulation of belief systems”) logics congruent prescriptions. Control (“struggles for power”)
When incumbent institutional logics are congruent with a newly introduced institution and the force to comply is strong then local practices will comply with the new institution through “acquiescence.” This subsumes responses such as habit, imitation, or conformity (Oliver 1991). If, however, the introduced institutional logic is incongruent with that of local practice, 10
and the force to comply is great, then responses will manifest partial conformity in the form of compromise or avoidance. These responses enable some degree of simultaneous acquiescence and resistance (Oliver 1991). The tactics for partial conformity range from “concealing their nonconformity, buffering themselves from institutional pressures, or escaping from the institutional rules or expectations,” to “disguising nonconformity behind a façade of acquiescence…”, “window dressing”; ritualism; ceremonial pretense; or “symbolic acceptance of institutional norms, rules, or requirements” (Oliver 1991, p.154). Only when the pressure through which the new logic is introduced is weak, will outright resistance strategies including the “defiance” of ignoring or fighting the institution become feasible. Finally, when the new institution is introduced without a great deal of pressure, yet it is congruent with the logic of existing practice, then the response can involve manipulation. Next we adapt this general institutional framework to the information systems context. A Framework of Responses to Enterprise System Implementation Although ESs have widely been characterized as carriers of new managerial institutional order as discussed above (e.g. Gosain 2004), Oliver’s framework of institutional responses has not been explicitly incorporated into this stream of research. So the question for those studying ES implementation is: when we conceive of an ES implementation as a new institutional order, how does this integrate with what we know about user’s response tactics? The answer is that responses that Oliver identifies are consistent with many observed user responses to system implementations as reported in the broader IS literature. Table 3 integrates prevalent reports of
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implementation outcomes in the IS literature with Oliver’s (1991) classification of institutional responses to new order (Table 2).1
New institution embodied by IS
Table 3. IS research and responses to system implementation Response Local responses to strategies Sampling of applicable IS literature information system Oliver 1991 Acquiescence
Process adaptation; system configuration – “faithful appropriation”
Leonard-Barton 1988, Tyre & Orlikowski 1994, Majchrzak et al 2000, Soh & Sia 2004, Davenport 1998, Markus et al 2000, Boudreau & Robey 2005, DeSanctis & Poole 1994
Strong pressure; logics incongruent
Compromise / avoidance
Process adaptation; system customization; improvisation, resistance – “loose coupling:
Ciborra 2000, Pollock & Cornford 2004, Scott & Wagner 2003, Wagner & Newell 2004, 2006, Lyytinen and Newman 2015
Weak pressure; logics congruent
Manipulation
System manipulation – “cooptation”
Weak pressure; logics incongruent
Defiance
Resistance
Strong pressure; logics congruent
-Keen 1981, Markus 1983, Lapointe & Rivard 2005, Rivard & Lapointe 2012
Of these strategies, acquiescence has been addressed at length in the implementation research. We could identify a wide array of studies on mutual adaptation during general system implementation (Leonard-Barton 1988, Tyre & Orlikowski 1994, Majchrzak et al 2000, Soh & Sia 2004), in technology adaptation (DeSanctis & Poole 1994), and also in ES implementation (Davenport 1998, Markus et al 2000, Boudreau & Robey 2005). In contrast, the lack of acquiescence (including defiance and some forms of avoidance) have been traditionally framed as “resistance.” This concept has gained refinement in terms of it antecedents, forms, and outcomes through a rich take-up in the IS research (Lapointe & Rivard 2005, Rivard & Lapointe 2012, Markus 1983, Keen 1981). Some attention has also been recently paid to compromise and avoidance (Ciborra 2000, Pollock & Cornford 2004, Scott & Wagner 2003, Wagner & Newell 2006, Lyytinen and Newman 2015, Berente & Yoo 2012).
1
Note that we sample concepts broadly from information systems implementation literature. Since enterprise systems are a form of information systems more generally, many of the classic responses characterized in the literature were formulated before enterprise systems were widely adopted using the term.
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Our initial analysis suggests that user responses to ES implementation depend on whether the institutional logics underlying a user’s practice are congruent with that of the ES logic, and whether strong or weak pressure accompanies the system implementation. Incumbent institutional logics can be either congruent or incongruent with that of the ES (Rivard & Lapointe 2012, Berente & Yoo 2012). Unlike the institutional logics of ES, some incumbent practices may not be motivated by concerns of efficiency or control, they may not align well to standardization and integration, they may resist rationalization, and be less routine. Likewise, the organization can mobilize strong or weak institutional pressure in enforcing compliance to the system. Thus, we can expect four classes of user responses to ES implementation: (1) faithful appropriation (congruence / strong pressure), (2) loose coupling (incongruence / strong pressure), (3) cooptation (congruence / weak pressure), and (4) resistance (incongruence / weak pressure).
Figure 1: An institutional framework of user responses to enterprise system implementation
Figure 1 organizes an institutional framework of expected user responses when multiple institutional logics are at play. We can formulate four conjectures per each condition of the likely user responses when the institutional pressure and the congruence varies. We start with
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faithful appropriation the ES usage is congruent with the local practice and the use is involuntary. Under such conditions we expect mutual adaptation that will lead to faithful appropriation (Leonard-Barton 1988). We postulate: Conjecture 1 Faithful appropriation: Under strong institutional pressure, organizational actors whose practices are guided by institutional logics congruent with that of an ES will faithfully appropriate the system through mutual adaptation. When the enterprise system usage is incongruent and the institutional pressure is strong, local actors will respond using loose coupling. Their practices maintain loose coupling with system use through multiple mediating mechanisms including ceremonialization, use of categorical (vs. technical) ends, and informal coordination (Meyer & Rowan 1977) many of which were noted above. These mechanisms enable local practices to coexist with the new institutionally-enforced activity by relying on a haphazard or circumscribed connection to a pivotal local activity. Thus, we postulate: Conjecture 2 Loose coupling: Under strong institutional pressure, organizational actors whose existing practices are guided by institutional logics incongruent with that of an ES will respond to system implementation by loosely coupling their practices from those implied by the system. In situations where the institutional pressure is weak and the logic congruent, we expect to find compliance, but this is compliance of a different sort in that it seeks to empower local actors so that they can manipulate and control the implementation – a situation we refer in Figure 1 as “cooptation.” If the logic is incongruent, on the other hand, we expect to find stiffer local resistance (Lapointe & Rivard 2012). Thus, in the case of weak pressure we postulate: Conjecture 3 Cooptation: Under weak institutional pressure, organizational actors whose existing practices are guided by institutional logics congruent with that of an ES will respond to the system implementation by coopting the implementation. Conjecture 4 Resistance: Under weak institutional pressure, organizational actors whose existing practices are guided by institutional logics incongruent with that of an enterprise system will respond to the ES implementation with resistance. 14
These conjectures, rooted in implementation and institutional literature, address initial user reactions. In a sense, they predict and explain first-order responses to system implementation given the pluralism of the institutional order. However, the implementation of ES and the local adoption take place in organizations over a long period of time. Once organizations implement ES, they are committed to stay with the system, due to the high cost of implementation. Therefore, the question to ask is: What happens after the implementation and over time to such responses? Do they remain the same? Longitudinal studies in ES implementation suggests that the first-order responses can and will change over time through second-order responses, because either the implementation team can react and adjust either the pressure or the system logic, or the user responses will change due to learning (e.g. Boudreau & Robey 2005, Berente et al 2016). To validate the framework and related conjectures and to extend it to explain later second-order responses we conducted a qualitative meta-analysis of all published longitudinal ES implementations. RESEARCH METHOD: QUALITATIVE META-ANALYSIS We sought to validate the four conjectures and extend the theoretical framework by conducting a qualitative meta-analysis of 26 case studies of enterprise system implementations. Thanks to the steady growth of published and rigorous qualitative research, scholars have become aware of the value of re-analyzing and synthesizing published studies (Schofield, 2002). Indeed, case study data can be re-interpreted and the resulting interpretation can be rigorously compared and synthesized through an extensive analysis of other case studies (Noblit & Hare 1988). The practice of using qualitative descriptions as data for a study has been called “metaethnography” (Noblit & Hare 1988), “meta-synthesis” (Urquhart 2010), or “meta-interpretation”
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(Weed 2005). This method should not be confused with what Weed (2005) refers to as “aggregative” syntheses such as literature reviews and quantitative meta-analyses. A literature review takes the findings of existing studies and looks to synthesize them while a quantitative meta-analysis takes common pool of shared constructs, measures, and related theoretical statements as objects of analysis to aggregate and re-analyze the results jointly, typically using additional statistical procedures that rely on sample sizes, means and variances across the studies. In this regard, qualitative meta-analysis differs significantly from quantitative methods in that the constructs deployed to make sense of cross-case data are not necessarily the same (and rarely they are) as the constructs that the original authors used. On similar grounds qualitative meta-analyses can be distinguished from qualitative methods that standardize construct use across cases as in “case survey” method (Yin & Heald 1975) or qualitative comparative analysis (Ragin 1987). Qualitative meta-analyses result in meta-interpretations / meta-syntheses and are manifestations of consistent stream of interpretative acts by researchers around rich descriptions provided by reported qualitative research. The goal is not to integrate the findings of those studies. Rather, it is to use the rich descriptions embedded in the write-ups as ‘first hand’ data for analysis as to enable additional and new inferences from the larger pool of data across all qualitative studies in light of emerging or alternative theoretical framing. Therefore, metaanalyses involve analyzing published data directly and treating original theoretical interpretations as a side element of the dataset (Weed 2005). Accordingly, a qualitative meta-analysis seeks to reinterpret data within prior studies in ways that may not necessarily be consistent with the original perspectives adopted by the authors. Qualitative meta-analyses are, however, similar to their quantitative counterparts in that the construct operationalization needs to be applied in a
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standard way across the sampled studies. Qualitative meta-analyses call for the use of such standardized operationalizations in order to translate and make comparable the findings from one case to those of another (Noblit & Hare 1988). Qualitative meta-analyses have been used in healthcare research (Barnett-Page & Thomas 2009, Walsh & Downe 2002, Beck 2009); education (e.g. Jones 2004, Savin-Baden & Major 2007); and in public policy (Lee 2010). Reinterpreting published qualitative data has also a rich follow-up in organizational scholarship (e.g., Stewart 1990, Boland 1993, Weick 1993, Hallet & Ventresca 2006). The method, as such, however, has been rarely used in IS research (for exceptions, see Dyba & Dingsoyr 2008, Park & Berente 2011). Two key principles guide qualitative meta-analyses: (1) attend heedfully to case context and (2) synthesize through translation (Noblit & Hare 1988). Per (1), qualitative meta-analyses foreground the context (Van Maanen et al 1988) – it is less about eliminating context to compare decontextualized, generalizable findings (as in quantitative meta-analysis or literature reviews), but more about explicitly attending to and interpreting the relevance of context in order to articulate theoretically generalizable findings that are attentive to the context. Qualitative metaanalytic techniques are therefore particularly conducive to an institutional analyses that recontextualizes intra-organizational work within a society’s broader institutions. Further, qualitative case studies must be ‘translated’ into and made comparable to each other (Noblit & Hare 1988) so that new inferences can be gleaned. Interpretations are standardized across case data sets, and possible inconsistencies (i.e. what Noblit & Hare 1988 call “refutations”) must be included into the conclusions in ways that integrate the variance in the case phenomena. The aims of such synthesis are similar to traditional quantitative meta-analytic techniques in that the scholar looks for a common basis for comparing data and findings across
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studies. By relying on rigorous and systematic cross-case synthesis and comparison a qualitative meta-analysis helps scholars extend generalizability of their initial insights in light of the reviewed published work by reconciling common and contradictory findings and seeking evidence for such outcome using a variety of theoretical perspectives (Schofield 2002). Sampling Noblit & Hare (1988) recommend purposeful sampling as the main strategy to ensure meaningful synthesis. Comprehensiveness of the sample in the sense of a large sample is not required – if the synthesis and comparison of a handful of sampled cases, which meet strict theoretical sampling criteria, allow for novel and strong theoretical inferences, further additional cases, in all likelihood, can be subsumed under the initial theoretical explanation, and additional sampling may not be required. This, in the end, is always a judgement call (Noblit & Hare 1988). Nevertheless, since the research on ESs spans systems, organizations, professions, countries and industries across multiple decades, our goal was to cast initially as wide a net as is reasonable as to accommodate a large diversity of implementation contexts. To this end, we sampled published information systems literature on ES implementations between 1998 and 2017. We chose to include papers published only after 1998, because that year was the beginning of the research stream on “enterprise systems” following Davenport’s (1998) seminal article. We conducted the final sampling procedure in February of 2017. Figure 2 describes the overall procedure.
