ERP implementation choices: a supply/use space based analysis

Gian Marco Campagnolo, Samantha Ducati

Abstract. In this research we describe the institutionalization process of an organizational field:

that of ERP customization choices. We will ground our analysis on the case of a public sector

organization in the course of 10 years. Implementation choices evolved according to a process

where pressures towards cross-unit homogeneization were followed by a period of internal

differentiation. A subsequent time period of inter-organizational and inter-regional

homogeneization gave rise to a time period of particularization based on local organizational

contexts. The processual analysis of implementation choices let us conclude that the evolution of

the organizational field of customization choices can be described as a framing/overflowing

dynamics where actors and relations and the ‘situation’ in which the issue of similarity can be

addressed vary according to a discountinuous and recursive pattern and that actors consciously

use space and time as resources in their search for niches of autonomy.

Keywords:

Social learning, supply/use space, ERP systems, time, blame-shifting, abduction.

 2

1. Introduction

Academic and practitioner studies have focused on documenting the various forms that an

extensive process of customizing and adapting ERP software systems may take (Pollock &

Cornford 2004; Richmond, Nelson & Misra, 2006; Liang, Bulton & Byrd, 2004; Kumar, Maheshwar

& Kumar, 2003; Light, Holland & Wills, 2001). However, very little has been written on the

evolution of customization choices over time, and how these choices relate to each other.

Some authors have begun to explore different !configurations" of customization choices using

data from various field studies (Stewart & Hyysalo, 2008). In this study, we build upon these initial

explorations to find different configurations of customization choices in different time periods in a

single case.

In this research paper we attempt to contribute to the development of theoretical approaches

focused on appropriation of ERP systems by conceiving implementation choice as a social process

involving negotiations between netwoks of players in a space that changes over time.

We draw on and extend contemporary thinking about ERP systems appropriation, by

foregrounding the conjunction between structural as well as interactional aspects involved in

knowledge formation about ERP system implementation choices as a particular “organizational

field” (Powell & Di Maggio, 1983).

Our aim is to understand the interactions of organizational knowledge formation about

customizability of ERP systems with the configuration of the supply and use space in

implementation and after-implementation phases.

By focusing on a single Italian public sector organization - here called ‘Dante Province’ –, this

paper proposes a theoretical approach that develops a focus on ERP implementation choice as a

social learning process and provides insights into the relationship between implementation choices
 3

in extended periods.

Theorizing implementation choice as a multi-layered configuration of social learning in ERP

adoption is essential for identifying how implementation choices depend upon the distribution of

responsibilities for the realization of ERP software across a diversity of actors, that respond to

different social logics. Theorizing its historical dimension is crucial for understanding its changes

over time.

Due to the difficulty to approach the field of ERP implementation choices by measuring their

impact on organizational businesses, especially in the public sector – where our case comes from,

we decided to approach it from a different angle. What we are doing is analyzing implementation

choices in their internal relation.

Implementation choices concerning ERP system are never ending. Periodic vendor system

updates and new module releases require organization from time to time to renew their

implementation choices. Our question has been: what happened with subsequent implementations

if the initial choice has been to keep the standard version of the system? Did the organization

confirm the intial strategy or some changes have occurred? How potential subsequent changes in

implementation choice can be put in relation with initial organizational decisions?

In order to answer these questions, we point out that the way in which implementation choices

are framed within an organizational field cannot be understood by starting from a single level of

analysis nor even from a single time period in the biography of implementation choices.

Implementation choices involve constituencies taking shape in the wider inter- and intra-

organizational supply/use interactional space (Pollock, Williams, D’Adderio & Grimm, 2009).

Furthermore, the creation of representations of ERP implementation and support needs continues

through multiple generations of product development and organizational designs, where each

generation tends to build representations of ERP uses in relation with what has been learned by the

previous one (Williams & Webster, 1993).

We propose a multi-level approach to the interpretation of implementation choices that

 4

combines a market-based perspective with a more micro-level perspective. The multi-level

approach adopted in this research allowed us to undertake a processual analysis of ERP

implementation choices. Our case-based analysis illuminates that the evolutionary dynamics of ERP

implementation choices do not tend towards a progressive structural homogeneization. Rather,

actors shape the supply-use space in order to find always new spaces of autonomy.

What ‘Dante Province’ case teaches us is that when standardization is framed at a project level,

as the rollout is complete, overflowing consists in customizations taking place at the subunit level

in post-implementation phases. Whereas, when standardization is framed as ‘best practice’ over

multiple organization by client-consultant relationships, subsequent overflowing consists in

organizations taking on board more responsibility over system implementation.

We begin by providing some background on the dimensions of the dilemmas related to

implementation choices and ERP systems appropriation. Next we will describe our multi-level

approach. The empirical part will begin by presenting our research methodology: how the field

research was designed, how the data were gathered and analyzed. We will then plot four different

stages in the evolution of Dante Province’s ERP implementation choice organizational field and we

describe the three major changes that caused its variability over time. Discussion and conclusion

will follow.

2. Customization choices

Software packages like enterprise resource planning (ERP) typically provide hundreds or even

thousands of discrete features and data items that can be combined in multiple ways (Fichman and

Moses, 1999). Customization has been portrayed by vendors and ERP consultants as liable to

prejudice the success of ERP, producing high costs when the system is implemented (Davenport

1998; Liang, Xue & Boulton, 2004; Soh, Kein & Tay-Yap, 2000). However, surveys of ERP

implementations in the late 1990s revealed that organizations frequently (and in the majority of
 5

implementations), undertake an extensive process of customization and adaptation of the software

systems. These adaptations could take various forms: configuring the package (Clausen & Koch,

1999; Pollock & Cornford 2004), customizing the package (Davenport 1998; Soh, Kein & Tay-Yap,

2000; Brehm, Heinzl & Markus, 2001; Richmond, Nelson & Misra, 2006), partial, selective

implementation of the package (Davenport 1998; Liang, Xue & Boulton, 2004; Clemmons & Simon,

2001), add-ons, bolt-ons or #extension software$ (Kumar, Maheshwar & Kumar, 2003; Sprott, 2000)

and #best of breed$ multi-vendor systems (Mabert, Soni & Venkataramanan, 2001; Light, Holland &

Wills, 2001).

When typologies of tailoring choices are provided (Brehm, Heinzl & Markus, 2001), scholarly

analysis is performed on the basis of a review of case-based research literature, concerning multiple

cases. When the tipology is used to predict ERP project success, the addressed impact is that of

implementation choices on organizational business processes and organizational performance.

However, the impact of implementation choices on organizational performance is hard to measure

(Maber, Soni & Venkatraman, 2003). We suggest a different approach towards the analysis of

implementation choices. It consists in addressing how customization choices relate to each other

over time. The question to be asked is: how implementation choices of an organization that initially

decided to tailor the system evolved when the next module implementation or the next system

update took place?

Discussing the most important “spaces” and “occasions” for shaping the ERP systems, Clausen

& Koch maintain that “a comprehension of technological choice as being social is not enough. We

also need to understand how, where and when and under what circumstances the choice is taking

place” (1999: 464). Clausen & Koch conclude that spaces and occasions for ERP system social

shaping can be related to (a) early design of basic features through extensive producer-user co-

operation or (b) later customization of the offered standard software package to user requirement.

And that with the current design for mass production of software and customization, “the basic
 6

settings of the system parameters offered by the supplier can easily become the main decision

parameters for the enterprise actors” - a situation that they can label ‘power of default’ (Clausen &

Koch, 1999). Pozzebon & Pinsonneault (2005) speak of another sort of power driving

customizations: the power of initial organizational decisions. However, analyses addressing the

‘power of default’ and the power of ‘initial organizational decisions’ focus on early design phases.

However, managerial guidelines on how to achieve successful outcomes from ERP implementation

place increasing emphasis on the post-implementation phase (Somers & Nelson, 2004; Wei, Li,

Wang, Li & Ju, 2005; Berchet & Habchi, 2005). If we move the spectrum of analysis towards later

customization of the offered standard software package, we thus have to take into accont other

sources of influence towards managerial decision making and other actors: intraorganizational

power and ‘subunit power’ for example (Boeker, 1989).

Management Accounting Departments tend to be strongly associated with the introduction of

ERP systems (Newman & Westrup, 2005). However, many actors wish to speak for ERP systems

implementation, especially when the ERP system becomes a truly enterprise-wide organizational

information system. In a number of studies concerning ERP implementation the type of

intermediary most frequently studied is the supply-side internal consultant (see Hislop 2002 for a

review). This is because such consultants tend to be more numerous, visible and formal than those

close to the end-users. Fewer studies submit that central role in this respect is performed by key-

users (Wu & Wang, 2007). In our view, in order to achieve a more nuanced and processual

understanding of the evolution of customization choices in ERP implementation, supply side and

use side intermediaries have to be treated symmetrically and conjointly.

Dynamics identified in literature on ERP implementation, especially in the non-profit sector (e.g.

university administrations) are of a tension between different epistemic cultures (Wagner &

Newell, 2005; ), conflicts and negotiations (Pollock, 2005). However, in many cases, the issue is not

to reveal available technological choices and analyze the forces determining which designs are

eventually adopted. Instead, the situation is often characterized by an apparent absence of choice,
 7

and the problem is accounting for this #absence$. Implementation choices become not so much a

question of depth of technical expertise but more of identifying interactions between third party

participants affecting/intermediating the user/developer relationship in the development,

implementation and post-implementation of packaged software in extended periods.

