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Public eProcurement as socio‐technical change
Author(s) -
Williams Susan P.,
Hardy Catherine
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
strategic change
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.527
H-Index - 16
eISSN - 1099-1697
pISSN - 1086-1718
DOI - 10.1002/jsc.728
Subject(s) - affordance , sociotechnical system , implementation , unintended consequences , technical change , knowledge management , work (physics) , computer science , management science , sociology , public relations , political science , engineering , economics , mechanical engineering , human–computer interaction , productivity , law , macroeconomics , programming language
ERP systems and those that support enterprise‐wide business activities such as eProcurement represent complex socio‐technical change. The imperative for researchers and practitioners is to identify ways of understanding and develop methods to assist in managing the complexity and messiness associated with the breadth and depth of change as the affordances of technologies and the needs of users emerge over time. In this paper theoretical concepts are presented and an empirical illustration of three cases of public eProcurement implementations is provided to make visible and make sense of the complex twists and turns of socio‐technical change. These experiences reveal the nuances of socio‐technical change, its fluid and emergent nature, the effect of unintended consequences, the role of influential agents and change in the representations of work practices. These theoretical concepts are analytically powerful and could provide practitioners with useful tools in understanding the envisaged and serendipitous nature of socio‐technical change and the intended and unintended outcomes that may emerge in implementing enterprise‐wide business information systems.Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.