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Initial Sample Inclusion Criteria: basket of six IS journals 1988-2017 keywords: enterprise system, ES, packaged software, enterprise resource
180 Articles
planning, ERP, SAP, Oracle, Peoplesoft, CRM, electronic medical record, electronic health record, patient management system, EHR, EMR Further Inclusion Criteria snowball part 1): Cited an article in initial sample Met keyword requirements of initial sample Eliminated duplicates
857 Articles
First Round Exclusion Criteria: Eliminate all non-qualitative articles: eliminate quantitative, conceptual, prescriptive articles Eliminated articles not focused on enterprise system implementation and those at an organizational level of analysis
74 Articles
Second Round Exclusion Criteria: Eliminate all of those without detailed case descriptions – with adequate quotations from participants that enables us to characterize the institutional logic of the organizational context and power dynamics associated with the implementation.
23 Articles
Further Inclusion Criteria snowball part 2): Cited by article in the sample Met keyword requirements of initial sample and both rounds of exclusion criteria Eliminated duplicates
Final Sample
Add l 12 Articles
35 Articles
Figure 2: Sampling Procedure
The process began with a search within the “basket of six”2 information systems journals with the following keywords: enterprise system, ES, packaged software, enterprise resource planning, ERP, SAP, Oracle, Peoplesoft, CRM, electronic medical record, electronic health record, patient management system, EHR, and EMR. The latter keywords were included in our search with the understanding that an enterprise system supporting organizations within the medical field typically consist of some form of electronic health records, thus ensuring coverage of this emerging topic. While the keyword search and snowball sampling covered an expansive scope, we were aware of several other rigorous, descriptive qualitative case studies appearing in both journals and book chapters and added five additional papers to the sample. This phase yielded 185 papers meeting initial criteria.
2
This is a term used by AIS senior scholars to describe the following six journals: MIS Quarterly, Information Systems Research, Journal of Management Information Systems, Journal for the Association of Information Systems, European Journal of Information Systems, and Information Systems Journal
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To extend beyond the basket journals, we ran a citation analysis to identify every paper that had cited at least one of 185 papers, identifying 3,427 papers. However, many of these articles did not address the concept of ES or implementation. We therefore limited our focus to those papers within this list that contained any of the keywords used in our original search. This resulted in identifying 792 additional papers. After removing duplicates, the new extended sample included 857 papers. The next step was to review the titles and abstracts of the 857 papers to eliminate those that did not specifically involve qualitative methods, such as conceptual papers without data, prescriptive research, and empirical work relying on quantitative methods. Further, a number of qualitative papers were eliminated, because they did not address the process of enterprise system implementation, or they involved only a high-level organizational analysis. For example, papers that did not address implementation and user reactions included articles that addressed knowledge sharing across an ERP implementation team (e.g. Newell et al 2004) or the temporal issues associated with an ERP implementation (e.g. Sawyer & Southwick 2002). Further, we eliminated those papers that adopted the whole organization as the unit of analysis – essentially looking at organizations from an enterprise-wide or a strategic perspective rather than looking at groups responses to ES (e.g., Hanseth et al 2001; Soh & Sia 2004). This phase resulted in a pool of 74 articles. We next analyzed the full text of the remaining 74 papers to determine whether they provided sufficient detail for operationalizing our research framework by providing rich case descriptions. We eliminated all papers that did not permit us to look at the social context of the implementation or appropriation of the ES and user responses. Many of the manuscripts simply did not provide enough detailed description of their data to enable us to characterize the
20
congruence of institutional logics and level of pressure. The final sample of 23 papers included detailed case write-ups and substantive quotations from study participants that described the implementation process of the ES and user’s responses over time in detail. From the 23 papers we snowballed the sample again by reviewing reference lists of these papers to identify additional articles that would meet all inclusion criteria noted above. Following the same steps to identify qualitative research papers providing rich case descriptions on the implementation of and response to enterprise systems, we identified an additional 12 papers. The final sample thus comprised of 35 articles representing 26 unique case descriptions (some articles described different aspects of the same case organization, and Hislop et al 2000 described two different cases). See Table 4 for the final sample.
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Table 4: Final Sample of Cases Industry Sector 1. Government: State Agency 2. Government: Federal Agency 3. Government: National Agency
Country / Region
Practice
Source
United States
Order Entry
Boudreau & Robey 2005
United States
Purchasing, Time and Budget Reporting
Berente & Yoo 2012, Berente et al 2010, Berente et al. 2016
Finland
Accounting / HR
Hyvonen et al. 2009
United States / global Asia-Pacific / global
Customer Serivice, Order Fulfillment Opportunity Management Customer Orders / Production Scheduling
7.Manufacturing: After-sales for mechanical durables
Global
8.Manufacturing Castings
4.Manufacturing 5.Manufacturing & Services
Australasia
Lowe & Locke 2006
Method Interviews, observation, & docs Interviews, observation, & docs Interview & Documents Interviews & Observation
Ciborra & Failla 2000
Interviews
Lee & Meyers 2004
Ethnography
Customer Invoicing
Hakkinen & Hilmola 2008
Interviews & Survey
"International"
Production
Hislop, Newell, Scarbrough, Swan 2000 *
Interviews
9.Manufacturing: electronics
United States
Purchasing, Scheduling, Inventory Tracking
Allen 2005
Ethnography
10.Manufacturing: Industrial Products
Sweden / global
Production
Dahlbom, Hanseth, Ljungberg 2000
Interviews & Observation
11.Manufacturing: Industrial Products
United States / global
Customer Service, Inspection
Elmes, Strong, & Volkoff 2005, Volkoff, Strong, & Elmes 2005, Volkoff et al. 2007, Strong & Volkoff 2010
Interviews & Observation
12. Manufacturing: Steel
Saudi Arabia
Production Planning
Lyytinen et al. 2009
Interviews
13.Pharmaceuticals
Sweden / global
Study Monitoring
Cordella & Simon 2000
Interviews
14.Pharmaceuticals
United Kingdom / global
Production
Hislop, Newell, Scarbrough, Swan 2000 *
Interviews
15.Services: Engineering
"Global"
Purchasing, Engineering
Newell, Huang, Galliers, Pan 2003
16.Services: Financial Services
New Zealand
Accounting
Larsen & Myers 1999
6.Manufacturing & Services
17.Services: Healthcare
Crete
18. Services Healthcare / Medical Facility
United States
19. Services: Hospital
Singapore
20. Services: Maritime Surveys 21. Technology: Data storage
Patient Data Tracking, Diagnosis & Treatment Patient Care, Medical Administration Materials Management, Patient Scheduling
Interviews, Observation, & Docs Interviews & Documents
Constantinides & Barrett 2006
Interviews
Strong et al. 2014
Interviews
Soh, Sia, Boh, Tang 2003
Interviews & Documents
Norway / global
Surveying
Rolland & Monteiro 2002
Interviews
Global
IT Support
Van Fenema, Koppius, & van Baalen 2007
Interviews
22. University
United Kingdom
Purchasing
Pollock & Cronford 2004
Ethnography
23. University
United States
Purchasing
Lee & Lee 2000
Interviews & documents
24. University
United States
Grant Administration
Scott & Wagner 2003, Wagner & Newel 2004, Wagner & Newell 2006, Wagner & Newell 2007, Wagner, Newell, & Piccoli 2010, Wagner et al. 2011
Interviews & documents
25. University
United States
Course Scheduling
Alvarez 2008
Interviews
Not provided
Student Data Administration
Lyytinen & Newman 2015
Interviews & Documents
26. University
* Hislop et al 2000 provided data on two different cases, one in manufacturing, one in pharmaceuticals
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Coding Qualitative meta-analysis is an interpretive act involving the “inscription” of the researcher’s understanding upon the case material (Noblitt & Hare 1988 p.35). As such, the analysis results in a construction, a theoretical assertion that a researcher steeped in the context holds, knowing fully that others may still interpret the situation differently given their different framing. Such a position is defensible by a number of standards, including the credibility of researcher, the sensibility of the judgements, and as a humble approach to theoretical accounts (e.g. see Glaser & Strauss 1967 Chapter IX). Although such interpretation formed the starting point for the study, we nevertheless sought to strengthen the credibility of the interpretation by following a rigorous coding procedure during the study process. The general approach to interpreting the data involved a systematic thematic semi-open coding of the rich descriptions presented in the articles to identify and classify reported responses to an ES implementation based on narratives in case descriptions (Boyatzis 1998). This involved an iterative process whereby one of the authors first wrote narratives (Yin 2013) of a subset of cases highlighting responses to the implementation, and then coded each of these responses using the codes that became the coding book rooted in the theoretical framing. He first coded the papers using an initial coding book to understand how to operationalize the constructs. Then a second member of the team joined to corroborate resulting codes. Together the two authors collaboratively developed a write-up for each case, and created case-ordered descriptive matrices (Miles & Huberman 1994) to summarize the coding by copying and pasting relevant passages from case sources and attaching related researcher notes into a spreadsheet. By working together to code the data and develop the interpretations of the case write-ups, the two authors sought to ensure validity and reliability in operationalization of constructs and a universal treatment of the
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study contexts across all cases. Since there were only 26 cases, two authors could thoroughly discuss and agree to the interpretation of 100% of the cases consistent with a coding process described as “negotiated agreement” (Campbell et al 2013). This is an approach to establish interrater reliability in situations where text is inconsistent across cases creating problems with proper unitization of the data. Unitization refers to situations where unstructured data does not provide clear conceptual breaks and therefore coders can run into problems in delineating data elements to code and to compare (Krippendorf 1995). In such cases traditional practices of interrater reliability are a problem. By each author coding the full sample and reaching negotiated agreement afterwards on interpretations of each case, we were able to increase our confidence in the reliability of the coding. All authors jointly discussed the results and challenges of the coding throughout the process and formulated theoretical implications of the findings reported in shared memos. Our coding book included six categories identified in the institutional analysis of ES implementation. The first set of codes identified dimensions of the incumbent institutional logic including principles, assumptions, identity, and domain. This allowed us to identify the congruence of institutional logics compared to the institutional logic of the enterprise system. Next, we identified all groups of system users for which narrative descriptions were available and coded the observed behaviors of each group in response to the enterprise system implementation. Indicators of the presence of each dimension were not always explicit in the case. In such instances, presence of the dimension was only coded, if we could clearly make a plausible inference from the description. The next category involved coding for the strength of the pressure in introducing the enterprise system. Since, in general, pressure is high in an enterprise system context (involuntary and enforced) due to the mission critical nature of the
