Requirements for the Summary-Reflection Paper:For each reading article, you are responsible for writing a summary-reflection essay (after you read it). This essay should reflect your reflections of the concepts and theoretical frameworks discussed and the confusions you may have.Rather than simply repeat or even copy/paste from original reading materials, please focus on your understanding of the concepts and theoretical frameworks. To be more specific, besides a brief summary, you should have a major section dedicated to the confusions you have with the concepts and models in the reading materials. You should comment on those concepts and models with your own opinions based on working experiences, readings from the library, and reflections of your previous learning.
If you just repeat abstract concepts from the reading materials, you will not earn a high score. You should connect concepts with job/internship experiences.
The following rubrics of essay evaluation could be used to guide your writing. All essays are single-spaced with top and bottom margins of 1 inch and left and right-side margins of 1 inch and the font size should be 12.
Understanding Organization—Enterprise System Fit: A Path to Theorizing the Information Technology Artifact Understanding Organization—Enterprise System Fit: A Path to Theorizing the Information Technology Artifact Author(s): Diane M. Strong and Olga Volkoff Source: MIS Quarterly, Vol. 34, No. 4 (December 2010), pp. 731-756 Published by: Management Information Systems Research Center, University of Minnesota Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25750703 Accessed: 21-04-2017 21:03 UTC JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact
[email protected]. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://about.jstor.org/terms Management Information Systems Research Center, University of Minnesota is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to MIS Quarterly This content downloaded from 134.88.255.66 on Fri, 21 Apr 2017 21:03:01 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms Strong & Volkoff/Organization-Enterprise System Fit Qjarterly Research Article Understanding Organization-Enterprise System Fit: A Path to Theorizing the Information Technology Artifact1 By: Diane M. Strong School of Business Worcester Polytechnic Institute 100 Institute Road Worcester, MA 01609 U.S.A.
[email protected] Olga Volkoff Faculty of Business Administration Simon Fraser University 8888 University Drive Burnaby, British Columbia V5A1S6 CANADA
[email protected] Abstract Packaged software applications such as enterprise systems are designed to support generic rather than specific require ments, and hence are likely to be an imperfect fit in any particular instance. Using critical realism as our philo sophical perspective, we conducted a three-year qualitative study of misfits that arose from an enterprise system (ES) implementation. A detailed analysis of the observed misfits resulted in a richer understanding of the concept of fit and of the ES artifact itself. Specifically, wefound six misfit domains (functionality, data, usability, role, control and organizational Peter Seddon was the accepting senior editor for this paper. Cathy Urquhart served as the associate editor. culture) and within each, two types of misfit (deficiencies and impositions). These misfit types correspond to two newly defined types offit: fit as coverage and fit as enablement. Our analysis of fit also revealed a new conceptualization of the ES artifact, with implications for IT artifacts in general. Keywords: Fit, misfits, enterprise systems, IT artifact, critical realism Introduction Over the last few decades, the use of packaged applications software, rather than internally developed applications soft ware, has dramatically increased in organizations (Sawyer 2000, 2001; Swanson 2003). Enterprise systems (ESs), one class of packaged software applications, are large integrated, process-oriented packages designed to meet most needs of organizations including accounting and control, manufac turing and distribution, sales and order entry, human resources, and management reporting. These software pack ages are of particular interest to MIS researchers because they can have broad organizational effects rather than the localized individual and group task-level effects of many smaller packages. Furthermore, ESs have become ubiquitous, with growth in ES software license revenue of 19 percent in 2007 (Jacobson et al. 2008). Packaged software raises important theoretical issues asso ciated with its definitional characteristic, namely that it is designed to fit generic rather than specific requirements, and hence is likely to be an imperfect fit in any particular instance (Lucas et al. 1988; Seddon et al. 2003). ES literature expli MIS Quarterly Vol. 34 No. 4 pp. 731-756/December 2010 731 This content downloaded from 134.88.255.66 on Fri, 21 Apr 2017 21:03:01 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms Strong & Volkoff/Organization-Enterprise System Fit citly acknowledges that an ES package is unlikely to include all the functionality an organization needs. According to one source, "The standard software customization rule of thumb states that 80 percent of the software application package should fit the organization as is, and only 20 percent of the software application should be customized" (Foster 2001, p. 4), and according to another, "It has been estimated that in the best case, integrated enterprise systems only address about 70% of the needs of the average organization" (Markus 2000, p. 20). Despite the theoretical and practical need to under stand the phenomenon of fit between an organization and its ES (Org-ES fit), it is infrequently studied. Our study addresses the research question: What constitutes organization-ES fit? Our answer