The Dynamics Of Cultural Change In An Enterprise Systems Implementation

Enterprise systems (ES) are important cross-business software that can be difficult to implement. A key factor impacting ES implementation lies with the influence of organisational culture which may enable or hinder such implementations. Existing research has focused on culture as being a stable, homogenous variable and little consideration has been given to the dynamics of cultural and organisational change during ES implementations. This study addresses such gaps with an in-depth case study that examined an enhancement of an ERP system. The results identified three dimensions where there was evidence of a cultural conflict between the organisation and the ES implementation, and that different subcultures within the organisation operated in different ways to facilitate or impede the adoption of the system for these groups. The evidence also showed that the implementation resulted in cultural changes within the organisation to reflect the values embedded in the ES. This research therefore provides valuable insights into cultural effects of large-scale implementations at an organisational level and shows that such effects are not necessarily homogenous and may vary due to the cultural values of subgroups involved.