Benders, Batenburg & van der Blonk (2006) suggest that in their quest for competitive

advantage, which calls for a unique position that is hard to imitate, organizations may be at odds

with adopting ERP systems, whilst they are widely used. They introduce Powell & Di Maggio

(1983) concept of ‘isomorphism’ to present an inventory of pressures that may affect the adoption

and use of ERP systems. ERP systems deployment is presented as coincident with organizational

structural homogeneization. But this neglects the role of autonomy each single organization has

within the wider supply and use space, especially considering it in its multi-layered and historical

dimensions.

3. A multi-level approach

In this section we outline the theoretical foundations of the paper, providing a brief overview of

social learning in technological innovation (SLTI).

We have chosen SLTI because we have been studying a long-standing ERP project in Dante

Province where the actors involved in the implementation change over time and SLTI combines the

social shaping of technology with the evolution of spatial configurations in the supply-use space.

We work at a level of analysis that includes the broader institutional and societal context as well

as the workplace, in an attempt to explain both particular instances of technology and the #general

characteristics of a society$s technological ensemble$ (Russell & Williams, 1988: 11). In socio-

technical usage, social learning denotes the reflexive, yet often negotiated, complex and #political$,

process of transforming the environment, instrumentation and work which extends beyond the
 8

boundaries of a single organization.

A brief overview of the basic tenets of SLTI may help those readers unfamiliar with it. SLTI is a

relatively recent approach developed out of the tradition of the !social shaping of technology"

approach (Williams & Edge, 1996; MacKenzie and Wajcman, 1999) by combining it with

organizational studies on #organizational learning$ (Schon, 1983). It therefore focuses not only upon

analyzing processes but also upon the possibilities for intervention, particularly in policy making

(Sorensen & Williams, 2002). SLTI has been applied by a variety of IS process-oriented researchers

to show that many contemporary technologies are not discrete self-contained systems but

!configurations", and that the learning dynamics associated with them not only shape technology

but can have dramatic effects on the structure of the innovating network, the constitution of the

organizations involved and the nature of technical knowledge (Hasu, 2001; Russel & Williams,

2002; Hyysalo, 2006).

Although alternative theoretical lenses are available to analyze the conjunction between agency

and structure, SLTI stresses that technology emerges from a complex interaction among many

diverse players, so that it is important to provide more detailed accounts of how these actors play

key roles in long-term innovation. The dualism between everything which defines the agency

(values, preferences, projects) and structural determinations (i.e., the reduction of action to the

position actor have in a structure) has been explored at different levels of analysis by the network

and embeddedness perspective in economic and organizational sociology (Granovetter, 1985), by

micro-sociological approaches (Knorr-Cetina & Bruegger, 2002 ) and by actor-network (ANT)

analysis in the studies of science and technology (Latour, 1992). However, network approaches

envisage networks as sparse social structures, and it is difficult to see how they can fully account

for what we observe in the course of inter- and intra-organizational relations in terms of intense and

dynamic conversational interactions, knowledge flows and temporal structures. Network

approaches have been criticized for neglecting the specific processes and mechanisms of knowledge
 9

transfer and the consequences that these may have for technology choices and their societal

outcomes (Knorr-Cetina & Bruegger, 2002: 910). Closer examination is required to capture the

interactional means of structuration that are embedded in post-local forms of software service

sourcing. However, turning to micro-sociological approach may not be the right solution. The

assumptions that have characterized much micro-sociological thinking in the past - that tacit

knowledge requires spatial proximity while codified knowledge is ubiquitous or that knowledge

externalities are spatially agglomerated - are seen as theoretically no longer adequate in a world in

which interactions can also be dis-embedded from local settings, and in which space may be

separated from place (Giddens 1990: 18). Situating knowledge in extended practices allows

knowledge production to be viewed both as #local$ and as #distributed$ without privileging the

former over the latter or, more generally, the micro over the macro (Harris 1998: 289) . In order to

avoid the dualism between actors and structure, places can thus be imagined as #articulated

moments in networks of social relations and understandings$ (Massey, 1991: 28). As noted by

Quattrone & Hopper (2006), ANT analysis in IS and elsewhere has concentrated on the emergence

of IT as black boxes. By developing a critique of studies concerned only with social relations, ANT

argues that such relations count for little unless they are held together by durable and resistant

materials (Quattrone & Hopper, 2006). As such, ANT emphasizes the quality of networks that

endure and remain stable across space. To use Murdoch’s distinction (Murdoch, 1998), these

networks often demarcate #spaces of prescription$. The notion of networks as spaces of prescription

helps clarify how IT systems acquire stability and become taken for granted; but ANT neglects

what happens after systems achieve this status. This carries the risk of wrongly assuming that

organizational worlds achieve order and stability once processes leading to black boxing have been

identified (Quattrone & Hopper, 2006). In the case of Dante Province, we want to illustrate how the

ERP system changed continually and differently across various interactional spaces and time

periods to meet emergent development-in-use and use-in-development demands, and how in this
 10

#technological ferment$ it was very difficult to achieve !closure". Our contribution will be to

describe the ‘framing’ and ‘overflowing’ dynamics (Callon, 1998) of customization choices over

time.

The SLTI approach depicts a domain-specific situational map (Clarke, 2005) in order to position

various intermediaries between primary supply organizations and primary user organizations of

technology systems, as well as in regard to developing and using them (Williams, Slack & Stewart,

2005). The SLTI framework also illustrates differences in profiles and in the consequent mediating

capacities of intermediaries. Mediating capacity is described in terms of the !reach" between

supply and use and the !width" of the content covered.

The type of intermediary most frequently studied is the supply-side industrial consultant

(Hislop 2002, Newman & Westrup 2005). This is because such consultants tend to be more

numerous, visible and formal than those close to the end-users. The SLTI’s framework is sensitive

to micro-scale mechanisms and social dynamics as well as giving symmetrical treatment of supply

and use spaces. This therefore enables us to state that there are also often a few informal use-side

intermediaries that do their work as a side line.

ERP systems are perceived as configurational technologies that traverse occupational, task and

even organizational boundaries and draw together operations performed by previously separate

islands of information automation, with everything in between only concerned with aligning,

converting or transmitting the diverse information contained within the previously separated units.

We argue instead that what happens in the modern organization implementing ERPs is that this

!everything in between" does more than align dispersed databases and counts as a formative space.

By focusing on the organizational consumption of ERPs, we also propose that complex network

formation and management devices are required to organize the many actors wishing to speak for

ERP systems implementation and support. The organization of the ERP implementation support

chain is one of these management devices that we identified in Dante Province. Along that chain,
 11

the right to speak for the system (what we identify as #locus of implementation choices$) was taken

by different actors at different times. The organization of these turns and their position along the

chain affected the relative power of each intermediary actor (key user, IT manager, consultant,

management accountant) to modify the system$s implementation trajectory, directly or indirectly,

by influencing the decisions of the software developers.

By means of our supply/use space-based analysis we wanted in particular to reveal how the

varied compositions of supply and use space at different times are enlisted in knowledge formation

about standardization and/or customization of the system. We wanted to illustrate long term

‘framing’ and ‘overflowing’ of technological choice as deriving from the distributed (Pentland,

1992) and abductive (Almkov, 2008) nature of technical knowledge formation in ERP systems

implementation and post-implementation.

Instead of reflecting antagonism between different epistemic cultures in organizations, as in

some ERP implementation studies (Wagner & Newell, 2004), the moves that we found in Dante

Province were more likely ascribable as #blame-shifting$ types of moves, like those noted by Pollock

and Cornford in their study of ERP system implementation in a university administration (Pollock

& Cornford, 2004).

In our view, the ability to #shift the blame$ is not a capacity simply residing at the level of

situated, face-to-face interactions; rather, it takes shape across a global network of practices

connected by the ERP support chain in extended time.

3. Research Methodology

The paper presents the results of an interpretive, articulative and practice-based research project

(Walsham, 2003; Nicolini, 2006; Nicolini, Gherardi & Yanow, 2003) conducted between April 2006

and December 2008 at an Italian public sector organization - here called ‘Dante Province’.
 12

The lead author is an academic who began studying ERP systems usage in the public sector in

the international context as part of his doctoral thesis (2003-2008). Drawing on personal

connections, he then began to build a network of contacts within the Italian public sector which led

to collaboration with his co-author. The co-author is a master student with ten years working

experience of ERP usage in Dante Province. She brings insights from professional practice,

cumulative reading of specialized publications, and in-depth knowledge of government policy

documents. The role of a practical theorist (Hoffman, 2004) is similar to that of an ethnographer$s

informant providing insights into the logic of the research setting, except that the practical theorist

collaborates on a level playing field. During the analysis process the practical theorist is a

collaborator in making sense of the data.

The field research was designed in order to yield a description of how Dante Province’s ERP

implementation choices evolved across the extended range of historical times and locales of the

emerging market of software service supply in the public sector. We adopted a type of social

science approach which focuses on observing daily practices and understanding how participants

in situations assemble a reasonable understanding of the things and events that concern them. In

order to capture this aspect, we focused not only on the participants directly involved in local

interactions but also on local interactions and sense-making as part of a strategy played out by an

extended network of practice. The learning reproduced in such extended situations is seen as

reflecting back on actors’ sense-making activities in situations and having a role in the shaping of

technical knowledge in the organization. Addressing the range of timeframes and levels of analysis

surrounding social action in ERP implementation required different modes of construction of the

field. Our fieldwork practice relied on !polymorphous engagement" (Guterson 1997:116) and

multi-sited ethnography (Marcus 1995:96). Polymorphous engagement means interacting with

informants across a number of dispersed sites, not just in local communities, and sometimes in

virtual form (Guterson 1997:116). Multi-sited ethnography is a new mode of ethnographic research
 13

that !moves out from the single sites and local situations of conventional ethnographic research

designs to examine the circulation of cultural meanings, objects, and identities in diffuse time-

space" (Marcus 1995:96).