24
systems and the size of investment involved, we specifically looked for signals of differentials in the level pressure - for example, particularly whether the implementers exercised strict or lax enforcement. Surprisingly, we found cases where the pressure was indeed weak in that it was voluntary, optional, or weakly enforced. The final category involved coding for the form of response: acquiescence, compromise, avoidance, defiance, and manipulation. In this category we looked for reported details of user reactions to the system. To interpret the results for inferences and to validate our conjectures, we next generated tables for each case using case-ordered descriptive matrices (Miles & Huberman 1994). Each row in the matrix covered a particular implementation process, the four dimensions of the logic of the enterprise system, coded level of congruence and pressure, and the resulting response (see Table 5 as an example). Such matrices are particularly useful for comparative analysis and to contrast findings for each response type across cases as to identify patterns that would align with our conjectures (Miles & Huberman 1994). Next, we analyzed matrices in light of the four conjectures we put forward. During the analysis we identified unexpected changes in responses over time which were evident in several cases and indicated user response movements across the response quadrants over time. These unexpected patterns were included in the final analysis to theorize about second-order responses. Next, we will present our findings for each quadrant of Figure 1, followed by a discussion of the dynamics across the quadrants. FINDINGS Congruent Logics, Strong Pressure (Expected Faithful Appropriation) Our sample contained ten cases involving a congruent logic and strong pressure. Across these cases, we find support for conjecture 1: situations characterized by congruent logics combined with strong pressure result in faithful appropriation characterized by a tight coupling between
25
user’s system use and the ‘intended’ system use. A summary of the supporting findings is included in Table 5. Table 5: Congruent Logics; Strong Pressure Source
Strength
Rolland & Monteiro 2002
“MCC implemented a common IT infrastructure for all 300 stations around the world in 1997. This IT infrastructure was expected to provide all employees in MCC with transparent access to documents, drawings, certificates, and all information regarding classification.” (p. 92) Use was mandated to ensure integrated functionality across hospitals – “there were benefits from having integrated functional modules” (p. 87)
Principles standardize data across the organization
“In the later redesigns of the Surveyor Support System, however, the problem around the ‘Quick reports’ was solved by making it possible to make corrections in the final report.”(p. 96)
Principles – standardization & efficiency
Mutual adaptation faithful appropriation
Elmes, Strong, & Volkoff 2005
“ACRO embarked on a multiphase, multi-year plan to implement ES software from SAP, configured as a single instance, throughout the company” (p. 10)
Principles – efficient access to information
Larsen & Meyers 1999
“PQI is designed to bring together the Group’s family of companies in an integrated way” (p. 401)
Ciborra & Failla 2000
CEO was project owner and exerted strong pressure to use the system over time – eventual appropriation required add-ons and was appropriated unevenly
Assumptions – “a focus on customer service and quality of everything that was done in the organization” (p. 401) Assumptions – Efficiency generated through integration of departments
“the implementation consultants were able to offer a workaround solution within the system that maintained the benefits of sharing a common database while accommodating the functional orientation of users. Some changes in workflow, however, were still necessary” (p. 90) "So what we’ve had to do is learn what the other department was going through… how we can solve our problem to fix their problem at the same time. . . So we’ve done a lot of going back and forth trying to understand just overall just how the whole process works. And that has helped. We are able to catch the problems before they even happen anymore. . . . And we have to communicate back and forth a lot, you know, just so everybody understands how everything is going to work." (p. 25) "None of the original project team members were left in group accounting, and all in-house expertise had disappeared from the central accounting group." (p. 409) “lack of compliance on all levels” (p. 116) “uneven level of implementation” (p. 117)
Mutual adaptation partial faithful appropriation
Boudreau & Robey 2005
Weak at first, but pressure to use system was ratcheted up over time
Pressure faithful appropriation
Hakkinen & Hilmola
Use was mandated by management in order to achieve
"users recognized that departments whose transactions were processed [using the enterprise system] received faster service" (p. 12) “the system contains faulty information because users do not
Soh, Sia, Boh, Tang 2003
Congruence
Principles – Efficiency in performing job duties Principles – control over data
Example of Response
Type of Response Mutual adaptation faithful appropriation
Learning faithful appropriation
Faithful appropriation by new members
Training faithful
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these goals: “to improve company profitability by developing the ability to share information globally, harmonizing working procedures, and improving IT efficiency.” (p. 82) “ACRO embarked on a plan to implement ES software from SAP, configured as a single instance, throughout the company.” (p. 734)
2008
Strong & Volkoff 2010
Strong et al 2014
Wagner & Newell 2007
“"We pride ourselves on efficiency. We are really efficient in what we do, but we don't have a lot of personal interactions with you.” (p. 59)
“senior executives decided to implement an external CRM package because of its scalability and ability to support the breadth of XYZ, which had over 50,000 users” (p. 512)
quality
know how to use the system in the right way” (p. 85)
appropriation
“now you have to go hunt for it (data). It [used to be] exposed more. You [could] see all this information on what I call a sheet. Where in today’s environment you need to screen hop” (p. 741) “future releases of the ES often addressed them (the misfits)” (p. 738) "In theory I could see a patient this morning, send him over to ENT for a 3 o'clock visit and they'd have all the information.” (p. 60)
Mutual adaptation faithful appropriation
Domain customer invoicing
Principles – efficiency in job duties Identity – standardization of job roles throughout hierarchy Principles – efficiency in processes and improved data integration Identity: Administrative tasks associated with patient charts Principles – efficiency through standardization
Faithful appropriation
“Not a question anymore about what the doctor wants because s/he has to put it in the system" (p. 61) “So I think the deploying of the enterprise system really is the enabler to massive change...What happens is you go through this cyclic thing….” (p. 514)
Mutual adaptation faithful appropriation
The evidence across our sample also suggests that immediate and unproblematic use is rarely achieved immediately after the ES launch. First-order responses of unproblematic “acceptance” are rare. Rather, appropriation towards faithfulness emerges over time through a range of adaptation moves, which involve changes distributed evenly across changing the system functionality and existing practices, changes in use enabled by training, and changes in the system functionality gained through customization or introducing complementary systems. Rolland & Monteiro (2002) provide an illustrative example of mutual adaptation under congruent institutional logics. Surveyors in the field were presented with a system that was intended to standardize their data entry and automate surveying activity. While the software was not perfect for the application initially, the principles and assumptions associated with the software, which include higher efficiency based on standardization and process rationalization, 27
for the domain appeared congruent with the principles of the supported activity. After all, the entire purpose of surveying activity [domain] is to “ensure compliance with classification rules and international regulations” [principles / goals] (p. 92). Before the introduction of the system, surveyors pursued the goal of rationalizing their practices, as is evidenced by the observation that "the surveyors had established a system of 74 [!] different paper-based checklists for supporting different types of surveys" [assumptions of cause/effect] (p. 92). While the software initially generated a plethora of difficulties associated with its use the adoption was involuntary [strength of pressure]. Therefore, surveyors had to make the system work for their activity – which they did over time by adjusting their practices and changing the system. For example, initially problems were found in the “Quick report” function of the system, so surveyors would delay its use. “In the later redesigns of the Surveyor Support System, however, the problem around the ‘Quick reports’ was solved by making it possible to make corrections in the final report”(ibid. p. 96). As evidenced by the case, the process of mutual adaptation can proceed rather smoothly (Rolland & Monteiro 2002). While the initial system did not provide a perfect environment for workers to execute their jobs, the organization went through a process of simultaneously improving the functions of the system and modifying the work processes resulting in a tight coupling. Similar conclusions were evident in Soh et al. (2003), Wagner & Newell (2007), and Wagner et al (2011). Although most cases in this quadrant portrayed mutual adaptation manifesting a balance between changes to the system and changes to local practices, some studies show less symmetry. Several cases emphasize how the individuals adapted and changed their practices to accommodate the system – highlighting the impact of learning and improvisation in successful
28