introduces two new fit con structs. Furthermore, as a consequence of our analysis we also develop and present a new perspective on the information technology artifact. Understanding Org-ES fit poses several theoretical chal lenges. First, Org-ES fit is a collective construct, that is, a construct used to discuss concepts applicable to aggregations of interdependent entities, which enables a discussion of phenomena operating simultaneously at multiple levels of analysis (Burton-Jones and Gallivan 2007; Morgeson and Hofmann 1999). Unlike existing task-technology fit (TTF) studies (e.g., Dishaw and Strong 1998; Goodhue 1995; Goodhue and Thompson 1995; Zigurs and Buckland 1998), which focus on individuals and/or specific task categories or domains, Org-ES fit is concerned with the fit between software and multiple elements of an organization's opera tions. As with any collective construct, understanding its nature involves understanding not only the parts (i.e., the fit between the ES and various individual tasks), but also the sum of the parts, and the interactions between the parts (Hofmann 2002; Kozlowski and Klein 2000; Morgeson and Hofmann 1999). A second challenge is the complexity of the IT to which the organization is being fit. To properly explore fit from a theoretical perspective, one must be specific about the tech nology (Monteiro and Hanseth 1996) and examine its material properties (Orlikowski and Barley 2001). Fit studies in the MIS literature rarely include a clear theoretical characteri zation of the IT artifact. In the MIS literature overall, the IT artifact is underspecified, and often treated as a black box (Orlikowski and Iacono 2001). Thus understanding Org-ES fit involves two simultaneous complexities: multiple organiza tional elements, not single task types or domains, and a complex, multifaceted IT artifact, an ES, not the simpler systems in prior TTF research. The widespread use of packaged software applications such as ESs increases the urgency for IT researchers to develop a deeper understanding of Org-ES fit. From a practice per spective, until we understand better the phenomenon of fit, achieving organizational benefits from an ES is likely to continue to be difficult and unpredictable. Building on prior ES research and practice, organizations have improved their ability to configure and implement ES packages, but the continued poor fit means that using ESs daily in organizations and generating planned benefits from them remain problem atic. From a research perspective, our theoretical argument is that the concept of fit in the MIS literature is underspecified primarily because the IT artifact itself has been under specified. Our research develops both a theoretical under standing of Org-ES fit as a collective construct and a new understanding of the IT artifact, specifically the ES artifact. The seminal work of Soh and her colleagues, in studying ES implementations in Singapore, has tackled some of the chal lenges of understanding Org-ES fit. They started by classi fying misfits as data, functional, and output misfits (Soh et al. 2000). By comparing structures embedded in an ES and those inherent in the organization, they subsequently expanded this list to include data ownership, data entry, workflow, job scope, reports, and revenue processing (Soh et al. 2003). They further studied misfit resolution, looking first at whether misfits arise from deep or surface structures in the ES (Sia and Soh 2002) using Wand and Weber's deep and surface con cepts (Wand and Weber 1990, Weber 1997), and later at whether misfits arise from voluntarily assumed or externally imposed organizational structures (Soh and Sia 2004, 2005). These dimensions were combined to examine the relative severity of and the associated mechanisms for addressing each misfit type (Sia and Soh 2007). In other words, they looked at where and why misfits arise, and then at choices (namely changing the ES or the organization) for resolving misfits early during ES implementation. Researchers adopting the Soh et al. (2000) misfit definition examined the relationship between fit and project success (Hong and Kim 2002), identified strategies for overcoming misfits (Wei et al. 2005), and recorded difficulties experienced by Asian firms when implementing ESs designed for Western business practices (Davison 2002; Martinsons 2004). To develop a deeper understanding of Org-ES fit, we con ducted a longitudinal case study using grounded theory procedures. Like Soh and her colleagues, we first examined misfits because they were salient in our interview data. Because our field site is a North American manufacturing organization, a context for which the software was originally designed, the misfits we observed during ES use reflected the endemic issues associated with introducing organization-wide 732 MIS Quarterly Vol. 34 No. 4/December 2010 This content downloaded from 134.88.255.66 on Fri, 21 Apr 2017 21:03:01 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms Strong & Volkoff/Organization-Enterprise System Fit integrated packages, rather than being overwhelmed by issues of institutional and cultural differences as in, for example, the Asian hospital studies. As a result, we uncovered a more complete set of misfit domains which contributed to our theo retical understanding of misfit types. Specifically, we iden tified six domains of misfit from our data within each of which we recognize two theoretically different types of misfit, namely deficiencies and impositions. From this we propose two new types of fit: fit as coverage and fit as enablement. Our data not only revealed a deeper, more theoretical under standing of Org-ES fit, but also revealed a need to extend the Wand and Weber model of the IT artifact. Specifically, by using grounded theory analysis techniques, we developed an understanding of