Our field in Dante Province was initially constructed by following different paths:

! the development of the practice supported by the ERP system;

! the development of the SAP Public Sector ERP implementation strategy;

! the development of the people involved in ERP implementation and after implementation;

In particular, a single SAP module was initially identified as a starting point for field

construction: the Project System (PS) module. This was selected because of its representativeness of

the Dante Province’s implementation strategy of introducing a single module in all organizational

units before moving to the next. The PS had been introduced in all fourteen Dante Province

organizational units dealing with the !Long-term Sectorial Plan". Moreover, the choice of the PS

module was also due to the aim of undertaking analysis of SAP as a truly enterprise-wide

organizational information system, as opposed to a mere accounting system.

The practice supported by the ERP system was the management of the administrative activities

related to the establishment of Dante Province programs, plans and objectives by the Council and

their assignment to the administration management for fulfillment. PS in Dante Province had 14

plans managed and about 320 users as content providers. As with approval of the !Long-term

Sectorial Plan" (Dante Province main strategic plan), the PS module was used in conjunction with

the DDP module (the module that comprises the written administrative documents) and the FI-CO

module (the accounting module). Different Dante Province’s organizational structures were

involved in planning activities at different stages and at each stage they made use of the SAP ERP

system.
 14

The second strategy adopted to construct our field was to follow the development of the SAP Public

Sector implementation. As well as examining formal intermediaries, our strategy was to identify

those intermediaries located at the interstices between organizations in informal roles and to pay

closer attention to broader social relations, so as to explain the finer structure of ERP

implementation and post-implementation. The key actors to interview and observe further were

identified on the basis of their role in the PS module implementation and post-implementation.

Starting from the PS module, we identified other software modules integrated with the PS, the

organizational actors connected with the PS as analysts, designers, programmers, consultants,

project managers, key users, content providers, and content users. The third and related strategy of

field construction was to follow the development of the people involved in ERP implementation

and post-implementation in their work settings by interviewing and observing them.

Table 1: interviews and observations table

People involved in ERP implementation and post-implementation

Functional Analyst of Interviewed: 5 March 2008

the in-house IT company

Project manager of Dante Province Interviewed: 21 November 2007; 3 March

SAP implementation project 2008.

key user for the Programming Interviewed: 10 January 2008

Service (content user) Observation period: August 2008

key user for the Accounting Interviewed: 3 March 2008

Service (content user) Observation period: August 2008

Operational Service personnel Observation period: August 2008

According to a #snowball$ effect (Czarniawska, 1998), this third strategy enabled us to further
 15

extend the research field and finally to complement our map with the overall picture of the network

of practice involved in the Dante Province’s SAP implementation project1.

The data collection methods employed to gather empirical material with which to refine

understanding of Dante Province’s implementation strategy were biographic interviews,

participant observation, and document reading and discussion. Interviews were conducted in a

biographic form starting from a first invitation to analyze the professional lives of the informants

concerning their connection with SAP in Dante Province. The biographic interview (Portelli, 2004;

Gubrium & Holstein, 2003) provides the researcher with a discourse in which the beliefs, the

attitudes, the values, the representations of the biographic trajectories are expressed with a

particular emotional coloring, and are inscribed within an argumentative structure that determines

their sequence and manifests their connections. All the interviews were tape recorded and verbatim

transcripts were produced (Riessman, 1993). Selected interview excerpts reported in the paper are

translated by the authors. The second data collection method was participant observation (Van

Maanen, 1979; Rosen, 1991). The observation centered on #hot moments$. In particular, it took place

during a major change in the !Long-term Investments Plan" with subsequent evolutionary

maintenance of the SAP PS module (August 2008). The observation concerned three organizational

units: the Unit that had proposed the change to the Plan, the Planning and Accounting Service Staff

Units, whose responsibility was to monitor the changes provided by the proponent Service.

Observed at the site of the proponent Service were the data input activities using the SAP PS

system, their relation with actual accounting practices, and the connection of the PS with other

modules. As regards the Staff Services, observation was made of the practices of controlling the

coherence and the accounting regularity of the changes brought by the Operational Services.

Besides fieldwork interviews and observations, we also examined the Italian public administration

regulations between 1996 and 2007 on investment planning activities and how they are distributed

1
A further project complementing our fieldwork was going on in parallel drawing on a comparative analysis
 16

between political bodies and administrative management, together with white papers on Dante

Province’s IT strategy.

The empirical material covered by the observation and re-covered by interviews and document

analysis corresponded to a ten-year period between 1998 and 2008 and concerned the

implementation of a total of 10 SAP modules and applications, involving 32 developers from the IT

in-house company and external suppliers, 8 key users from as many Dante Province organizational

units, 4 consultancy firms, and 320 users.

4. Case Description

The ERP system in Dante Province serves for the management of 14 !Long-term Plans", each

corresponding to a Organizational Unit. Organizational Units in the Dante Province are divided

between Staff Services and Operational Services. Staff Services are Organizational Units that

provide services to other internal units. Operational Services are organizational units that provide

services to other parties (citizens, firms, etc...). The Line Services are only responsible for feeding in

Long-term plans, whilst Staff Services such as Planning and Accounting merely read through them

to check. Moreover, the participants in the Dante Province ERP implementation and post-

implementation network of practice are 32 developers (of which two thirds from the Dante

Province in-house IT company, and one third from third-party programming suppliers), the in-

house IT company general manager, general managers from 5 different Dante Province

Departments, 4 different consulting companies or consortia changing over time, 320 users of the

system for data entry, of which 60 accountants, 8 key users and 10 tutors.

It is important to consider that the ERP project at Dante Province has been a partial, selective

ERP implementation, with some of the 10 modules and their additional applications being

introduced at years of distance from each other. As a consequence, we have also become interested

of three different italian public administrations (Ducati, 2008).

 17

in the way the variety of relationships which branched out from this project have changed over

time.

For the purpose of analysis, the case of ERP implementation in Dante Province is described

across four different time periods, from 1998 to 2008.

Table 2

Table of the different time periods in Dante Province

the #Steering Committee$ (1998-2002)

the #Key Users$ (2002-2005)

the SAP consultancy (2005-2008)

the Consortium (2008-)

The following four sub-sections provide a data-driven narrative describing the characteristics of

the supply/use space at each time period in the study. Each period corresponds to a specific IT-

related supply/use space. We have made the most influential actor the primary delegate for each

time period, and we have organized the narrative around his/her ERP proposal. Each time period

is distinguished by a different set of actors populating the supply/use space.

Table 3: Actor involved in the implementation of the ERP system at different time periods

1998-2002 2002-2005 2005-2007 2008-..

Steering Key User SAP Consortium
Committee Period Consultants Period
Period Period
(1) Steering Commitee X

(2) in-house IT Company X X

 18

(3) Private Sector Consultants X

(4) Consortium of Consultants X

(5) SAP Consultants X

(6) Project Manager X X X X

(7) Key Users X X X

(8) Operational Users X X X X

(9) Other Public Administrations X X

implementing SAP
(10) Other Local Organizations X
implementing SAP

In the first time period actors were: Steering Committe, in-house IT Company, Project Manager,

and Operational Users. The second time period starts when the Steering Committee quit and Key

Users are appointed for each Organizational Unit involved. The third time period begins when SAP

Consultats are involved for SAP implementation instead of the in-house IT Company and when

other Public Administrations begin to implement SAP. The fourth time period begins when a

Consortium of consultants is built to implement SAP instead of SAP consultants and when other

Local Organizations (not only public administrations) begin to implement SAP.

4.1 The steering committee (1998-2002)

In 1998, Dante Province was one of the first Italian public administrations implementing SAP.

The Italian SAP version of the verticalization for the public sector had come out just the year before.

!In 1998 nobody was implementing SAP in the public sector in Italy. Alone in doing so was
 19

INPDAP, a social care institution. They bought the SAP version for the private sector and

adapted it a little. We were the first to implement the SAP in the public sector. I saw it first in

1997. At the end of 1996 I saw it in Milan in German. In the spring of 1997 I saw it in Italian.

We were the first to see the SAP verticalization for the public sector" (Dante Province ERP

Project Manager)

The only public administrations implementing SAP at that time were in foreign countries -

Austria and Spain. And they have different accounting practices from Italy’s:

!they have an Anglo-Saxon accounting model. We have a Latin model. In the Anglo-Saxon

model controls are all final. Ours are estimates" (Dante Province ERP Project Manager)

A Steering Committee was empaneled to manage the introduction of SAP in Dante Province.

The committee consisted of the General Director of the in-house IT company, the head of Dante

Province IT Department, together with the heads of the Organization, Planning, Accounting and

Revenues Departments. Department are the highest administrative bodies in Dante Province. The

Steering Committee also included the in-house IT company production manager, one project

coordinator from Dante Province, and two consultants from the local university.