system implementations (Boudreau & Robey 2005, Hakkinen & Hilmola 2008, Strong & Volkoff 2010). Others noted consecutive changes to the system functionality in bringing about faithful appropriation. At ACRO, a multinational producer of high-precision industrial equipment, numerous misfits emerged after the initial system launch (Strong and Volkoff 2010, Volkoff et al. 2005, Volkoff et al 2007). Users became frustrated with the lack of fit between their daily job and the functioning of the system and workarounds were developed to ensure continued business operations. Over time, however, the enterprise system implementation team became aware of these workarounds and “future releases… often addressed them” (Strong and Volkoff 2010, p. 738), whereas the organizational practices did not appear to be significantly modified to accommodate the new system. Finally, we observed that frequently the pattern of change differed dramatically in different organizational pockets or domains. For example, Ciborra & Failla’s (2000) investigation of opportunity management within a manufacturing and services firm, the organization faced many hurdles, despite the fact that the CEO was the project owner (exerting strong pressure to use the system) and users embraced the principles of efficiency and integration. Over the course of four years, the organization continued to make adjustments to the work processes and the system, ultimately resulting in acquiescence. The result, however, was a ‘fragmented’ coupling manifesting an “uneven level of implementation” (Ciborra & Failla 2000, p. 117). To summarize, when the institutional logic of the system and practice are congruent and the pressure is strong, acquiescence eventually takes place - typically through some variant of a mutual adaptation process that (1) takes place over varied dureé of time; (2) where changes to the
29
system or the organization are not necessarily symmetrical; and where (3) organizational areas and user groups will appropriate the system differently. Incongruent Logics, Strong Pressure (Expected Loose Coupling) Another ten cases involved an incongruence of institutional logics combined with a strong pressure. These cases spread across fifteen published papers. We found support for our second conjecture – loose coupling as a response – but also some cases where loose coupling was not so evident (see Table 6 – unexpected results in shaded rows). Table 6: Incongruent Logics; Strong Pressure 1 (shading indicates findings not consistent with expectation) Source
Strength
Allen 2005
System was implemented in phases and the strength of pressure for some modules was increased considerably after users failed to adopt A system was selected for use and its use was mandated for a specific drug development project.
Principles – Buyers wanted flexibility; system enforced standardization
Buyers disguised their use of the system by implementing Excel spreadsheets to be more flexible and timely with order processing
Assumptions – research activity requires temporal and sequential variety; system enforces structured and sequential data entry
Pollock & Cornford 2004
Use was mandated by University officials to ensure the benefits of the system were achieved – “Big Civic assimilated the “tightening up of roles and procedures” required by Enterprise’s default settings.” (p. 42)
Principles – faculty procurement was informal; the system required formal process workflows
Alvarez 2008
Use of system was mandated by administration
Principles – scheduling representatives wanted autonomy; the system enforced formal roles by restricting certain actions
“a typical situation would be monitors obtaining a copy of the paper-based [form] and entering the data at home… In one case, the monitor introduced extra pages into the [form], using carbon copies. Once the [form] was completed, the monitor collected the carbon copies and then paid external people to enter the data” (p. 185) “the other staff did not have an appropriate “login” or “user profile”, and thus could not generate the paperwork when it was needed. To circumvent this, a copy of the Enterprise order form was designed on a word-processor (available to print out at any time by the remaining support staff) and this was adorned not with the Enterprise order number but with what the staff called a “pseudo number” or “Secretarial requisition number”. Tickets could thus be ordered and the correct paperwork dealt with at a later date. “ (p. 43) “the SRs are neither passive nor naïve about how this new structural arrangement has shifted the power of allocating resources from them to a computerized system. They had, in fact, developed and implemented a number of creative workarounds
Cordella & Simon 2000
“Two weeks after the State University went into production with the ES, slightly more than 17 000 students used the ES
Incongruence
Example of Response
Type of Response Loose coupling: partial Conformity Loose coupling: workaround
Loose coupling: workaround
Loose coupling: workaround
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Wagner & Newell 2004; Scott & Wagner 2003; Wagner & Newell 2006; Wagner & Newell 2007; Wagner et al. 2010 Berente & Yoo 2012; Berente et al 2010; Berente et al 2016
to register into approximately 95 000 course seats… the new ES was also being used by approximately 1000 staff” (p. 209) “the university leadership chose to develop and implement an ERP package in partnership with a multinational software vendor in order to integrate their loosely coupled structure by reducing the administrative autonomy that existed in the departments” (Wagner & Newell 2007, p. 514)
One NASA initiative was meant to integrate the activities of NASA across the board – use of the new ERP system was mandated as part of One NASA
Van Fenema, Koppius, van Baalen 2007
“With the new system, people were expected to commit and conform to a single global source code” (p. 587)
Lee & Lee 2000
Use was mandated by University administration “after 2 years of extensive consulting and system configuration, the University of Nebraska’s four-campus system began using SAP R/3” (p. 283) “ACRO embarked on a plan to implement ES software from SAP, configured as a single instance, throughout the company.” (Strong & Volkoff 2010 p. 734)
Volkoff, Strong, Elmes 2005
that allowed them to maintain a fair amount of control over their work processes and resist the rules put in place by the ES” (p. 215) Principles – Faculty wanted autonomy in managing grant money; administration implemented a system that exerted strong control over how to account for grant money
“They had a working group that quickly went into designing a customized system” (Wagner & Newell 2006, p. 51)
Loose coupling: bolton
Principles – project managers wanted better project level tracking; system was numbers driven
“We’re still… using offline systems, planning spreadsheets…we use the Business Warehouse [reporting tool] as a data source… extract the data off and still put it in our front end that we give the project managers in their monthly status report. We build a phasing plan at the project level offline from the center-level system. Okay. We extract the actuals off the center-level system and marry it up with our plan offline. And that’s the report the project managers use…to status variance.” (Berente & Yoo 2012, p. 382)
Loose coupling: workarounds, partial conformity, bolt-ons
“Any change that comes from the individual organization (local units) has to go through a committee to review the request” (p. 591)
Loose coupling: compromise
“Higher than expected turnover rate” (P.285) Roles were expanded in an attempt to enrich employee’s job activity
Faithful appropriation: adaptation of job responsibilities
“assembly operations were often held up because design engineering did not specify an engineering change either fast enough or in sufficient detail for assembly operations” (p. 116)
Appropriation: acquiescence, but errors in use ensued
“That means absolutely nothing to a project manager like myself who is tracking plans versus actuals. What are my variances? Who blew my budget? Who’s overrunning? Who’s underrunning? To me a ledger was not going to help me very much with that.” (Berente & Yoo 2012, p. 382) Principles – IT support personnel valued localized problem solving; with the ERP all changes needed to be approved at a global level Identity – The implementation of the system resulted in employees perceiving their jobs to be “deprived of meaning and responsibilities” (p. 286) Assumptions – newly implemented tasks required by the system were not relevant to the engineers’ primary responsibilities
31
Hyvonen et al 2009
“‘activity costing’… operates on such an aggregate level that it is just not enough for our information needs. We have to have more detailed information on where the time is spent and what outputs result from it." (p 263)
Assumptions: different level of granularity for accountability
“In the military when you receive orders, you do exactly as you are ordered to do" (p. 264)
Appropriation: acquiescence
Identity: discretion for calendar
This form of loose coupling is often carried out through workarounds improvised and developed by the users. Allen (2005) illustrates a typical ES implementation in this quadrant. He describes a situation where a family of practices guided by institutional logics remain incongruent with that of the ES. Most notable is the customer order process. While the system implies a standardized process for inputting orders and placing them in the FIFO queue for production, the goals of effective customer service [local goal] trumped this principle. According to one buyer: “we have 12-14 week lead times on many of our computer products. Customers can’t always give us that much warning ahead of time. Often, we have to place orders for them in the system before we get the official order. That’s reality. We have to share the risk. Every major account does this” (p. 39). We can infer the logics that the buyer’s actions imply that standardized queues are not good customer service [assumptions of cause/effect]. Therefore, buyers who identify that “our priority number one is to support production and shipments” (Allen 2005, p. 45) disguise their non-conformity by ostensibly using the system appropriately. In reality they stray away from the assumptions embodied by the system [partial conformity / loose coupling]. Other loose coupling cases included nurses using a health record system in a hospital (Soh et al 2003). Nurses focused on the quality of patient care, and, although administrative clerks enforced perfunctory use of the system, nurses would carry out patient scheduling outside the system- only to reconcile it later. In a university context (Pollock & Cornford 2004), “centre administrators” charged with purchasing had to reconcile informal faculty procurement activities 32
with that of the system’s rationalized process scripts, which led to engaging in concealment activities that the authors described as “Janus-faced” and “pretending to live with defaults”: “If the centre administrator was unavailable, which often happened, the other staff did not have an appropriate “login” or “user profile”, and thus could not generate the paperwork when it was needed. To circumvent this, a copy of the Enterprise order form was designed on a word-processor (available to print out at any time by the remaining support staff) and this was adorned not with the Enterprise order number but with what the staff called a “pseudo number” or “Secretarial requisition number”. Tickets could thus be ordered and the correct paperwork dealt with at a later date. (Pollock & Cornford 2004, p. 43).” As summarized in Table 6, workarounds typically come in the form of bolt on systems or manual workarounds. In addition, manifested partial conformance to the rules enforced by the system enables multiple logics to be reconciled. In some cases the loose coupling persists over a long time. For example, the instances of loosely coupled responses to the system at NASA that Berente & Yoo (2012) identified immediately post-implementation persisted four years later (Berente et al 2016). Despite the overall evidence supporting our second conjecture, we found situations in which loose coupling did not take form immediately. The shaded rows of Table 6 summarizes cases where we did not observe direct support for our second conjecture. These cases present evidence contradicting our conjecture, despite initially incongruent logics and strong pressure. Lee & Lee’s (2000) case describes how a university aligned logics through redesign of job responsibilities resulting in a tightly coupled system. Accounts payable personnel experienced dissonance: they perceived as a result of using the new system that their jobs were “deprived of meaning and responsibilities” (p.286) resulting in a “higher than expected turnover rate” (p. 285). In the past, accounts payable personnel had focused on individual areas. After the implementation, they were expected to understand a wide range of accounting issues. To accommodate this view, their professional accountant roles were expanded to cover also
