In spite of the prevalence of technology in organizations, managers of complex IT projects continue to face multiple challenges. As a former project manager of various system implementations, Adrian understands the frustrations faced by those who manage such challenging projects. Working with colleagues from Nanyang Business School and University of Auckland, Adrian has done significant research on the social dynamics that explain part of the challenges.
One of the key social dynamic problems that we have observed across the different enterprise projects is the presence of multiple social groups and their attending cognitive frames and narratives and how these cognitive frames impact the typical project processes. In a recent forthcoming article in ISJ, we found that this social dynamic challenge the RFP/IT procurement process in that the client has to engage in sensemaking in order to make sense of the competing socio-technical claims made by potential vendors.
We also observed how this social dynamic triggers much of the challenges of implementing large-scale IT project. In the article in Information Systems Research Journal, we discussed the use of boundary organization practices that helped in building convergence among different sub-project teams and diverse stakeholders. Divergent views among sub-project teams and stakeholders are major challenges to ERP projects and evolving boundary organization practices were key to constraining these divergent views and bringing about convergence. Related to this was an early study published in Information & Organization, where we discussed how different stakeholders' technological frames may influence the way "best practices" are implemented in package software.
At the same time, our team of researchers has also looked at the problem of identifying risks in projects from a social construction perspective. This is important as a social construction take on project risk challenges the formal risk assessment methods that are used by many project managers.
Besides the social construction and sensemaking processes involved in the entire IT project lifecycle, we also surfaced the importance of material artifacts in these processes. In our JAIS article, we explored the sociomaterial nature of project coordination where we explicated specific roles of technical artifacts in coordinating among distributed teams. In the recent ISJ article we also show that material artifacts played an important part in the client's sensemaking and sensebreaking process by being physical instantiations of abstract technical concepts, which later becomes part of the client's ideal narrative.
Below are the research articles that explores these issues.
One of the key social dynamic problems that we have observed across the different enterprise projects is the presence of multiple social groups and their attending cognitive frames and narratives and how these cognitive frames impact the typical project processes. In a recent forthcoming article in ISJ, we found that this social dynamic challenge the RFP/IT procurement process in that the client has to engage in sensemaking in order to make sense of the competing socio-technical claims made by potential vendors.
We also observed how this social dynamic triggers much of the challenges of implementing large-scale IT project. In the article in Information Systems Research Journal, we discussed the use of boundary organization practices that helped in building convergence among different sub-project teams and diverse stakeholders. Divergent views among sub-project teams and stakeholders are major challenges to ERP projects and evolving boundary organization practices were key to constraining these divergent views and bringing about convergence. Related to this was an early study published in Information & Organization, where we discussed how different stakeholders' technological frames may influence the way "best practices" are implemented in package software.
At the same time, our team of researchers has also looked at the problem of identifying risks in projects from a social construction perspective. This is important as a social construction take on project risk challenges the formal risk assessment methods that are used by many project managers.
Besides the social construction and sensemaking processes involved in the entire IT project lifecycle, we also surfaced the importance of material artifacts in these processes. In our JAIS article, we explored the sociomaterial nature of project coordination where we explicated specific roles of technical artifacts in coordinating among distributed teams. In the recent ISJ article we also show that material artifacts played an important part in the client's sensemaking and sensebreaking process by being physical instantiations of abstract technical concepts, which later becomes part of the client's ideal narrative.
Below are the research articles that explores these issues.
Journal articles
How Do You Perpetuate Enterprise System-Enabled Change When Top Management Participation and Involvement Diminish?” (by Chua, C., Yeow, A., and Soh, C. 2019)
Pacific Asia Journal of the Association for Information Systems 11(4), pp. 7-43. Research has demonstrated that sustained top management participation and involvement are important for IT-enabled change. However, this is not always possible. Through a longitudinal case study, we demonstrate that IT-enabled change can succeed when top management participation and involvement diminish if middle management engages in joint action, i.e., intentional collective activity where members consciously choose to coordinate to achieve a goal. We identify three kinds of joint action: Constraining, where actions of the group limit the ability of individual middle managers to deviate from shared goals, Enabling, whereby a group of middle managers adapt the project to changing circumstances, and Extending, where groups of middle managers engage with others not in their functional areas. Joint action emerges when top management embeds, in the project context, (1) key influential stakeholders who are involved in the change, (2) a common goal, (3) structures and processes that promote collective work, and (4) artifacts inscribed with the common goal and collective work. |
Multiparty Sensemaking: A technology vendor selection case study (by Yeow, A. & Chua, C. 2020)
Information Systems Journal, 30(2), pp. 334-368 IS procurement history is replete with poorly executed, multi-million dollar procurement decisions. Yet, we barely understand what effective IS procurement should look like. IS procurement is highly challenging, as it requires the client to simultaneously select a technology and vendor. This paper explores the technology vendor selection process through the sensemaking perspective. Our study develops a sensemaking model of technology vendor selection that connects the multiple rounds of client-vendor communicative actions with the client’s sensemaking process. We show the client reconciles fragmented and sometimes conflicting cues and information through three intertwined cycles: the immediate, retrospective, and decision cycle. Sensebreaking occurs as a separate process (and not a communicative action) when disruptive cues occur persistently and from different vendors over multiple rounds of sensemaking. We derive a set of critical factors based on sensemaking perspective for selecting an appropriate technical solution and vendor. These insights in turn help explain many poorly executed IS procurement decisions. |
Collaborating for Enterprise Integration: A Boundary Organization Perspective (by Yeow, A., Sia, SK., Soh, C., Chua, C. 2018)
Information Systems Research 29(1), pp. 149-168 The primary purpose of the study is to understand how to better manage the necessary but problematic multi-party collaboration for Enterprise Integration. We found that a formal boundary organization provided critical resources and authority to enable boundary spanning and manage divergence among the diverse stakeholders. We identified three kinds of divergence (based on differences in goals, perceived understanding, and perceived value) and showed that each is handled by distinct boundary organization practices, namely organizing to negotiate, organizing to contain, and organizing to sustain respectively. Check out the KUDOS page for a practice perspective to the study: https://goo.gl/iknDgY |
Managing risks in a failing IT project: A social constructionist view (by Lim, WK., Sia, SK. and Yeow, A. 2011)
Journal of the Association for Information Systems 12(6), pp. 275-400 We explore the problem of failing IT projects from the risk as social construction perspective. We view project risk as a social construct that is shaped by the risk accounts of different social groups and actors within an implementation context. Through the analysis of a large IT implementation in an Asian logistics firm we found that there is inherent fragmentation in risk construction, as such risk managers have to consider the influence of broader social structures and the reshaping dynamism of sudden focusing events in managing complex IT projects. |
Artifacts, Actors and Interactions in the Cross-Project Coordination Practices of Open-Source Communities (by Chua, C. and Yeow, A. 2010)
Journal of the Association for Information Systems. 11(12), pp. 838-867. The area of cross-project coordination, where shared goals are tenuous or non-existent, has been under-researched. This paper explores the question of how multiple projects working on a single piece of existing software in the FLOSS environment can coordinate. |
Negotiating best practices in package software implementation (by Sia, SK. and Yeow, A. 2008)
Information & Organization, 18 (1), pp. 1-28 In this study, we explore the issue of best practices in package software and how they are appropriated to specific local contexts. We examined this process through the technological frames of the diverse groups with respect to these “best practices” and trace how these groups implement specific political and discursive strategies to overcome and resolve these incongruent frames. |