An organizational change approach for enterprise system implementations

Enterprise Information Systems or just Enterprise Systems (ES) have become increasingly popular since the last decade of the previous century. Many organizations have deployed an ES implementation and the current adoption rate of these systems is still rising. The implementation of an ES, especially when driven by a BPR rationale, has a large impact on the adopting organization. Extensive research has shown that the resulting organizational change process requires profound support, which most implementations currently lack, causing a substantial number of implementation failures. A literature overview in chapter 1 focuses on the diverse contributions dealing with this organizational change problem in the domain of ES implementations. The ES implementation process is researched from various perspectives, which leads to fragmented knowledge and mostly explorative or descriptive research results. Prescriptive research is carried out less often. This kind of research leads to conceptual change frameworks or guidelines. On the other hand, consistent creation of a profound and applicable ES specific change approach is lacking. This dissertation focuses on this omission and designs an organizational change approach, which it will then deploy in a longitudinal case study.