33
auditing. Essentially the role of accounts payable personnel changed. This was similar in the Hyvonen et al (2009) case which involved a military context. Although the logics of practice were incongruent, the broader logic of military discipline and obedience reinforced appropriation of the technology. In Volkoff et al’s (2005) case, an enterprise system to automate the production process in a manufacturer resulted in general acquiescence in two engineering departments. Engineers who originated much of the data for this process were now concerned primarily with form and function of the products [principles / goals]. Many downstream activities were simply not deemed relevant to their task [assumptions of cause/effect]. Yet, with the introduction of the new system, they had to be concerned with these downstream activities as to be compliant with rules governing engineering changes and bills-of-materials maintenance. In both situations, a sincere compliance was reported on the part of the engineers, but the compliance appeared to be questionable, as it often led to delays and inaccurate information: “assembly operations were often held up because design engineering did not specify an engineering change either fast enough or in sufficient detail for assembly operations” (p. 116). These three cases present evidence that loose coupling does not emerge in all situations where institutional logics are incongruent and the strength of pressure is strong. Rather, we see evidence of adaptation that aligns new job functions of the users with that of the system. In one case the implementers sought to alter the logic of practice (a form of tight coupling) (Lee & Lee 2000); in another, they sought a more general acquiescence which resulted in procedural and data-related problems (Volkoff et al 2005); and in one case the implementers appealed to a higher-level institutional logic to drive acquiescence (Hyvonen et al 2009). In these cases, it appears as though management did not consider loose coupling to be an acceptable state and
34
took explicit and strong actions to avoid a maintaining a loosely coupled environment. Incongruent logics and strong pressure in both of these cases led consequently to a fundamental change in the nature of activity. Those who could not conform and would lose identity departed (the high turnover in Lee & Lee 2000), or simply lived with new priorities thereby essentially ‘shifting’ the institutional logics they draw upon and identify with (engineers dealing with slow or incomplete information in Volkoff et al 2005). In summary, we find support for our second conjecture: incongruent logics in the presence of strong pressure will result in a loosely coupled implementation. But the support for this outcome is not unequivocal. Ten cases reported workarounds or compromises in the system, while the remaining three reported fundamental changes in the activity and attempts to bend the institutional logic. This indicates that either loose coupling or a fundamental change to the activity will result from incongruent logics and strong pressure, although the former is predominantly the case as it is easier to maintain and to carry out. Congruent Logics, Weak Pressure (Expected Cooptation) The situation where institutional logics are congruent while the system is introduced with weak pressure is rare. Five cases present some evidence of such a condition. Overall, we found little support for our conjecture that weak pressure combined with congruent logics will result in coopting, a special form of tight coupling in which users command control over system use and guide its future direction. A summary of the cases is provided in Table 7. Table 7: Congruent Logics; Weak Pressure (shading indicates findings not consistent with expectation) Source Lee & Meyers 2004
Strength Division management was more powerful than upper management, leading to a situation in which the pressure from upper management was rather weak
Congruence Assumptions – customer service through standardized information
Example of Response "We were quite expansionist and visionary and we came back to a very conservative operational [focus] and . So it wasn’t a dramatic change, but it was more a degree of how expansionist we would have been had we wound
Type of Response Coopting: User groups taking control over the implementation
35
Boudreau & Robey 2005
Constantinides & Barrett 2006
“If people are forced to do something, more with children than adults, they say, “No, I don’t want to do that.” If they are not forced to do something but they just feel that this is a new and exciting thing, then they would say, “I want to do this new and exciting thing.” We didn’t want to force people to do it; we feared that it might cause more resistance.” (p. 10) The project began with a pilot user group who voluntarily signed on to use and promote the system
Lyytinen, Newman, AlMuharfi 2009
Pressure was initially weak – top management not involved
Dahlbom, Hanseth, Ljungberg 2000
Project team could not overcome the power of the engineers - "the [manufacturing] engineer is still king" (p. 103)
“My assumption was that if this is going to be all electronic, it is going to be easier, and faster, and more effi- cient, and less paper, and all those kind of general assump- tions you make when you are about to use technology.” (p. 10)
Identity – Doctors wished to have standardized information across medical facilities “In some conditions, I could have sent the patient to the hospital but I didn’t…If I have the notes of the cardiologist I can design a more appropriate therapy for my patient, and so it’s safer” (p. 85) “The General Ledger in any system that use the same basic accounting principles will show debit and credit account balances whether that system was ERP or PRIME (the legacy system)” (p. 296) Principles – efficiency “The six-week production plan sheet is, of course, the interface to a system that might have been very well run on a computer” (p. 95)
the dial back a little bit to be more conservative.” (p.370) “Yesterday I paid three bills and it took me about an hour and a half to do it. It was like, gosh, I could have done 30 bills in an hour. It’s taking more time than I actually have to be doing something that I used to know how to do quickly.” (p. 10-11)
Initial acquiescence led to partial abandonment because of complexity – eventual appropriation when pressure increased
Pilot user group championed the use of the technology in the short term, but use fell off as other medical facilities did not embrace the new technology
Initial acquiescence followed by gradual abandonment
“After what happened in the SD module, HADEED’s top management got involved directly and said enough is enough. The project had another direction since.”
Initial acquiescence led to partial abandonment due to problems
Resistance of use primarily attributed to the fact that the strength of pressure was weak
Resistance
Lee & Meyer’s (2004) study of a manufacturing was the only case that we found to clearly demonstrate cooptation in terms of a user championing the use of the system early on. The system was weakly introduced and the implementation project was co-opted and redefined by the division managers whose control behaviors the system attempted to standardize (Lee & Myers 2004). Management of the division resisted the implementation openly, but upper 36
management still attempted to use the force to introduce the system. In the end, the division management turned out to be more powerful (thus the strength of the pressure of upper management was weak in comparison), and the division managers undermined the system: “From time to time [the division manager] would force a large order through the already congested product delivery schedule to please a big customer. This was because, in his view, Stark had to take care of its large customers. These customers would call up on one day and make demands that their order be put ahead of others. [The division manager] did not want to lose these big customers (and he was prepared to disadvantage smaller customers and disrupt the delivery schedule if needed). Given his power within the company, Dunkins was able to succeed in his demands, thereby completely over-riding (and in effect undermining) the system” (Lee & Myers 2004, p. 369). Eventually upper management changed the scope of the implementation to match the demands of the division manager. More typically, however, we see evidence contrary to our conjecture. Boudreau & Robey (2005) provide an illustrative example of a case in a government agency where order entry activity was congruent with the system. The system was initially introduced with the mandate for voluntary training. Implementers were surprised when order entry personnel did not attend training, and they continued to use the paper-based process for as long as they were allowed. When the pressure to use the system was ratcheted up, those personnel complied. Lyytinen et al (2009) offered a similar example, where ostensibly congruent logics still resulted in partial abandonment of the system over time due, in part, to weak pressure in the implementation. Although in some situations the logics presented in the cases were congruent, in some others there was a mix of congruent and incongruent logics. In the case of the health record system (Constantinides & Barrett 2006), the logics held by a group of practitioners were not fully incongruent with that of the system. The small group of practitioners that bought into the concept of an integrated network of health care systems helped to promote the use of the system nationwide through a pilot program. However, the co-opting tactics of the pilot group was short37
lived. Without much traction in local medical facilities across Crete, support for the system waned and eventually early adopters lost enthusiasm and abstained from use. In the case of a manufacturing organization (Dahlbom et al 2000), the authors show that the “craft production” principles incumbent in the organization are contrary to the idea of standardized automation associated with the enterprise system. They also indicate that many of the activities may not be as incongruent as they appear, indicating that the manual process was so standardized, it “might have been very well run on a computer” (p. 95). The production management portion of the craft-based activity is similar in that a fairly congruent system was being resisted simply because the institutional pressure that accompanied the system was weak (Dahlbom et al 2000). Taken together, we find that resistance is likely when compliance pressure is weak, even the logics are congruent. Furthermore, in such situations, after implementation team’s actions, a second wave of responses lead to outright rejection, eventual compliance, eventual loose coupling, or a co-opting of the goals of the system. In fact, the evidence suggests that ongoing use will result once the pressure to use the system is increased. As Boudreau & Robey (2005) found, the initial idea that users will simply use a system, because they believe it will benefit them, proved not accurate. Because of the complexities associated with using ES, users may often champion the system until they actually need to use it without support. With an increased pressure to use the system, users are now motivated to learn the intricacies of the technology and fully comply with the procedures and prescriptions of the system (Boudreau & Robey 2005, Dahlbom et al 2000). Without this pressure, even congruent situations can end in abandonment due to significant effort that is needed to invest in using the system properly (Constantinides & Barrett 2006).