Table 3

Actors in the 1998-2002 time period of implementation of the ERP in Dante Province

(1) Steering Committee

(2) In-house IT Company

(3) Project Manager

(4) Operational Users

 20

The Steering Committee had to lead Dante Province towards the adoption of SAP and it also

had the role of negotiating development of the system with the in-house IT company counterparts.

The Committee decided that the Dante Province’s implementation strategy should be a !modular"

one: that is, introducing one module after another, ensuring that each module was adopted by all

organizational units, before moving to the next. The first SAP modules introduced under the

guidance of the Steering Committee were two, including the accounting module. At that time,

implementation support was provided to Dante Province by about 32 developers, the majority of

them from the in-house IT company, and the rest from external suppliers_. Analysis and design

were provided by the in-house IT company’s personnel, whereas programming was provided by

third-party suppliers, corresponding to 2/3 internal development and 1/3 outsourced. The first

SAP modules introduced were in a standard version. The Steering Committee’s intention was that

SAP should serve to manage common data, while sector-specific data should be left to other

applications autonomously chosen by the Operational Services.

!Let$s say that the structural data, the sectorial data, should not be fed into SAP, because it is

useless to input in SAP information that does not have an added value for all. One must say:

#Okay the data in SAP are the official data$. From there down, or as a complement, one has

the Excel table where the source data and the sectorial data are identified. In this way there is

no duplication" (SAP project reference person).

This would have avoided duplications of data and should have facilitated adoption of a version

of the system with less customizations. The Dante Province ERP implementation project manager

said about her role at that time:

 21

!I always promoted the Operational Services’ point of view... I played the role of the

Operational Services" (Dante Province ERP Project Manager)

This view was shared by the majority of the members of the Steering Committee, whose role

was to maintain control over the amount of customizations requested by the representatives of each

Department involved.

The project coordinator described the rationale of the first modules’ implementation as follows:

!Each single user, each single service was responsible for the data input and for the

controls. We structured the system in a way that would solve the information

requirements of the Staff Services so that they could monitor. But essentially, the system

was intended to serve the Operational Services users" (Dante Province ERP Project

Manager).

The services to which the ERP project manager refers in the interview excerpt are of two kinds:

Operational Services and Staff Services. These are both sub-sections of Departments, the heads of

which were members of the Steering Committee. Operational services were those that fed data into

the system. They formed the vast majority of the users of SAP (about 280 out of 320 total users of

the system in Dante Province). Staff Services controlled the regularity and coherence of the contents

provided by consulting the reports (about 40 out of 320). One of the main aims of introducing SAP

at Dante Province was in fact administrative decentralization. Administrative operations formerly

supplied by a group of 40 accountants were to be distributed among about 300 people from all 14

Dante Province Operational Services.

 22

4.1 The key users (2002-2005)

In 2002, after implementation of the first SAP modules, the Steering Committee dissolved. The

top management assigned full responsibility for the system’s implementation to the Project

Manager. The Project Manager was moved from the IT Department to the Accounting Department

because it was regarded as a better location from which to gather Dante Province’s requirements for

SAP implementation.

Together with some additional applications in the accounting area, in this time period also

implemented was the PS !Project System". The PS module’s implementation involved Dante

Province personnel that did not belong to the Accounting Department. Rather, the PS key user was

selected from among members of the Planning Department. There was a one-to-one match between

in-house IT company business analysts and key users. Seven key users were in place for as many

business processes involved in adoption of the above-mentioned modules. All except one –the

budget Key User –were from the same Organizational Unit (the central Accounting Department).

The project manager perceived that the logic had changed between the Steering Committee period

and the 2002-2005 period:

!We wanted to see SAP from the point of view of the project or of the plan, not from the

accounting point of view [...]. But the logic had been changed." (Dante Province ERP Project

Manager).

Compared with the former period, the balance between in-house development and third-party

supply was reversed: development was 1/3 in-house and 2/3 outsourced. The IT in-house

company started to buy analysis as well as programming from external providers.

Consultants hired in this period of feasibility, analysis and design outsourcing had SAP
 23

implementation experience gained mainly in the private sector. One of them had worked for the

implementation of SAP at Alitalia, an Italian private airline company:

!Last year a consultant came from Alitalia. He knew everything about Alitalia. He

thought he could apply the Alitalia model in the Dante Province. If he had told me he had

worked for the Bologna Town Council or Rome, then fair enough...He was really way off...he

was way off...In fact, he was replaced. The key user was upset. I told the in-house IT

company that the key user was right to be upset... I told the consultant that public

accounting is different from private accounting!" (ERP Project Manager).

During this period, a large amount of decisions on customizations were taken through direct

interaction between Key Users and the maintenance group of the in-house IT company. Only when

decisions on required customizations taken by Staff Services key users cost more than 10 work days

of support were they submitted to the Project Manager. Otherwise, the Project Manager was not

involved. There was also a case when a customization took longer than 10 days but the key users of

the proponent Unit did not rely on the Dante Province Project Manager, choosing instead the

support of the external consultants. This was possible because, according to the formal

organizational structure, Key Users did not depend on the project coordinator but on the head of

their organizational structure, who was autonomous in her decisions, including those concerning

certain aspects of SAP implementation and usage. Customizations required by the Key Users at that

time were presented by them because !informatics must be coherent with the provisions" (Key

User, Planning Division). Thus, in order to be fully compliant with the regulations, the Key Users

required suppliers to work on the analysis and the system’s design to include all possible

exceptions typical of the public sector:

 24

!The standard SAP PS module was not good because the public administration is subject to

constraints concerning authorization, balance, allocations. The private sector does not have

such rigid constraints. The standard version of the module did not have cross-controls; there

was no integration, either with administrative provisions or with the accounting. It was like

having information in separate and totally unrelated boxes" (Key User Planning Division).

A representative of the in-house IT company maintenance group described this situation as

follows: ! In SAP we did very rich reporting, extremely rich and extremely sophisticated I would

say [...]. So, in theory, if the SAP reports were not complete, I do not really know what could be

more complete" (In-house IT Company Business Analyst).

4.3 The SAP consultants (2005-2008)

At the time when Key Users acquired a central position as Dante Province intermediaries for

implementation choices, the Dante Province Project Manager was concerned with the longer time

required for the system implementation process due to new regulations on calls for bids. From 2006

onwards, a new national law mandated that a call for bids had to be issued by the public authority

for each service supplied, so as to ensure transparency in the procedure. Together with the fact that

the in-house IT company no longer provided feasibility, analysis and design, the time to

implementation has increased enormously. Whilst !once upon a time there was a time-schedule",

said the Project Manager with reference to the former period when internal in-house IT Company

resources had been available, now the time-schedule was more uncertain. It depended upon the

availability of consultants on the market. Furthermore, feasibility, analysis and design are three

different tasks that are seldom performed by the same provider. This entailed multiple calls for

bids, further increasing the time to implementation and undermining the quality of the final
 25

product.

The in-house IT Company was strongly conditioned by the Dante Province Accounting

Department. Part of her role as a Project Manager at that time was to tell IT people from the in-

house Company to insist when an adaptation was not feasible. But when the Head of the

Accounting Department raised her voice, the IT people did everything she wanted, increasing the

number of customizations (locally known as !personalizations"). According to the PM’s view, the

!personalizations" were only good for change management strategic purposes, not for functional

ones:

!Instead of encountering a rejection of the system, I can make some personalizations in

order to persuade the user to come round to my way of thinking. And so I will be the rule-

maker..." (Dante Province ERP PM)

But the in-house company never contributed to this strategic point of view. The Heads of

Department had a great deal of decision-making power, while the PM defined herself as !the last

wheel on the carriage" (Dante Province ERP PM interview). IT people from the in-house company

were willing to please the Dante Province users, and a special role in this respect was performed by

the Head of the Accounting Department. Conflicts on issues like standardization or customization

of the system between the in-house IT company and the Head of the Accounting Department were

constantly avoided. The project manager found that the only way to alter the situation was to

exploit the partnership between the in-house IT company and SAP better by directly involving

technology-supplier consultants in the implementation.

In this period, the IT market in the public sector was undergoing major changes. SAP has been

introduced in many other public administrations. A Public Sector User Group had been created at

national level to share SAP implementation experiences.

 26

From June 2005 onwards, Dante Province feasibility studies on the introduction of new SAP

modules were conducted by SAP consultants in the stead of the in-house IT company. According to

the Project Manager, identification of a SAP consultant provided an opportunity to look outside her

organization to learn how other organizational contexts acted with similar projects. On looking

back to the previous period, she said: !by doing everything in-house, we also made some mistakes"

(Da Province ERP PM interview, 12-04-2009).

With SAP, feasibility studies were being completed more rapidly and the likelihood of

complying with the supplier’s #best practices$ was increasing.

In the case of Dante Province, a consultant already working for a neighboring local

administration on implementation of a particular kind of employment contract payment

management was hired for the same purpose. He developed an industrial version of the

customized application, setting parameters to be adapted for each single user integration or

regulatory requirement. He provided a standard version of the application, as well as consultancy

on its adaptation and maintenance. At the same time the key users of the two different

administrations sought to come up with similar interpretations of the integration and regulatory

requirements and to triangulate them with the consultant serving both administrations.

4.4 The Consortium (2008-)

Previously, SAP had offered a basic support package costing 17 percent of a customer's license

fees and a premium support package that cost 22 percent. Since July 2008, SAP has largely

eliminated both offerings for new customers and replaced them with an Enterprise Support

package that costs 22 percent. Moreover, since 2006, a new national law has dictated that in-house

IT companies can only supply services in the Region where they are located.

