ERPs put to the test organisation
Keywords:
Informational es iseree Strategic action, Failure, Cognition, Conflict management, Organizational engineering, Process, Change, Project management.Abstract
The ERP case raises a worrying issue : have we got the organizational pa-
radigm and the managerial skills of the new information technologies ? Ba-
sed on an analysis of conflict during ERP projects, the author shows that the
cognitive maps of the “designers” are the key failure factors of ERP projects.
The people in charge of implementing ERP have not the relevant conceptual
Jramework so far. They manage the ERP projects without taking seriously
into account the impacts of the technology on the jobs, the power and the va-
lues of the stakeholders. In that way, the conflict is the means by which sta-
keholders push the “designers” to take into account their organizational
claims. Through the ERP case, the author asks some fundamental questions
about the nature and the proccess of organizational engineering in the infor-
mation age.