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Incongruent Logics, Weak Pressure (Expected Resistance) As expected, we found few cases of implementing ES in which the pressure to use the system was weak. In our sample, six cases presented evidence of weak pressure combined with incongruent logics. We generally found support for our fourth conjecture: under incongruent logics and weak pressure user resistance will follow. In a number of cases this involved a tension between professions and their logics that embrace flexibility and knowledge-based discretion against the standardized predictability implied by the enterprise system. Examples include engineering activity (Newell et al 2003), project scheduling (Allen 2005), and craft production (Dahlbom et al 2000) – in all case the introduction of the ES was followed by a strong initial resistance. However, the ES implementation does not end with initial launch and the resistance that follows. Over time the resistance can result in either a wholesale rejection of the system or loose coupling similar to those associated with stronger pressure. Table 8 provides a summary of our findings. Table 8: Incongruent Logics; Weak Pressure Source Constantinides & Barrett 2006
Newell, Huang, Galliers, Pan 2003
Strength
Incongruence
No governmental backing – health care facilities could optionally adopt electronic medical records technology
Principles – Medical professionals valued patient care and saw the technology as an inefficient use of their time
ERP implementation project was balanced with knowledge management initiative which resulted in an overall weak pressure to conform to ERP
“A doctor with so many patients won’t spend his time experimenting with the computer trying to figure out how to use electronic patient records. He will probably say ‘Give me a break, I prefer to attend to my patients’” (p. 86) Identity – Engineering personnel wished to have control over information flows, the system introduced a radical change to the flow and ownership of information
Example of Response Medical professionals refused to learn the technology
"Prior to ERP, we would have the overall project control before we passed the engineering drawing to them. Now, all PDM information is converted into an ERP version. So, they get what we have, but we do not have the
Type of Response Resistance: abandonment
Resistance
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Allen 2005
Dahlbom, Hanseth, Ljungberg 2000
Wagner & Newell 2004; Scott & Wagner 2003; Wagner & Newell 2006; Wagner & Newell 2007; Wagner et al. 2010 Lyytinen & Newmann 2015
System was implemented in phases and during the initial implementation of some modules, there was weak pressure to conform to the new system. "the [manufacturing] engineer is still king" (p. 103) Implementation team could not enforce use of the system because the engineers held too much power in the organization Administrators attempted to enforce strong pressure to use the system, but backed off because faculty refused to cooperate
“Users consistently affirmed to us that they were not properly consulted, and the system did not re flect their needs and interests.” (p.88)
Principles – Project schedulers required flexibility, system enforced strict regulations "If we didn’t have room to maneuver, we’d be cutting off our nose” (p. 38) Assumptions - "the powerful computer-based production system is impractical in a craftlike production" Engineers needed more flexibility and creativity than what the system offered Principles – Faculty wanted localized control over their grant funds, the system centralized and standardized the process across the University
Principles – centralization "The underlying principle used throughout the project was of centralisation. There was one set of data, with access gained via the web, and the system which owns the data should be the most appropriate." (p 86)
legitimacy of benefiting from what they have. Unfortunately, a gradual transfer of information ownership from R&D to Engineering to Production has been replaced by a radical change so that Production has the overall control at a very early stage."(p. 44) Users did not use the system and instead relied on Excel spreadsheets completely decoupled from the system
Resistance: abandonment
Implementation was stalled for fear of complete rejection of an implemented system
Resistance: abandonment
Initial resistance of the system gave way to loose coupling by bringing the legacy system back online and modifying the ERP system to better suit the needs of the faculty
Resistance: compromise
"Users kept using the old legacy system (OES) until it got switched off, even though Campus Solutions was now in operation. This was because the users didn’t want to start getting acquainted with Campus Solutions. There was definite user resistance to adopting Campus Solutions." (p. 89)
Resistance and eventual loose coupling
An illustrative example of an outright rejection is an attempt to implement an integrated system to manage health care on Crete (Constantinides & Barrett 2006). The case presents evidence of general practitioners’ blatant disregard for the use of electronic health record system: “A doctor with so many patients won’t spend his time experimenting with the computer trying to figure out how to use electronic patient records. He will probably say ‘Give me a break, I prefer to attend to my patients’” (p. 86). 40
In this case, the logics held by practitioners related to ease of use and a continuance of established routines to treat patients well. The implementation of an enterprise system should, in theory, support existing routines and facilitate practitioner’s workload [assumptions of cause / effect]. In this case the system was cumbersome to use and did not fit well with the culture of medical professionals. Professionals with high levels of autonomy in their practice refused to use the system and the implementation project eventually died. In other situations, resistance can lead to loose coupling between a narrow set of select practices and the enterprise system. An excellent example of such a situation is in ES implementation surrounding the grant administration in a leading research university (Wagner & Newell 2004; Scott & Wagner 2003). The principal investigator associated with a grant preferred the flexibility of: “commitment accounting” [principal / goal] because the cash outflows of research activity were often unpredictable, and therefore better served by focusing on a ‘zero balance’ (Wagner & Newell 2004, p. 314) at the end of the grant period, and avoiding too much specificity within the period [assumptions about cause/effect]”. Implementers dismissed such practices as a “checkbook mentality” and an “outdated mindset” (Scott & Wagner 2003, p. 305). The enterprise system embedded a “time phased budgeting” approach that parsed expenses out in planned increments. The approach was initially rejected outright and attacked fiercely by powerful faculty. Central administration responded with a number of concessions. In the winter of 1999–2000, faculty leaders and departmental administrators lobbied for changes to both the system and the support structures. In response to this pressure, the implementation group agreed with three changes. First, they agreed to leave the mainframe legacy system running until additional ES functionality was created. Second, they would meet the faculty functional requirements by designing ES based commitments. Third, the BSC and TSC would be left 41
running at least through the end of next fiscal year (Wagner & Newell 2004, p. 317). Thus, initial resistance led to an eventual loose coupling that remained then in place (Wagner & Newell 2006). This dynamic was also reflected in Lyytinen & Newmann (2015) – also a university implementation - where initial resistance and weak pressure resulted in loose coupling once the pressure was ratcheted up. As Table 8 suggests, outright resistance is generally a default result of incongruence and weak support (Constantinides & Barrett 2006, Dahlbom et al. 2000). Sometimes users favor outside systems or manual workarounds or loosely couple their actions with the system (Allen 2005). The actions of users in such cases demonstrate complete forms of decoupling in which users conduct their daily job duties independent of the system. It should be noted that such decoupling is not always immediate. Users sometimes experiment with the system first, and minor adjustments may be tried out, as was the case with the project scheduling tool implemented by a global engineering firm (Newell et al. 2003). Because of the enormous investment in this ES implementation, implementers were not willing to give up on the system use easily. However, as new issues continued to arise due to the incongruent logics which they found out could not be easily overcome, the organization was ultimately left with a choice where powerful users ultimately decoupled their actions from those of the system (Newell et al. 2003). There are, however, exceptions to this outcome – as evidenced by the grant module implementation at a university (Wagner & Newell 2004; Scott & Wagner 2003; Wagner & Newell 2006; Wagner & Newell 2007; Wagner et al. 2010). Unwilling to accept decoupling as a viable long term option for the implemented system, administrators permitted faculty members (due to their power) to loosely couple their actions with the system by making compromises in the system functionality. Alternately, the pressure to conform to the new system can be
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increased, as is evident in Allen’s (2005) study of an electronics manufacturer. Both cases highlight the fact that considerable movements between the quadrants will take place during the implementation trajectory. Rather than accepting the inevitable fate consistent with our third conjecture, it is possible for an organization to change the way in which it manages the implementation – in most cases by ratcheting up the pressure and shifting the context of their implementation into a different quadrant of our framework. DISCUSSION Our qualitative meta-analysis shows initial resistance is common to virtually all published studies. This does not mean that there never can be a straightforward acceptance, however, since researchers have found that interpretive case analyses tend to emphasize unintended and idiosyncratic elements of system implementation (Schultze & Leidner 2002) rather than observing straightforward adoption and common patterns.3 Through the analysis of the 26 cases, we generally found significant support to our institutional framework and associated conjectures: first-order responses to enterprise system implementations generally reflect the expected institutional responses. But this is not the end of the story. Managers and the implementation teams will react to the first-order responses and users will gain experience with the system, leading to further responses. Our analysis links such second-order responses to the institutional context of ES implementations. Next, we describe each round of responses in turn. First-Order Responses: Summary of Findings Our first conjecture of faithful appropriation involves a process of mutual adaptation in a way that the system implementation is congruent with its intended logics and compliance
3
This tendency for interpretive research to emphasize unintended elements of case studies happens for (at least) two reasons: (1) unintended consequences are central to certain social theories favored by interpretive researchers, such as structuration (Giddens 1984); and (2) disconfirming evidence such as that relating to unintended consequences are simply more interesting (that is “man bites dog” vs. “dog bites man” – also see Davis 1971).
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pressure is strong. In such cases, the literature typically treats compliance as a technical issue that can be resolved by either customizing the system configuration or changing practices to align the processes better with the system (Soh et al 2000; Markus et al 2000). While our analysis supports this conjecture, it is important to note Ciborra’s and Failla’s (2000) description of the extreme effort spent on training and advocating the enterprise system. In their example, it took four years to assimilate - largely with the help of a complementary application. However, the level of system assimilation and adaptation remained inconsistent throughout the organization. First and second-order responses to the implementation were heading the implementation in the right direction, but only with the help of extensive effort. With today’s fast-changing industry conditions, waiting four years for an enterprise system to become “readyto-hand” (Ciborra 2000) is simply too long. The case suggests that a similar story may be the reality in many complex implementations. For our second conjecture, when logics are incongruent with strong compliance pressure, we expected to observe partial compliance strategies that lead to loose coupling with the ES. The second conjecture forms an important departure from the earlier treatment of “misalignments” between organizational practices and the enterprise system as traditionally these have been viewed an abnormal or deviant state (e.g., Soh & Sia 2004). First, by focusing on institutional logics that guide practices rather than the practices themselves, we were able to distinguish between surmountable technical barriers to implementation that can be resolved by adaptation, and unsurmountable institutional barriers that cannot be solved by such technical fix. Adaptation responses suggest more training, more upper management support (greater pressure), more technology tweaking, or more process changes. Under congruence and strong pressure, sustained effort will typically result in an eventual alignment. If, however, the practices are from the get-go
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fundamentally incongruent – which, we argue, would be identified through an analysis of the institutional logics in terms of their principles and assumptions – then the alignment will not take place without changing the supported practice to something entirely different. Our conjecture appears to be supported by the case data. The result implies that partial compliance allows for some core of existing practices to remain unchanged, whereas full compliance can only be reached by changing the nature of these practices, which will be costly politically and economically, and sometimes just unfeasible. In certain contexts, due to culture or politics, loose coupling is not tolerated, and the second-order responses typically mount substantive changes to the practices and expect faithful appropriation of the system (Lee & Lee 2000, Volkoff et al 2005, Hyvonen et al 2009). Our third and fourth conjectures address situations where the ES was introduced without significant compliance pressure. This form of ES introduction was invariably met with resistance. The resistance was manifested in an overt conflict (e.g., Wagner & Newell 2004) or in behaviors to ignore or avoid system use (e.g., Boudreau & Robey 2005). An important observation from our analysis is that resistance is a transient state and in most cases a door to something else – eventual acceptance, loose coupling, co-opting, or full or partial abandonment of the system (see Figure 3).