In this context, despite the contrary advice of the Dante Province ERP project manager, a
 27

Consortium consisting of academic partners, consultants and the in-house IT company was created.

!I asked that feasibility should be done by SAP and not by others. Unfortunately, it was

decided to establish a Consortium including the local university consultants, the in-house IT

company and a third consulting firm. SAP is not part of the consortium. And it is a

pity...because the best choice would have been to go for the consultant who knew most about

the system and that who followed most implementations. Then, in my opinion, if they know

the things I waste less time, I get more refined solutions...they tell me: #Don’t waste time

there...why customize? It’s pointless!" Whereas the Consortium is more or less like the in-

house IT company. Just as this company had said ‘yes’ to the Head of the Accounting

Department some years ago and customized the system more than necessary...We too will go

back again: it will be the same with the Consortium. If you pay and tell: #you have to do a, b

and c..."...Imagine: the analysis becomes longer! It is not that they say ‘no’ immediately.

Especially during the analysis, they foresee all possible exceptions. But in the requirement

phase it is pointless to pick up all exceptions if you know that later you will not be able to

implement them. It would be just the same as telling me those you are able to implement, but

implement them on the basis on an already-existing best practice. So the Consortium made

us lose time..."

The Project Manager thus described the situation as a pity. According to her, the best choice

would have been to go for the consultant who knew most about the system. Because the

Consortium knew less about the system and had no experience of implementing that specific

module in the public administration, it was described by the interviewee as having made Dante

Province waste time during the feasibility study. She described the situation as a #return$ to the

2002-2005 period, when many customizations were performed with the permission of the in-house
 28

IT company. The decision to hire the Consortium instead of a SAP consultant was taken by the

Dante Province in-house IT company. The reason was that the top management wanted to exploit

the same Consortium that had been created to implement the SAP system at the local university.

Procedures implemented via SAP had to comply with all the different local public administrations:

Dante Province, the 85 institutions of the education system managed by the Province, and 12 Public

Agencies. Having the same system implemented in all the different local public administrations by

the same pool of consultants that had already worked for the local university was a decision that

derived from the goal of !aligning a fragmented landscape of public sector organizations made up

of large organizations and smaller ones with common interpretations of organizational

procedures" 2.

As reported by the ERP project manager with reference to the experience of a neighboring local

administration, this goal is not common to all public administrations implementing SAP. The local

administration mentioned by the Dante Province ERP coordinator decided to implement each

module by gathering requirements only from the Organizational Unit profiting most from its

usage_, without considering other units that might benefit from use of the system. The decision

whether or not to adopt a ready-customized system was up to them. Dante Province’s !across the

board" SAP implementation strategy (the project manager calls it “360° degrees” strategy), in fact,

required preliminary work on identifying all the organizational units (and institutions of the public

sector at large) that would benefit from the system, and all the institutions identified would share

the same procedure:

!I cannot let one unit do the estimate control and another one do the final control. Everyone

has to do the same kind of control. I cannot say that one unit does only the electronic

ordering and one only the electronic payment. They all have to have the same procedures".

2
Published White Book on Regional IT Strategy.
 29

The time to system roll-out varied accordingly. The ERP project coordinator said that this varied

from three to four months in cases where the strategy was to implement according to the

requirements submitted by the major stakeholder to 7 years in cases of strategies similar to those

adopted by Dante Province.

5. Analysis

This section presents an analysis of how Dante Province implementation choices changed

according to the varied distribution of actors from one time period to the next. This is organized as

three #moves$ representing the main changes in the organizational field of implementation choices.

The empirical data are used to illustrate how different configurations of actors enacted different

learning spaces and, finally, how implementation choices in each historical period are connected.

As discussed in the theoretical section, we want to show how the varied composition of the

supply and use space at different times was enlisted in knowledge formation about ERP

implementation choices. Our analysis highlights the distributed (Pentland, 1992) and abductive

(Almkov, 2008) nature of technical knowledge formation leading to ERP implementation choices at

Dante Province, that is how actor considered supply/use space and time as resource for framing

(and overflowing) implementation choices.

The analytical tools adopted to interpret the moving locus of implementation choices across time

periods are (i) the map of the supply/use space and (ii) the implementation trajectory of the ERP

system from supply to use. The supply use space map describes which actors were present in space

and their position between supply and use. The overall square in divided in four views. We will

position actors according to these views: the IT market view, the client-consultant relationship

view, the organizational and the more local, domain-specific view.

 30

The space has four corners: supply, use, custom and standard. Implementation trajectories are

depicted on the map as lines that connect the supply corner with the use corner. We will draw one

implementation trajectory for each time period. Implementation trajectories can either connect the

supply corner straight to the use corner or bend towards the custom or the standard corner,

according to actors distribution in space.

Fig.1 The Dante Province ERP project supply/use space map

We organize the analysis around the #moves$ from one time period to another in order to

highlight how changes in implementation trajectories were due to changes in actors’ configurations.

The first subsection begins by analyzing the move from the period when the Steering Committee

was in place to manage a cross-organizational project to the time when the adoption of SAP was

managed by the appointment of Key Users representing each Organizational Unit involved. This is

analyzed as a move from ‘cross-unit experimentation to ‘sub-unit centered design’.

The second sub-section analyzes the move from the ‘sub-unit centered design’ configuration to

when SAP consultants and other Public Administrations were brought into the picture (2005-2007).
 31

This is analyzed as a move to ‘inter-organizational and inter-regional innofusion’.

Finally we analyze the move from the 2005-2007 time period to the current time period where

SAP consultants were replaced with a different Consortium of consultants including the in-house

IT Company and implementation choice concerned many other local organizations. We analyze this

as a move from ‘inter-organizational and inter-regional innofusion’ to a ‘use-space based

generification’.

Finally will will draw together the four maps and make conclusions concerning long term

dynamics of implementation choices.

5.1 From cross-unit experimentation to sub-unit centered design

In the supply/use space enacted during the first time period, communication from the use side

to the supply side was ensured by the Committee, on which Dante Province’s organizational

Department and the implementation support providers were all represented. The supply space

consisted of a limited number of intermediaries, the most important of which was the in-house IT

company. The use space comprised higher representatives of Dante Province’s Departments.

Implementation actors thus worked within a !hum" of !continuous reporting among participants"

(Knorr Cetina, 1999). Communication among members of the implementation project’s !hum" took

place within this limited learning space. However, the presence of the General Director of the in-

house IT company and of a number of Dante Province heads of department ensured the

fundamental management commitment to the project and empowered cross-sectorial project

management functions. The goal was also limited: namely a couple of SAP modules including the

accounting module.
 32

Fig.2 - Supply/use space situational map of 1998-2002 period

According to the Social Learning in Technological Innovation (SLTI) framework, this is the

design/use space configuration of a technological experiment, where users, developers and

suppliers (Jaeger, Slack and Williams, 2000; Brown, Vergragt, Green & Berchicci, 2003) often

deliberately construct a constituency of certain key players to provide an initial framework of ideas

and resources to shape innovation (Molina, 1995). The idea emerging from this constituency was

that SAP should be implemented to meet the year 2000 milestone for system roll-out, without too

many customizations concerning reporting-controlling-monitoring functions.

The system at that time !intended to serve the Operational Services users" was a system !in

which each single user, each single unit, was responsible for the data input and for the controls".

!Information that does not have an added value for all", that is, the control requirements

performed by each single Staff Service for its own monitoring purposes, !should not be included".

In 2002, having achieved the goal of rolling out the few modules concerned, the Steering
 33

Committee dissolved and the Project Manager was moved from the IT Department to the

Accounting Department.

In this context, moving the Project Manager from the IT Division to the Accounting Division,

considered by the management as the most important requirement provider for the implementation

of SAP, was perceived by the other Service$s Key Users as a loss of impartiality and trust -

especially at a time when the SAP project was no longer limited to accounting functions but spread

across the entire organization.

The choice of appointing most Key Users from the same organizational Unit (the central

Accounting Department) contributed to changing the logic by customizing the system in such a

way that more and more sector-specific reporting functions were required in the form of system

customizations.

Indeed, and contrary to what the Steering Committee had supported in the former period, the

Key Users maintained that controls and reports !are mainly made for the operational structures”

and should be included in the system.

The ERP Project Manager had neither the position nor the necessary management devices to

control the increasing amount of customizations. Each customization requiring fewer than 10 work

days was not submitted to the project manager. The only way for the PM to control key users’

decisions was via a ex-post indirect checks.

 34

Fig. 3 - Supply/use space situational map of 2002-2005 period: actors leaving supply/use space are

crossed out; new actors entering the space are bold.

Owing to the absence of a Steering Committee and to the shallow position of the Project

Manager, the Key Users occupied a role of prime responsibility. They were often direct

intermediaries (Bessant & Rush, 1995; Howells, 2006) with external technology providers. Key

Users reacted to their role as Dante Province intermediaries for implementation choices in a

situation of consultants with experience only in the private sector by advancing many !demands

for policy" (Pollock & Cornford, 2004) .

According to our framework, this time period supply/use space was one of sub-unit centered

design with Key User playing the role of !proxy” and “intermediary” users (Stewart & Williams,

2005). Key users were !proxy users" in that, while working closely with the in-house IT developers,

they had to represent both their requirements as a Staff Unit and the Operational Services

requirements. But key users were also !intermediary users" in that, since the developers were not
 35

members of the same organization (they were part of an IT Company), they often acted as an

interface between the entire Dante Province organization and external IT suppliers.

