Enterprise Systems, Power and Improvisation

Enterprise systems (ES) have been extensively procured in large organizations but much research fails to develop sociotechnically informed approaches that facilitate their implementation whilst understanding the impact of integrated technology on professional working practices within complex organizational environments. This chapter takes a critically informed sociotechnical approach to power and improvisation in ES implementation. The contribution is a combined “circuits of power-improvisation” (CPI) framework which can facilitate a better understanding of ES implementation, sociotechnical theory, and practice. Practical lessons learned from the study may potentially be used to avoid some of the problems experienced with the over-zealous and rapid introduction of digital technologies into university organizations where the risk is that they become a student mass production system. It highlights the important role of power and improvisation, enabled and afforded by new digital technologies, in what may be misrepresented as planned strategic and deliberate organizational change.