J. Martin Corbett

ERP implementation: a compilation and analysis of critical success factors

Purpose – To explore the current literature base of critical success factors (CSFs) of ERP implementations, prepare a compilation, and identify any gaps that might exist.Design/methodology/approach – Hundreds of journals were searched using key terms identified in a preliminary literature review. Successive rounds of article abstract reviews resulted in 45 articles being selected for the compilation. CSF constructs were then identified using content analysis methodology and an inductive coding technique. A subsequent critical analysis identified gaps in the literature base.Findings – The most significant finding is the lack of research that has focused on the identification of CSFs from the perspectives of key stakeholders. Additionally, there appears to be much variance with respect to what exactly is encompassed by change management, one of the most widely cited CSFs, and little detail of specific implementation tactics.Research limitations/implications – There is a need to focus future research efforts...

The social shaping of technology and work: Human centred CIM systems

This paper decribes the theoretical and methodological issues involved in the social shaping of technology and work, with particular reference to human centred computer integrated manufacturing (CIM) systems. Conventional approaches to the understanding and shaping of the relationship between technology, work and human development are criticised, and an alternative, human centred approach is outlined. The methods and processes whereby the design of human centred CIM systems may be shaped and evaluated are then described and appraised.

E-mail, power and the constitution of organisational reality

To many observers, the introduction of electronic mail into a business organisation is an undramatic affair which is likely to have little impact beyond that on intra-organisational communication. Using insights from actor-network theory, this article demonstrates the more insidious and far-reaching impact of electronic mail on organisational power relations, knowledge and employee behaviour.

On being an elephant in the age of oblivion: Computer‐based information systems and organisational memory

In their review of research on organisational memory, Walsh and Ungson argue that the extant representations of the concept are fragmented and underdeveloped. It is argued that this is due, at least in part, to the dominance of psychological models of memory based on the individual which are employed by organisational memory system designers. In this article it is argued that the development of a more social psychological theory of memory not only helps us understand the roots of the present confusion surrounding the concept of organisational memory, but it also enables the development of a more coherent theoretical model to guide research on the transformational effects of computer‐based information systems on organisational memory.

Scents of Identity: Organisation Studies and the Cultural Conundrum of the Nose

This paper concerns sensations and how they are organised. More specifically, it is about the sense of smell and the social meanings we attribute to the generation and perception of odour. Although biologists and ethologists have studied olfaction in some depth, organisation theorists have given the phenomenon a wide berth, preferring to focus their attention on the visible world. However, this paper argues that smell has a significant bearing upon human interaction and social identity, as well as providing an opportunity for organisational research endeavours premised on a dissolvability of object/subject relations.

Human centred advanced manufacturing systems: From rhetoric to reality

Abstract The nature of, and rationale for, the design and implementation of human centred advanced manufacturing systems are discussed. The difficulties confronting proponents of the human centred approach are described in the context of the relationship between ergonomics and engineering design disciplines. Methods currently under development within a European human centred CIM project are described in the light of these discussions.

Strategic options for CIM Technology-centred versus human-centred systems design

Abstract Despite that factories will soon be people-less, human aspects in system technology remain a key factor. Major problem areas however include reliability, design of jobs and interface design. Strategic options for research and development are put forward.

Towards neuroscientific management? Geometric chronophotography and the thin-slicing of the labouring body

Abstract The conventional history of the labour process suggests that Taylorism played a key role in the development and popularization of production management techniques in general, and work science in particular.This paper argues that the work of Herman von Helmholtz, Eadweard Muybridge, and Etienne-Jules Marey helped establish a broader ideology of the labour process encompassing physiological, psychological and psychodynamic elements of human behaviour. Through the medium of chronophotography, this ideology offered a visual vocabulary of efficiency which predated the work of Frederick Taylor and continues to influence management research and practices today.

Invoking spirits in the material world: Spiritualism, surrealism, and spirituality at work

Abstract This article considers the recent upsurge of interest in workplace spirituality through an analysis of three cultural movements – late 19th-century spiritualism, early 20th-century surrealism, and late 20th-/early 21st-century ‘spirituality at work’.These movements share a common interest in harnessing the power of the human spirit in the transformation and ‘betterment’ of social life. It is argued that these movements have successively adopted and de-radicalized invocations of the spirit world such that the proto-feminism and utopianism of spiritualism and the revolutionary pretensions of surrealism have been usurped by a strongly managerialist discourse of workplace spirituality. The paper ends with a consideration of the implications of these developments for the critical study of spirituality, management and organization.

Reconstructing human-centered technology: lessons from the Hollywood dream factory

A post-modernist analysis of human-centred technology (HCT) suggests the ideology which informs the theoretical and practical development of HCT resonates with ideological representations of machine intelligence portrayed in science fiction (sf) films. It is argued that such an ideology reflects and reinforces ontological dualisms which constrain our ability to imagine and realise our future relations with technology. This paper invites proponents of HCT to meet their shadows, to transgress, the cultural and discursive borders constructed in the name of modernism, and to reflect on what is taken-for-granted and peripheralised within their own work.