The notions of what the #standard$ and #customized$ versions of the system were, and what the

purposes of #standardization$ and #customization$ were, changed over time. While in the former

period, implementing a SAP module standard version meant !giving responsibility to the

Operational services", in the latter period #standard$ meant a system !coming from the private

sector". By contrast, whilst in the former period a #customized$ system carrying too many control

requirements as !information that [does] not have an added value for all" was considered to be

unfortunate, in the latter period according to the Key User view, #customizations$ were important

for Operational Services users to be !confident that they cannot make mistakes" since all possible

controls and blocking messages were !coherent with regulatory provisions".

Table 4: Changes in meanings of standardization and customization from time period to time

period

cross-unit experimentation sub-unit centered design

Standard ERP !giving responsibility to the a system !coming from the

Operational services" private sector"
Customized ERP carrying too many controls !coherent with regulatory
provisions"

The changes in the meaning given to notions like !customization" or !standardization" were

due to changes in actors roles and in implementation management devices coupled with the

varying size of the supply/use space. Whilst in the 1998-2002 period the Steering Committee was a

#hum$ of !continuous reporting among participants" (Knorr Cetina, 1999) where the distance
 36

between supply and use was covered by a few intermediary actors, the Steering Committee being

the central locus of implementation choices, in the 2002-2005 period, owing to the absence of the

Steering Committee and the ERP Project Manager’s transfer from the IT Department, Key Users

acquired a central position in defining implementation choices.

Fig. 4 – Implementation trajectory of 2002-2005 period

5.2 From sub-unit centered design to inter-organizational and inter-regional innofusion (2005-2008)

In the third time period in the implementation biography of SAP at Dante Province, the locus of

implementation choices was no longer a single identifiable co-located source, i.e. the interaction

between Dante Province and its in-house IT Company through a small number of Key Users.

Rather, implementation choices were made in a multi-sited and long-lasting intermittent interaction

between software producers and users from different public administrations, which we interpret as

a space of innofusion (Fleck, 1988).

 37

Fig. 5 - Supply/use space map of 2005-2008 period

In this space, consultants became the key intermediaries, not only between production and use,

but also, and most importantly, among different user sites. Because they were closer to the

production side, consultants were perceived by the Dante Province ERP project manager as

providing more reliable feasibility studies: the in-house IT company people did not have

comparable expertise on the specific topic, and they were prone to accept any requirement from

customers.

Being able to travel from one user site to another, consultants also acted as intermediaries

between different user organizations, in ways that overcame internal struggles between competing

"proxy users", allowing the re-use of solutions and empowering the ERP project manager in her

decision making. Thus, in this period, the locus of implementation choices was re-located between

the consultants as key intermediaries and the ERP project manager.

 38

Fig. 6 – Implementation trajectory of 2005-2008 period at Dante Province

But together with the greater role of the consultants as intermediaries, the user organizations

innovated their intermediating space as well. Public organizations can employ more indirect

methods to impose their standards on other public administrations through consultants. Being the

first adopter of new modules becomes perceived as a value, since it gave user organizations the

opportunity to incorporate the modifications that were made on-site by the consultants into the

supplier$s generic package. Whilst these were the major supply-side features, on the use side of the

space this locational pattern corresponded to a transition of collaboration practices from a direct to

a more indirect form, in terms of both contents and means: key users of different public

administrations started to exchange references to consultants they liked and talked to each about

the consultancy taking place. The content of the collaboration was both re-use of the code and the

comparison among the performances of consultants, in term of contracts as well as of less formal
 39

aspects of the relation. Public Sector user groups were created to exchange experiences not only of

technological procurement but also of consultancy procurement on technology procurement,

adaptation and maintenance.

Table 5: Changes in meanings of standardization and customization from time period to time

period

sub-unit centered design inter-regional innofusion

Standard ERP a system !coming from the “best practice”

private sector"
Customized ERP !coherent with regulatory - shallow feasibility studies
provisions" - absence of change management
strategies

Owing to the above-mentioned changes in actors’ roles and in implementation management

devices coupled with the varying size of the supply/use space, the notion of standard and

customized system varied as follows. Whilst in the previous period, implementing a SAP module

standard version had meant a system !coming from the private sector", with the increased

exposure of various public sector organizations to SAP implementation projects and with

modifications for the public sector being incrementally incorporated into the supplier$s package

(Public Sector) verticalization, the perception of what a !standard" system was became that of an

implementation following !best practice" criteria. By contrast, whilst in the previous period

customizations were synonymous with !coherence with regulatory provisions", they now

corresponded to shallow feasibility studies and an absence of change management strategies.

 40

5.3 From inter-organizational and inter-regional innofusion to use-space generification (2008-...)

Compared with the former time period, when the experience of SAP consultants allowed the

ERP project manager to learn from other neighbouring public administrations implementation

choices, resources for learning is this period$s supply/use space were restricted. The ERP project

manager described the situation as a #return$ to the 2002-2005 period, when many unnecessary

customizations were performed with the permission of the in-house IT company.

Fig. 7 - Supply/use space situational map of after 2008 period

This period also saw renewed managerial commitment to issues concerning the ERP system

implementation, also motivated by the increased cost of the support package announced by SAP in

July 2008 that was having an impact on Dante Province IT Department budget. Providing evidence

of managerial commitment in this period is that the decision to empanel a Consortium was taken

despite the different advice of the Dante Province ERP Project Manager.

In this context, the role of the Dante Province’s internal organization and its ERP Project
 41

Manager with respect to implementation choices diminished: 85 educational institutions and 12

public agencies joined Dante Province in the effort to implement an SAP system. The !across the

board"strategy formerly applied to internal organizational units to introduce one module after

another, was now applied with a larger number of public institutions in the Region. The meaning of

adopting a software package like SAP was no longer framed as one single organization$s goal.

Rather, policy-makers framed it within the regional administration’s wider goal of !aligning a

fragmented landscape of public sector organizations made up of large organizations and smaller

ones with common interpretations of organizational procedures" 3.

We interpret this time period$s supply/use space as a space of generification work (Pollock,

Williams & D’Adderio, 2007). According to Pollock et al.’s definition, generification work consists

in !a set of revealed strategies through which suppliers produce software that embodies

characteristics common across many users" (Pollock, Williams & D’Adderio, 2007: 254). Our

interpretation of the supply/use space of generification adds to this definition a focus on the user’s

active strategies towards generification. User strategies concerning software development do not

always aim at #particularization$. In our case, Dante Province decision-makers in the post-2008

period sought to #generify$ the software to hundreds of local SAP adopters.

Compared to the previous period, the supply space was composed of a single intermediary (the

Consortium), that is, the locus of implementation choices. But the use space was populated by a

larger number of local organizations. Learning opportunities concerning implementation choices

were limited in space, however. Whilst in the previous period SAP consultants had brought

experience gained from different Italian administrations, indirect interaction with other public

organizations in this period was limited by the fact that the Consortium only operated locally.

In the former time period a #standard$ version of the system had meant a #vertical standard$
 42

(Markus, Steinfield & Wigand, 2006) deriving from other public administrations which had

developed a #best practice$undertaken by a supplier serving different customers. In this period, the

standard version meant an #horizontal standard$ intended for re-use by a Consortium acting only

across organizations of different sectors (education, public agencies, public administrations) in the

same area with the intent to respond to the policy-maker’s requirement to align different

interpretations of the procedures. Customization efforts that in the previous period had been

interpreted as synonymous with shallow feasibility studies and the absence of change management

strategies were now perceived by each single organization as efforts to preserve ownership and

governance over their business processes against the #isomorphic pressures$ (Benders, Batenburg &

van der Blonk, 2006) applied by the policy-maker.

What we want to highlight with the illustration deriving from the most recent supply/use space

is the deeply contextual reflexivity between the varied composition of supply and use space and the

role played by the actors in social learning. It is not that the meaning given to notions like

#standardization$ and #customization$ is only due to changes in actors roles and in implementation

management devices. It is often the case that, in the same conditions, it is the changing width and

reach of the supply/use space that reshuffles the roles and attributes of supply and use actors.

6. Conclusions

We have explored how Dante Province’s ERP implementation choices evolved across the

extended range of historical times and locales of the emerging supply/use space of ERP systems in

the public sector. We have addressed the way in which the changing actors and spaces for social

learning affected Dante Province sense-making concerning notions such as #standardization$ and

#customization$. While in the 1998-2002 period at Dante Province, implementing a standard version

3
Published White Book on Regional IT Strategy.
 43

meant !giving responsibility to Operational Service users" and customization concerned

!information that does not have an added value for all", in the 2002-2005 period, because of

changing conditions of actors in the supply/use space, these notions changed radically. The

standard system became the symbol of a system !coming from the private sector" and the

customized one was !coherent with regulatory provisions". In the 2005-2008 period, the

supply/use space underwent major changes (e.g. public-sector expert SAP consultants became

available on the market) and the meaning assigned in Dante Province and elsewhere to

standardization was !best practice" while customization was synonymous with shallow feasibility

studies and the absence of a change management strategy. The last time-period reassigned roles

and meanings as follows: the standard was the policy-maker’s ambition to !align interpretations of

organizational procedures" among the local organizations of different sectors.