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Figure 3: First-Order Responses to ES Implementation and Second-Order Responses to Initial Resistance (*note: faithful appropriation in the case of institutional resistance results in a fundamentally different practice)
Theoretical Extension: Two Forms of Resistance and Second-Order Responses Our analysis suggest two fundamentally different sources of resistance: resistance of the system when the institutional logics are congruent, and resistance when the logics are incongruent. The first response type, which we refer to as congruent resistance, is the sort of behavior that IS implementation research generally has focused on due to sampling frames and initial theoretical commitments (focus on technical appropriation of the system and related use). This stands to reason because historically IS were developed to fit local tasks and to improve the performance of those tasks (Goodhue & Thompson 1995). In such situations, the fundamental logics that guide practices are more likely to be congruent with the system, since the requirements originate from the practice. However, technical change is never easy, habits change slowly and painfully, systems are not designed and implemented perfectly, and different individuals will interpret aspects of the system differently (Lyytinen and Hirschheim 1987, Griffith 1996). Early on, research has recognized several forms of resistance when practice is 46
congruent with an ES logics, but where users resist nonetheless under weak compliance pressure (Lyytinen and Hirschheim 1987). In such situations, initial problems emerge with the appropriation of the system and its alignment with local practices, but changes to those practice combined with user training and some re-configurations of the system typically lead to a faithful appropriation (Leonard-Barton 1988, DeSanctis & Poole 1994). In such situations, shadow systems, bolt-on modules, intermediated system use, and other forms of loose coupling are generally thought to undermine the goals of system use and need to be eliminated over time. The second form of resistance, which we referred to as institutional resistance, however, is different and particularly relevant to theorizing about ES implementation. As noted an ES spans a significant portions of an organization, and will be varyingly congruent with different parts of the organization. In organizational domains and professions where resistance results from the presence of such deep incongruence, we are likely to see institutional resistance. Institutional resistance implies that the logics of local practices are fundamentally at odds with those of the system (Rivard & Lapointe 2012), reflecting deeper contradictions between institutions that undergird particular practices (Berente & Yoo 2012). In such cases, if local actors were to adopt the practices implied by the system, they would no longer follow the institutional scripts that comprise and guide their identities, underlie dominant beliefs of cause and effect, and let them fulfill their divergent goals. Essentially, those actors would be doing something totally different from what they believe they should be doing as they use the system. Therefore, when logics are incongruent but compliance pressure is high, loose coupling strategies are inevitable ‘win-win’ strategies. In contrast to congruent resistance, the loose coupling can actually be beneficial since it enables local practice to continue to be guided by the institutions that make it work, and at the same time the nature of coupling reconciles these
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practices with the logics carried by the opposing enterprise system (Berente & Yoo 2012). This observation is consistent with the broader discourse on the value of loose coupling in organizations (see Orton & Weick 1990). This leads us to our first proposition about secondorder responses in the case of resistance: Proposition 1: When the user’s first order-response is resistance to an ES implementation, yet the system persists over time, congruent resistance may result in faithful appropriation over time, whereas institutional resistance will result in loose coupling or transform into a fundamentally different practice. Another key insight that this proposition highlights is when an implementation team has the power to enforce the system implementation in the face of initial resistance. This is dependent on the user’s relative power with respect to the implementer. Power has long been a primary concern shaping system implementation (Keen 1981; Markus 1983; Introna 1997). The notion of the strength of institutional pressure is one way to consolidate the influence of political influences on implementation into an institutional framework. Our findings also hint at what can be seen to be a flaw in conventional constructs of power to analyze implementation outcomes. From a pluralistic perspective, it is important to keep in mind that constructs such as “voluntary” and “involuntary” do not adequately tap into all aspects of institutional pressure and uses of power. While the coercive forces associated with an involuntary enterprise system implementation may be great, it is possible that other, less explicit forces, such as normative and mimetic processes (DiMaggio & Powell 1983) are just as powerful in shaping implementation. While coercive force associated with central management’s top-down initiative is consistent with the conventional notion of power (Keen 1981, Introna 1997), the institutional pressure stemming from normative and mimetic processes points to alternative forms of power that are distributed and relative as theorized by Clegg or Foucault (Introna 1997). The institutional pressure arises as a result of all systemic and institutional inter-relationships among local practices, either 48
rationally planned or socially and informally negotiated. Responses to institutional pressure across a network of such relations are more difficult to detect, since these often arise as a result of the reconfiguring interrelationships among local groups who all struggle to deal with the new system. In this case, we can detect early indications that the institutional pressure from the coercive top-down management shape immediate first-order responses, whereas the institutional pressures associated with distributed and relative power acts more during the subsequent backand-forth of reactions to initial responses, shaping the second-order responses. It is the interplay of these pressures and related uses of power of the local actors that shape the first and secondorder responses to ES implementation. It is important to note, however, that this notion of relative power matters differently when there is congruence among the institutional logics among the parties compared to when they are not. When there is institutional congruence, the interplay of relative power is essentially contestation among the actors themselves – a struggle for influence and control. In such situations, implementation teams might overcome the congruence resistance of relatively weak local actors and drive faithful appropriation eventually by leveraging a variety of tactics to ratchet-down faithful compliance. Alternatively, the users may coopt the implementation to strengthen their interest in the organization. However, when institutional logics are incongruent, such cooptation or faithful compliance is unlikely. In such cases, sometimes the best a powerful implementation team can hope for is a stable state of loose coupling (Berente et al 2016). In cases of institutional resistance, faithful appropriation or user cooptation of the system are unlikely regardless of relative power dynamics. This observation leads to our second broad proposition associated with the relative power of the ES users and second-order responses after initial resistance (in order from left to right in Figure 3):
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Proposition 2: The relative power of actors responding to an ES implementation interacts with earlier institutional congruence of the ES and incumbent practices, such that in their second order responses: P2.1: With weak relative power of local actors and earlier congruent resistance, second-order outcomes will be loose coupling or faithful appropriation. P2.2: With strong relative power of local actors and earlier congruent resistance, second-order outcomes will be cooptation or abandonment. P2.3: With weak relative power of local actors and earlier institutional resistance, second-order outcomes will be loose coupling. P2.4: With strong relative power of local actors and earlier institutional resistance, second-order outcomes will be abandonment. Contributions The primary contribution of this paper is twofold. First, we develop and validate an institutional framework to explain first-order user responses to ES implementation under pluralistic institutional logics (Figure 1). Second, we extend this framework to account for second-order responses given resistance under different forms of resistance (congruent or institutional) and in situations of differential relative power (Figure 3). In validating and extending the original framework, we put forward a novel explanation that accounts for the value of persistent loose coupling as a second-order response, following the immediate institutional resistance as the first-order response. This explanation goes beyond the local technical / work practice analyses that comprise much of the prevailing ES literature. An implicit assumption in the traditional research on information systems implementation is the presence of congruence in the institutional logics carried over in local business routines as well as those frozen in scripts in the IT systems. This assumption has been carried over from the early design tradition that focused on tailoring local, customized information systems where the design started from specific and localized tasks and their needs. But ES as infrastructural systems are different. They represent a prior rationalization, encoding, and abstraction of “best practices” around chosen business domains that is congruent with the logics of certain groups and
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professions in those organizations, while incongruent with others (Berente & Yoo 2012). An institutional view highlights how alignment is not possible in the face of incongruence without fundamentally changing the practice – essentially making it a different practice altogether. While the principles of efficiency, integration, and control often, in fact, reflect the goals of certain managers of an organization – and thus provide fuel for implementing the ES in the first place - it is important for managers in charge of implementation to understand that this may not be the case for every group within their organization. The framework extends our knowledge of sources of resistance and their connection to system implementation responses. Resistance has been explained in a variety of ways, but these ways tend to involve either local individual based accounts (Griffith 1999) or focus solely on power dynamics (Keen 1981; Markus 1983). Our distinction between congruent and institutional resistance highlights fundamental differences in the source and form of resistance, and that they should be approached differently. The irreconcilable, institutional form of resistance has not been broadly recognized and addressed in the past implementation literature. Further, our framework points out that local users can co-opt new institutions. Alas, for some reasons, the notion of cooptation has not been examined and recognized in the existing research (beyond, perhaps, Lee & Myers 2004). Further, our extended framework highlights the importance of relative power of actors involved in first and second order responses in a couple of ways. First, the pressure through which ES are implemented influence the user’s initial reactions. This is clearly evident in situations where logics are congruent while users resist anyway. Unless such systems are implemented with adequate pressure, the fruits of the initial implementation will never be harvested. The notion of relative power becomes particularly important in understanding second-
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order responses. By ratcheting up pressure over time, implementers were, in many cases, able to bring the implementation closer to faithful interpretation. But this only was possible when the local contexts were not more powerful than the implementers and their management backers. If this was not the case, in most such situation the systems were later abandoned. This explanation complements recent longitudinal research on ES implementation (Lyytinen & Newman 2015, Berente et al 2016) by offering explanations rooted in understanding the role of society’s broad institutions in producing stable enterprise system implementations over time. Such implementations result in eventual organization-wide integration and control through combinations of both compliance and loose coupling. By implementing the ES with little regard to the needs of many user groups in the organization (Lyytinen & Newman 2015) and with a focus on just getting a stable implementation (Berente et al 2016), users across the organization will eventually adjust and self-organize to accommodate the system use. Our theoretical framework provides a set of process mechanisms that can explain how and why this process unfolds as it does, and when one might expect a stabilized form of loose coupling (i.e. if there is incongruence among institutional logics), or whether eventual alignment can be achieved (i.e. if there is no incongruence). Another contribution is a novel use of published rich case studies to conduct a qualitative meta-analysis as a means to validate and extend our institutional framework (Noblit & Hare 1988). Thanks to a heightened volume of research using qualitative methods and an accompanying interest in ES implementation, we were able to draw upon a rich variety of data sets. While this validation was not expected to be an irrefutable falsification ‘test’ of our framework, it significantly increases the internal and external validity of the proposed framework. It also shows that external and internal validity can be improved by mining and
