Organizational Politics and Information Systems Development - A Model of Conflict

This paper presents a new model for better understanding how conflict and organizational politics impact on the effective development and implementation of an information system. The research study leading to this outcome is described. The results indicate that there is a definite relationship between different types of conflict and the successful progress of a project. Conflict among developers of the project was considered to be the least damaging to the project, but both conflict between users and developers and conflict between different user groups was considered to be a significant threat to the success of a project. Interestingly, a tiny minority of practitioners are beginning to assess these types of conflict, and attempt to manage them, as part of their risk management procedures. The study suggests that information practitioners must take a more proactive role in managing conflict during an information systems development.