We have shown the deeply contextual reflexivity between the varied size and composition of

supply and use space and the social learning leading to implementation choices in each time

period. Our analysis has illustrated the configurational nature of ERP implementation choices as an

organizational field that involves an extended network of practice that traverses occupational, task

and even organizational boundaries to include the broader dynamics of the supply/use space.

Our analysis is an illustration of how the framing of a system$s technical features changed over

time according to the relative positions of intermediary actors and their goals in a constantly

changing and growing supply/use space.

Each representation of technological possibilities, and the space in which it was framed, did not

react only to the local network of actors interests. It was also produced to a larger extent as an

overflowing deriving from former time-period representations of similar technical features.

For example, in the last period analysed, with the same actors’ positions and implementation

conditions, it was the changing width and reach of the supply/use space that reshuffled the roles

and attributes of supply and use actors: the meaning of adopting a software package like SAP was
 44

no longer framed as one single organization$s goal.

In our narration, implementation options have emerged as organizational moves (Pentland,

1992) to distribute responsibilities for the realization of software (Pollock & Cornford, 2004) across

an extended network of practice (Brown & Duguid, 2000).

In many circumstances, our story illustrates that these #moves$ do not reveal available

technological choices and analyze the forces determining which designs are eventually adopted in

terms of !conflicts" (see e.g. Scott & Wagner, 2003; Wagner & Newell, 2004). We have found

evidence that the situation is often characterized by an apparent absence of choice as a #blame-

shifting$ type of organizational move found in the academic literature as #deferral of decisions$

(Pollock & Cornford, 2004).

For example, it was due to the absence of a Steering Committee and the shallow position of the

project manager that key users in the 2002-2005 period started to perform the role of direct

intermediaries with the IT providers increasing the amount of sector-specific customizations.

With respect to issues concerning the temporal framing of implementation studies (Williams,

1997) we have also found evidence that the way in which learning participants make sense of

implementation choices cannot be understood by starting from the view of a single (or modular)

organizational implementation project.

As noted by Webster & Williams (1993) on a case in which a second implementation of CAPM

succeeded (after the first #failed$), aided by practices but in place in the course of the original

implementation, appropriation of SAP in Dante Province has depended to a larger extent upon

knowledge gathered from previous organizational implementation projects.

An example of it is the judgement Dante Province ERP project coordinator in the last time

period made about the potential drawbacks of hiring the Consortium. She said it was a “return” to

the same problems experienced in the 2002-2005 with the in-house IT company and the academic

consultants .
 45

Fig. 8 – Dante Province ERP implementation choices: a synoptic view

Through our multi-level and processual analysis we highlighted that actors in the supply/use

space consciously resort on space (relatioship building and enrolment of new actors) and time

(deferral of decision, learning from the past) as resource for framing implementation choices.

Instead of achieving a higher degree of conformity to the surrounding institutional

environment, changes in the organizational field of implementation choices are driven by actor’s

search for new spaces of autonomy.

As an example, when in the first time period, ERP implementation was experimented by the

Steering Committee as a cross-functional standardization, in the subsequent period, sub-units and

their representatives (Key Users) profited from changes in actors roles (the absence of Steering

Committee, the move of the project manager within the central Accounting Department) to center

the ERP design around their many ‘demands for policy’.

Coscious as she was of having lost centrality in ERP implementation choices, the Project

Manager overflowed the frame imposed by Key Users as sub-unit centered design by widening the

supply/use space. By hiring SAP Consultants working for other neighbour public administrations
 46

she brought into the picture a number of new resources (coming from SAP consultants but from

experience of other public administrations as well) toward cross-organizational and cross-regional

standardization.

It was this last time period that saw renewed managerial commitment. Taking the rising

economic cost of ERP implementation as a pretext, former members of the Steering Committee

intervened against the growing dependency from external consultants. They agreed upon building

their own Consortium of consultants that would have provided generic ERP implementation to a

large group of local organization in the Region.

References

Almkov, P.G., (2008). Standardized Data and Singular Situations. Social Studies of Science, 38(6),
873-897.
Amin, A. & Cohendet, P. (2005). Geographies of Knowledge Formation in Firms. Industry and
Innovation, 12(4), 465-486.
Bandura, A. (1977). Social Learning Theory. Englewood Cliffs, N.J: Prentice-Hall.
Bateson, G. (2002 [1979]). Mind and Nature: A Necessary Unity. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press.
Benders, J., Batenburg, R. and van der Blonk, H. (2006). Sticking to Standards:Technical and
Other Isomorphic Pressures in Deploying ERP-systems. Information Management, 43(2), 194%
203.
Bessant, J., Rush, H. (1995). Building bridges for innovation: the role of consultants in technology
transfer. Research Policy, 24, 97%114.
Boland, R. J. Jr. (2001). The tiranny of space in organizational analysis. Information and
Organization, 11, 3-23.
Brady, T., Tierney, M., and Williams, R. (1992). The Commodification of Industry-application
Software. Industrial and Corporate Change, 1(3), 489-514.
Brehm, L., Heinzl, A., Markus, M., L. (2001). Tailoring ERP Systems: A Spectrum of Choices and
their Implications. 34th Annual Hawaii International Conference of System Sciences (HICSS-34), 8,
8017.
Brown, J., S., & Duguid P. (2001). Knowledge and organization: A social-practice perspective.
 47

Organization Science, 12(2), 198-213.

Brown, H.S., Vergragt P., Green K. and Berchicci L. (2003). Learning for sustainability transition
through bounded socio-technical experiments in personal mobility. Technology Analysis &
Strategic Management, 15(3), 291%315.
Bruegger U. and Knorr-Cetina K. (2002) Global microstructures: the virtual societies of financial
markets. American Journal of Sociology, 107 (4), 905-950.
Callon, M. (1998). An essay on framing and overflowing: economic externalities revisited by
sociology. Callon, M (Ed), The Laws of Market (244-269). Oxford: Blackwll Publishers.
Ciborra, C. (2000). From Control to Drift: The Dynamics of Corporate Information Infrastructures.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Clausen. C. and Koch, C. (1999). The Role of Spaces and Occasions in the Transformation of
Information Technologies: Lessons from the Social Shaping of IT Systems for Manufacturing
in a Danish Context. Technology Analysis and Strategic Management, 11(3), 463-82.
Clemmons, S. and Simon, S. (2001). Control and Coordination in Global ERP Configuration.
Business Process Management Journal, 7(3), 205-15.
Czarniawska, B. (1998). A narrative approach to organization studies. London: Sage.
Davenport, T. (1998). Putting the Enterprise into the Enterprise System. Harvard Business Review,
76(4): 121-32.
Di Maggio, P. (2001). Introduction: Making Sense of the Contemporary Firm and Prefiguring Its
Future. Di Maggio, P., (Eds), The 21st Century Firm (3-30). Princeton, N.J.: Princeton
University Press.
Fincham, R., Fleck, J., Procter, R., Scarbrough, H., Tierney, M., Williams, R. (1994). Expertise and
Innovation. Oxford,: Clarendon Press.
Fleck, J., Webster, J., Williams, R. (1990). Dynamics of Information Technology Implementation:
a Reassessment of paradigms and trajectoris of development. Futures, July-August.
Fleck, J. (1988). Innofusion or diffusation? The nature of technological development in robotics.
Edinburgh PICT Working Paper No. 7, Edinburgh University.
Fligstein, N. (1990). The Transformation of Corporate Control. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard
University Press.
Giddens, A. (1990) The consequences of modernity. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Granovetter, M. (1985). Economic action and social structure: The problem of embeddedness.
American Journal of Sociology, 91(3), 481-510.
Gubrium, J., F., Holstein, J., A. (2003). Postmodern Interviewing. Thousand Oks, CA: Sage.
Gubrium, J., F. (1988). Analyzing field reality. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Guterson J. (1997) Studying Up Revisited. Political and Legal Anthropology Review (PoLAR), 21,
114-9.
Harries-Jones, Peter (1995). A Recursive Vision: Ecological Understanding and Gregory Bateson.
Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Harris, S. (1998). Long-Distance Corporations, Big Sciences, and the Geography of Knowledge.
Configurations, 6(2), 269-304.
Harvey, D. (1989) The condition of postmodernity. Blackwell, Oxford.
Hasu, M. (2001). Critical Transition from Developers to Users. Academic Dissertation. Helsinki:
University of Helsinki, Department of Education.
Hislop D. (2002). The client role in consultancy relations during the appropriation of
technological innovations. Research Policy, 31 (5), 657-671.
Hoffman, A. (2004) Reconsidering the Role of the Practical Theorist: On (re-) connecting theory
to practice in Organizational Theory. Strategic Organization, 2, 213-222.
Howells, J. (2006). Intermediation and the role of intermediaries in innovation. Research Policy,
35(5), 715%728.
Hyysalo, S (2006). The role of learning-by-using in the design of healthcare technologies: a case
study. The Information Society, 22(2), 89%100.
 48

