Title
The control devolution: ERP and the side effects of globalization
Abstract
When looking at the implementation of ERP systems in large organizations, the typical business concerns are attaining the goals of the application, usually globalization and efficiency, securing the organization's acceptance, avoiding rigidity, and so on. By now, the literature is full of both normative models on how to implement ERPs successfully and cautioning tales of how the road to success is paved by traps, slowdowns, and even disillusion. This paper does not take sides in this emerging literature, simply because it submits that there is a need to look at the broader context of ERP implementations.There is a need to discover new meanings before turning to consulting or critique. Such meanings stem from reconsidering the managerial concepts that accompany ERP implementation, especially the issues of "what is an ERP," how to achieve strategic alignment, and what globalization really entails. The authors frame the study of ERP in organizations within the broader context of an analysis of the consequences of modernity. The new vocabulary sheds a different light on what organizations are doing with ERP: these systems are open, pasted-up, uncontrollable expanding infrastructures; strategic alignment flounders in never-ending tactics and compromises; globalization generates side effects. Harnessed to enhance control over complex, global organizations, ERPs enshrine the consequences of modernity in a nutshell: they accelerate organizational drift and runaway. The case of the introduction of SAP in a large Norwegian company illustrates a range of drifting processes and side effects.
Year
DOI
Venue
2001
10.1145/506139.506144
Database
Keywords
Field
DocType
globalization,control,erp system,strategic alignment flounder,broader context,control devolution,new meaning,large norwegian company,large organization,erp implementation,new vocabulary,enterprise resourse planning,strategic alignment,side effect
Strategic alignment,Modernity,Normative,Computer science,Knowledge management,Globalization,Vocabulary,Devolution
Journal
Volume
Issue
Citations 
32
4
64
PageRank 
References 
Authors
3.86
3
3
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Ole Hanseth192679.33
Claudio U. Ciborra223827.77
Kristin Braa316119.67