Enterprise System

Name: Krishna teja

Roll Number: FPM1706

Email: Krishna.fpm1706@iimkashipur.ac.in

Summary:

The purpose of the study is to explain the relativity of Enterprise System (ES) success in terms of different stakeholder’s perspective and prominence over time. The authors theory states that ES success is relative in terms of stakeholders’ perspectives on what constitutes success and their underlying technological frames (who you ask), as well as in terms of time (when you ask).

Based on the synthesis of previous literature the author distinguished five perspectives of success: management success, project success, system success, correspondence success, and user success. To explain the shifting perspective over time the author considers four different phases of ES experience cycle: chartering phase, project phase, shakedown phase and onward/upward phase. The concept of dominant stakeholder’s technological frames is used to explain the relative importance of stakeholder perspective in different phases.

The sample was non-random and consists of two organisations implementing Microsoft dynamics as units of analysis. The data was collected though a set of interviews at two different points of time and the analysis was based on data from 21 interviews (chartering and project phase) and 11 interviews (onward upward phase). Deductive and Inductive coding approaches were used to analyse the data. Categories used in deductive coding to validate and extend the theoretical framework include the five success perspectives, the four phases of the ES experience cycle and the concept of technological frames. In inductive coding approach the assessment of success is made by searching for quotes referring to positive or negative judgements about Enterprise Systems.

The contribution of the research to the literature is described in detail by the author. The research distinguishes five concrete perspectives and dominant technological frames associated with the success perspectives. The research also explains how the prominence of different stakeholders, their technological frames and the associated success perspectives varies over time. The research confirms that the shakedown phase is the most critical time in an ES implementation and all success perspectives are considered relevant in this phase.

Review:

The research lacks hypothesis. Hypothesis provides direction to research and owing to the complex nature of research it becomes hard to separate relevant and irrelevant observation without a hypothesis. Owing to large number of existing theories in the field of research the author could have formulated the hypothesis for improving the quality of research findings.

The research paper doesn’t explain about the biases and errors that might have aroused during the interview phase and what steps are taken to mitigate them. While assessing the Management success the important stakeholder’s-vendors and consultants were not interviewed instead the manager’s response that the vendors and contractors had the same conceptualization about ES success is considered.

The second round of interview was conducted by the second author of this paper alone. Most of the data collected in second phase might be prone to biases the author possess and since the knowledge of an individual is limited the data collected in the second phase may be restricted to author’s viewpoint. Providing information about how common interview biases are eliminated will improve the reliability of research.

The limitations of the research i.e., empirical study was limited to two organizations, only one brand of ES and data being collected at two different points of time provides some serious concern to generalizability. The author states that secondary data sources like the project documents were also used. But nothing is stated about the purpose for which the data is used and the suitability of the data.