Enterprise COTS Implementation: Process, Stakeholder, and Control Perspective

Abstract

Cutting the cost of information technology (IT) spending is an ongoing initiative not only in private industry, but also in national governments in an effort to balance their budgets. One key dimension of this cost reduction effort is in optimizing procurement policies where buying and reusing are prioritized. In the case of IT systems, buying generally means purchasing and implementing commercially available packaged solutions, commonly known as COTS solutions.\nCOTS implementation projects, often part of an organization s strategic IT initiatives, require a large investment of organizational resources, yet often fail to achieve desired benefits. Facing a persistently high failure rate, identifying IS implementation-related critical factors appears to be essential for both theory and practice. Although knowledge about critical success factors (CSF) is quite mature, an absence of benefits realization suggests a lack of effective management of relevant CSF during implementation. Applying stakeholder theory and control theory can help develop new perspectives in CSF research as they center around the concepts of whose interest matters and how to govern them, respectively. The current research investigates public sector enterprise COTS implementation from multiple perspectives, such as implementation processes, engagement of stakeholders, and control balancing, and how these factors relate to implementation-specific CSF. This enhances our current understanding of implementation processes, stakeholder engagement, and control balancing related to enterprise COTS implementations.\nThe current research draws from control theory, control balancing theory, stakeholder theory, stakeholder agency theory, CSF literature, and IS-implementation literature to develop an argument that asserts an integral relationship among processes, stakeholder engagement, control balancing, and CSF. In addition to proposing a new and vital construct—stakeholder orientation—micro-level and macro-level models for enterprise COTS implementation are identified. Control theory and control balancing theory is then used to capture and validate the dynamic nature of control configurations during IS implementation. Stakeholder theory and stakeholder agency theory is further applied to capture the dynamic stakeholder orientation in a IS implementation project. Finally, through analysis and synthesis, the current research establishes vital relationships among processes, control configurations, stakeholder orientations, and CSF, where proper CSF management leads to a successful COTS-implementation project outcome.