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analyzing a diversity of theoretically sampled case data. This approach is complementary to the single case analyses that we analyzed. Although each published case tells a rich story, there always remains the question of to what extent we can and should generalize from a single case. The sheer breadth and diversity of industries, nations, practices, and forms of ES analyzed in our meta-analysis goes a long way to bolster knowledge claims derived from our framework. The analysis also points out and explains possible exceptions by helping to establish boundary conditions for theory. This goes several degrees beyond what a single case can accomplish. Although we do not purport to offer a full meta-theoretic analysis of ES implementations (Tsoukas & Knudsen 2005),4 one might consider our framework as a meta-theoretic account. The institutional logics perspective is unique in that it integrates multiple levels of analysis – from individual cognition to society’s broad institutional fields (Friedland & Alford 1991). As indicated above, the perspective enables us to attend to both interpretation of actions and relative power dynamics – and integrate insights from a bulk of social-theoretic research that draws on either interpretation (sensemaking, frames, etc.) or power (control, pressures, etc.). Therefore, this research offers a starting point to organize and integrate multiple theoretical perspectives in explaining this complex phenomenon. Idiographic qualitative case studies common in the interpretive tradition have been criticized for ignoring regularities across cases and for constantly inventing new, ‘sexy’ terms to describe similar phenomena (Gaskin et al 2014), and for not contextualizing local activities in broader patterns of action (Pollock & Williams 2009). Many of the patterns we identify with the first-order responses have been previously articulated in some form already in the literature, but these diverse explanations use different language and their findings are spread across different studies. Thus the value of our meta-analytic approach is to 4
Note that meta-theoretic analyses are different than meta-analysis of data from published papers. Meta-theoretic accounts seek to integrate and organize the different theoretical perspectives in a field, whereas meta-analyses of data (like this effort) seek to leverage published data to support, test, and extend a particular theoretical perspective.
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bring these established results into a common framework. Work on second-order responses, on the other hand, are not a commonplace and are not as thoroughly established. In this case the value of the meta-analysis is to explicitly characterize a foundation of responses over in a way that sweeps in existing work and forms a foundation for future theory. Our framework offers an initial starting point for integrating diverse perspectives, contextualizing them in broader institutional fields of practice, accounting for regularities across implementation activities and outcomes, and also accounting directly for power dynamics over time. As such, this work offers a way to respond to the call of Constantinides and colleagues (2012), who ask for more research to that probes beyond local context of a research site to “reflect upon the wider institutional and political context in which they are produced” (p. 15). The framework can help researchers assess how their work fits with similar studies, and to consider where additional scholarly contributions might reside within a research literature that seems saturated. Further, this framework can be extended to other classes of information systems implementations to novel contexts such as machine learning or robotics (beyond enterprise systems). The practical contribution of this study is the recognition of the diversity of principles and assumptions that guide implementation practices in any organization. Too often practitioners approach ES issues from the managerial perspective that emphasizes efficiency, standardization, and integration. They often assume a uniform outlook of organizational processes across all organizational actors. However, all organizations of reasonable complexity inevitably enact a variety of practices that are not necessarily compatible with the espoused principles of the system. Furthermore, there is an assumption that the data within an enterprise system should faithfully reflect the local practices that it is supposed to support and different data practices cannot be made compatible (Hirschheim et al 1995). Our idea of partial-compliance that loosely
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couples the enterprise system from the practices shows that this assumption can be extended beyond data to principles and actions. Limitations In using this meta-analytic approach, we are confined to address only those issues that were present in each case. There are three areas where this is a stark limitation – issues around (1) temporality, (2) adaptation dynamism, and (3) the technology itself. First, although we sought to address how system implementation unfolds, the time period for how this unfolds varies dramatically from case to case, and the timing of the actual data collection differed across cases. In certain situations the implementation data covers only a few months, while in others it spans years. Data collection involved everything from participant observation to retrospective interviews. However, it is important to note that for theory construction, we only included those studies that provided adequate information about the case contexts involving detailed accounts of responses in terms of the institutional logics of the users. Institutional logics are unlikely to change dramatically depending on when the project was studied, so our perspective is likely valid over this particular sample. Second, we looked only at implementation studies, and certainly the influences on system appropriation over time are manifold and we did not capture this multidimensionality – which includes actions of vendors and competitors, as well as industry and environmental issues outside the specific context of the implementation team, management, and user groups. Any post implementation outcomes might unravel for a variety of reasons, including poor execution, cost overruns, alternative innovations, organizational restructuring, financial crises, market change etc. Vendors, in particular, are responsible for so many regularities across contexts in enterprise system implementations (Pollock & Williams 2009; Lyytinen and Newman 2105), and rarely are
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they considered in the studies we analyze. No theoretical argument can ever bring all possible confounding issues to bear and future research is needed to extend this work. Qualitative case descriptions of ongoing adaptation of systems outside the context of a particular implementation are simply not abundant. Further addressing this dynamism beyond our simple first and secondorder responses clearly merits further exploration. Third, there is little attention to the technology itself in the published case studies (with exceptions, including Strong & Volkoff 2010). Of course, they are all about enterprise systems that involve integrated, central database system with structured fields and standardized procedures – so technology is a common denominator and context in these studies. But beyond the general attention to these imperatives of the system, most attention in these studies focus on organizational and social dynamics while the role and impact of technology goes largely untheorized. Continuing in this tradition (because of the limitations of the data), ours remains primarily a social argument –one in which we argue that social, political, and institutional dynamics influence user’s first and second-order responses to ES implementation. However, the notion of loose coupling does imply some analytic necessity to deal with the materiality of the system while reconciling the idea of incongruent logics. In the studies we analyzed, system functionality is typically reported in some way, but rarely theorized in itself, and this is a limitation in the qualitative tradition. Future research might look to theorize about specific functionalities and how they manifest and interact with incongruent logics. Finally, while using the meta-analytic approach, we face the problem of the ‘triple’ hermeneutic (Giddens 1984) where we interpret the selective interpretations (and reports) of the researchers, who, in turn interpret the interpretations of participants. In many cases, significant inference was required to make sense of an article for our study purposes. Dealing with such
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limitations is an area ripe for methodological innovation for studies that apply qualitative metaanalyses in the future. In particular, qualitative researchers may consider publishing additional resources online to aid subsequent researchers in reinterpreting their data. Because of historical space limitations, qualitative work is often published with standard summary information about the research process and context, and much of the context detail never makes it to publication. Given the widespread practice of including appendices online, journal editors and authors may wish to encourage greater contextual elaboration in these appendices for qualitative work in order to support future qualitative meta-analyses. This would be consistent with recent calls for greater openness to scientific data more broadly (e.g. Nosek et al 2015), which requires that IS field invest in related social and institutional change (Bolukbasi et al 2013). Just as norms have evolved for reporting quantitative studies to support quantitative meta-analyses, standards for reporting qualitative research in ways that can support rigorous qualitative meta-analyses may encourage greater diffusion of the method and strengthen the cumulative tradition of qualitative work. CONCLUSION Pollock & Williams (2009) distinguish among “waves” of information systems research. The first wave emphasized the value and impact of technologies on a broad level and emphasizes success factors; the second wave emphasized rich descriptions of local practices associated with technology appropriation (or non-appropriation) in diverse practices. Recently, a variety of scholars have suggested that it is time to move beyond exclusive focus on either broad patterns and generic relationships or highly contextualized and idiosyncratic practices and begin identifying ‘mid-range’ regularities (Pollock & Williams 2009; Gaskin et al 2014). This does not mean that we should give up studies of situated action, but rather that we should go further and
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Author Bios Nicholas Berente is an associate professor in IT, Analytics, and Operations at the University of Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business. He received his Ph.D. from Case Western Reserve University. He is an associate editor for MIS Quarterly and a visiting fellow with the University of Liechtenstein. His research focuses on digital innovation in organizations, cyberinfrastructure, and institutional change. Kalle Lyytinen is the Iris S. Wolstein Professor of Management Design at Case Western Reserve University’s Weatherhead School of Management, and Distinguished University Professor. He is a visiting professor at Aalto University. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Jyvaskyla, Finland, and honorary doctorates from Umeå University, Copenhagen Business School, and Lappeenranta University of Technology. His research interests include the nature of the IS discipline and its theories, IT standardization, ubiquitous computing, organizational change, process theorizing, and digital innovation. Youngjin Yoo is the Elizabeth M. and William C. Treuhaft Professor of Management Design at Case Western Reserve University’s Weatherhead School of Management. He is the WBS Distinguished Research Environment Professor at Warwick Business School and a visiting professor at the London School of Economics. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Maryland. His research interests include digital innovation, design, and organizational genetics. Chris Maurer is an assistant professor at the University of Virginia’s McIntire School of Commerce. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Georgia. His research interests include cybersecurity, organizational controls, and enterprise systems implementation.
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