درباره انعطاف پذیری تفسیری سیستم های میزبان برنامه ریزی منابع سازمانی (ERP)

This paper explores the interpretative flexibility of ERP systems through the study of a project to implement a hosted system for the Central Accounting Department of a large multinational. The paper presents intensive case study data around the decision to implement the system and analyses it in terms of the interpretative flexibility of the system. The paper questions the extent to which technological features of the new system influence the perceived flexibility of the system.

For more than 40 years, technology-based organisational transitions have captivated academic researchers who have used examples of innovations to look beyond the particular effects of specific new technologies on organisational structures and business processes to theorise the technological artefact. Through the studies of numerous systems and their implementations, researchers have developed an increasingly sophisticated understanding of the role that technology plays in relation to organisations and society more generally. Every new technology provides an opportunity to highlight nuances about the technological artefact and to ask further questions about the relationship between technology and society. Within this research programme, this paper studies enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. The large scale of the ERP systems, coupled with their claims to provide ‘best practice’ support for organisations raises many new areas of interest. For example, it is common to speak of ERP systems as being ‘configured’ rather than ‘programmed’ and for any implementation problems to be seen as organisational rather than technological failings. As a result, ERP systems are very different to early centralised office data processing systems or the later desk top computing and end-user computing and will highlight different aspects of the technology–society relationship. There is a significant body of research that has been devoted to the implementation of enterprise resource planning systems (e.g. Howcroft and Truex, 2001/2002 and Newell et al., 2003) as companies have increasingly opted for this generic packaged software in favour of custom-developed systems (Lucas et al., 1988, p. 537). The prospect of replacing ‘home grown’ legacy systems with the integrated business solution offered by ERP systems like SAP/r3, PeopleSoft and Oracle, has proved to be irresistible (Caldwell and Stein, 1998). The momentum that surrounded these ‘off-the-shelf’ software packages in the 1990s is captured by what Ross (1998) terms ‘The Enterprise Resource Planning Revolution’.

Structuration theory is advanced as a compelling and original attempt to incorporate both structure and agency within an interdependent duality. However, its application to technology has instigated a vigorous and sustained debate within the IS field because it has been argued that in describing the structural properties of technology, one diverges from Giddens' (1979) temporal vision of social structure (Archer, 1995, Dobson, 2001 and Walsham and Han, 1991). This debate has been fuelled by recent claims that large and complex information infrastructures can restrict the malleability of users (Ciborra and associates, 2000, Dobson, 2001, Orlikowski, 2000, Pozzebon and Pinsonneault, 2001, Star and Ruhleder, 1996 and Volkoff, 1999). This study has attempted to consolidate Giddens' (1984) conception of the knowledgeable and reflexive human actor and the literature devoted to information infrastructures by emphasising the role of human perception. Interpretative flexibility represents an agent's knowledge and reflexivity in relation to technology and hence the conditions that limit the interpretative flexibility of an agent can simultaneously reduce an agent's scope for action. This research has shown some consistency with existing studies in the field. In particular, it has shown that users of the system who do not have detailed knowledge of the new technology are likely to have different interpretations of it from those who are involved in design decisions. The results also show some divergence with the literature, particularly with regard to the hosted nature of the ERP systems. Here, analytical distinctions between design and use are no longer as convenient or informative as they once were (Orlikowski, 1992, p. 408). By providing an alternative explanation of the reasons for these differing perceptions, the paper argues that information systems researchers will benefit from returning to the original understanding of interpretative flexibility that specifically does not include any consideration of material features of the technology rather than relying on the adapted notion of interpretive flexibility that somehow claims a significant role for the specifics of the technology.