Jaeger, B, Slack R. and Williams R. (2000). Europe experiments with multimedia: an overview of
social experiments and trials. The Information Society, 16(4), 277%302.
Jin, L., Robey, D. (2008). Bridging social and technical interfaces in organizations: An
interpretive analysis of time-space distanciation. Information & Organization, 18, 177-204.
Kallinikos, J. (2004a) #Deconstructing Information Packages: Organizational and Behavioural
Implications of ERP Systems$, Information Technology and People, 17(1), 8%30.
Knorr-Cetina, K. (1999). Epistemic Cultures: How the Sciences Make Knowledge. Harvard: Harvard
University Press.
Kumar, K., Maheshwari, U. and Kumar, U. (2003). An Investigation of Critical Management
Issues in ERP Implementation: Empirical Evidence from Canadian Organizations.
Technovation, 23: 793-807.
Latour, B. (1992) Where are the missing masses? The sociology of a few mundane artifacts. In
Bijker, W., Law, J. (eds.) Shaping technology/building society: studies in socio-technical change,
(225-264). MIT Press, London.
Leyshon, A. (1995). Annihilating space?: the speed-up of communcations. In J. Allen and
C.Hamnett (eds.). A shrinking world? Global uneveness and inequality (11-54). Open University
Press/Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Liang, H., Xue, Y., Boulton, W. and Byrd, T. (2004). Why Western vendors Don$t Dominate
China$s ERP Market: Examining Cases of Failed ERP System Implementation in China and
Explaining the Unique Circumstances. Communication of the ACM, 47(7),69-72.
Light, B., Holland, C., Wills, K. (2001). ERP and Best of Breed: A Comparative Analysis. Business
Process Management Journal, 7(3), 216-24.
Lundvall, B-&. & Johanson, B. (1994). The learning economy. Journal of Industry Studies, 1(2), 23%
42.
Mabert, V., Son, A., Venkataramanan, M.A. (2003). Enterprise Resource Planning: Managing the
implementation process. European Journal of Operational Research, 146, 302-314.
Mabert, V., Soni, A., Venkataramanan, M. (2001). Enterprise Resource Planning: Common Myths
Versus Evolving Reality. Business Horizons, May-June, 69-76.
MacKenzie, D., & Wajcman, J. (eds.) (1999). The Social Shaping of Technology (2nd Ed.).
Buckingham: Open University Press.
Marcus G. E. (1995) Ethnography in/of the World System: The Emergence of Multi-sited
Ethnography. Annual Review of Anthropology, 24, 95-117.
Markus M.L., Steinfield C.W., Wigand R.T. (2006). The Evolution of Vertical IS Standards:
Electronic Interchange Standards in The US Home Mortgage Industry. MIS Quarterly, 30, 439-
465.
Massey, D. (1991) A global sense of place. Marxism Today, June, 24-9.
Misak, C. (2004). The Cambridge Companion to Peirce. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Molina, A. (1995). Sociotechnical constituencies as processes of alignment: the rise of a large-
scale European information technology initiative. Technology in Society, 17(4), 385-412.
Molina, A. (1989a), The Social Basis of the Microelectronics Revolution. Edimburgh University Press,
Edinburgh.
Murdoch, J. (1998). The Spaces of Actor-Network Theory. Geoforum, 29(4), 357-374.
Newman M. and Westrup C. (2005). Making ERPs work: accountants and the introduction of
ERP systems. European Journal of Information Systems, 14 (3), 258-272
Nicolini, D. (2006). The work to make telemedicine work: A social and articulative view. Social
Science & Medicine, 62, 2754%67.
Nicolini, D., Gherardi, S. & Yanow, D. (2003). Knowing in practice. Armonk, NY: ME Sharpe.
Orlikowski, W., J. (2006). Material Knowing: The Scaffolding of Human Knowledgeability.
European Journal for Information Systems. 15(5): 460-6.
Peirce, C., S. (1958). Collected Papers, (vol. 5) Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
 49

Panteli, N. (2004). Discoursive articulations of presence in virtual organizing. Information and

Organization, 14, 59-81.
Pentland, B. (1992). Organizing Moves in Software Support Hot Lines. Administrative Science
Quarterly, 37, (4), 527-48.
Pollock, N., Williams, R., D’Adderio, L., Grimm, C. (2009). Post local forms of repair: The
(extended) situation of virtualised technical support. Information and Organization, 19: 253-276.
Pollock, N., Williams, R., D$Adderio, L. (2007). Global Software and its Provenance:
Generification Work in the Production of Organizational Software Packages. Social Studies of
Science, 37(2), 254-280.
Pollock, N., Cornford, J. (2004). ERP Systems and the University as an #Unique$ Organization.
Information Technology and People, 17(1), 31-52.
Portelli, A. (2004). Oral history as genre, in Chamberlain, M., Thomposn, P. (Eds). Narrative and
Genre: Contexts and thypes of Communication. Transaction Publishers.
Quattrone P. and Hopper T. (2006) What is IT? SAP, accounting, and visibility in a multinational
organisation. Information and Organization, 16 (3), 212-250
Riessman, C. K. (1993). Narrative analysis. London: Sage.
Richmond, W.B., Nelson, P., and Misra, S. (2006). An Empirical Analysis of Software Life Spans
to Determine the Planning Horizon for New Software. Information Technology and
Management. 7(2), 131-49.
Rosen, M. (1991). Coming to terms with the field: understanding and doing organizational
ethnography. Journal of Management Studies, 28(1), 1 - 24.
Rusaw, A., C., (2007). Changing Public Organizations: Four Approaches. International Journal of
Public Administration, 30(3), 347-361.
Russell, S. and Williams R. (2002). Concepts, spaces and tools for action? Exploring the policy
potential of the social shaping perspective. In K. Sørensen and R. Williams (eds.). Shaping
Technology, Guiding Policy: Concepts, Spaces and Tools (133%154).
Russell, S. and Williams, R. (1988). Opening the black-box and closing it behind you: on micro-
sociology in the social analysis of technology. Edinburgh PICT Working Paper No. 3, Edinburgh
University.
Sahay, S. (1998). Implementing GIS technology in India: some issues of time and space.
Accounting, Management and Information Technology, 8, 147-189.
Sawyer S.(2000). Packaged software: implications of the differences from custom approaches to
software development. European Journal of Information Systems, 9 (1), 47-58.
Schön, D., A., (1983). The reflective practitioner - how professionals think in action. Basic Books, 1983.
Scott, S. V., Wagner, E., L. (2003). Networks, negotiations and new times: the implementation of
enterprise resource planning into an academic administration. Information and Organization,
13: 285-313.
Soh, C., Kien, S.S. and Tay-Yap, J. (2000). Cultural Fits and Misfits: Is ERP a Universal Solution?,
Communications of the ACM, 43(4), 47-51.
Somers, T. and Nelson, K. (2004). A Taxonomy of Players and Activities Across the ERP Project
Life Cycle. Information and Management, 41: 257-78.
Sørensen, K.H., and Williams, R., (eds.) (2002). Shaping Technology, Guiding Policy: Concepts,
Spaces, and Tools. Cheltenham, UK and Northhampton, MA (USA): Edward Elgar.
Sprott, D. (2000). Enterprise Resource Planning: Componentizing the Enterprise Application
Packages Tomorrow$s Customers Will Demand the Ability to Buy, Reusem and Build their
Competitive-edge Solutions: Can the Package Vendors Adapt in Time? Communications of the
ACM, 43(4), 63-9.
Stewart J. and Hyysalo S. (2008) Intermediaries, Users And Social Learning In Technological
Innovation. International Journal of Innovation Management, 12(3), 295-325.
Stewart, J and R Williams (2005). The wrong trousers? Beyond the design fallacy: social learning
 50

and the user. In H. Rohracher (ed.), User Involvement in Innovation Processes. Strategies and
Limitations from a Socio-Technical Perspective, (39%71). Munich: Profil-Verlag.
Strauss, A.L. and Corbin, J. (1998) Basics of Qualitative Research: Techniques and procedures for
developing Grounded Theory. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Tsoukas, H. (1992). Ways of seeing: Topographic and Network Representations in Organization
Theory. Systems Practice, 5(4), 441-456.
Van Maanen, J. (1998). Tales of the Field: On writing ethnography. Chicago: University of Chicago
Press.
Wagner E. and Newell S. (2004). Best for whom?: the tension between #best practice$ ERP
packages and diverse epistemic cultures in a university context. Journal of Strategic Information
Systems, 13(4), 305-328.
Walsham, G. (1993). Interpreting information systems in organizations. Chichester, UK: Wiley.
Webster, J. and Williams, R. (1993). Mismatch and Tension: Standard Packages and Non-
standard Users. In P. Quintas (ed.) Social Dimensions of Systems Engineering, Hemel
Hempstead: Ellis Horwood.
Wei, H., Li, C., Wang, E., Li, C., Ju, P. (2005). Understanding Misalignment and Cascading
Change of ERP Implementation: A Stage View of Process Analysis. European Journal of
Information Systems, 14(4), 324-34.
Williams, R, Slack R. and Stewart J. (2005). Social Learning in Technological Innovation !
Experimenting with Information and Communication Technologies. Cheltenham: Edgar Elgar
Publishing.
Williams, R. (1997). Universal Solutions or Local Contingencies? Tensions and Contradictions in
the Mutual Shaping of Technology and Work Organisation. In I. McLoughlin, and D. Mason
(eds) Innovation, Organizational Change and Technology, London: International Thompson
Business Press.
Williams, R. & Edge, D. (1996). The social shaping of technology. Research Policy, 25, 856%899.
Yin, R.K. (2003). Case study research: design and methods. Thousand Oaks, CA, Sage Publications.
Zolin, R., Hinds, P., J., Fruchter, R., Levitt, R., E. (2004). Interpersonal trust in cross-functional,
geographically distributed work: A longitudinal study. Information and Organization, 14, 1-26.