Kees Boersma

Developing a cultural perspective on ERP

Purpose – To develop an analytical framework through which the organizational cultural dimension of enterprise resource planning (ERP) implementations can be analyzed.Design/methodology/approach – This paper is primarily based on a review of the literature.Findings – ERP is an enterprise system that offers, to a certain extent, standard business solutions. This standardization is reinforced by two processes: ERP systems are generally implemented by intermediary IT organizations, mediating between the development of ERP‐standard software packages and specific business domains of application; and ERP systems integrate complex networks of production divisions, suppliers and customers.Originality/value – In this paper, ERP itself is presented as problematic, laying heavy burdens on organizations – ERP is a demanding technology. While in some cases recognizing the mutual shaping of technology and organization, research into ERP mainly addresses the economic‐technological rationality of ERP (i.e. matters of eff...

From means to ends: the transformation of ERP in a manufacturing company

In this paper, we present a case study of the restructuring of an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system within a manufacturing company, in particular the combination of Material Requirement Planning (MRP) with a Just In Time (JIT) material management procedure at the assembly lines. We focus in this study upon the mutual shaping of technology and organizational culture, in particular the virtualization of the organization. It is argued that the implementation of ERP in this specific context was more than an adaptation of a standardized information system relative to organizational requirements, and that the organizational adaptations were more than a re-engineering of business processes relative to ERP. Instead, we suggest that in this case the ERP system itself has been transformed, including a change in the signification of ERP within the company.

The Common Operational Picture as Collective Sensemaking

The common operational picture is used to overcome coordination and information management problems during emergency response. Increasingly, this approach is incorporated in more advanced information systems. This is rooted in an ‘information warehouse’ perspective, which implies information can be collected, sorted and exchanged in an accessible and univocal form. In practice, however, professionals interpret similar information differently. Therefore, we focus on how emergency responders develop collective sensemaking from information. We employ a ‘trading zone’ perspective, in which information is negotiated, to study information management in an ethnographic study of disaster exercises in the Netherlands. Our analysis shows how professionals attribute different meanings to information that distorts the coordination process. We end by stressing the importance of actionable knowledge and reflexivity.

Creativity (Ideas) Management in Industrial R&D Organizations: A Crea-Political Process Model and an Empirical Illustration of Corus RD&T

Creativity management is a crucial topic to consider in the debate about the innovative research department. Against the background of discussions about individual creativity and organizational commitment, this article argues that the creative process in organizations is a matter of political strategies. The ideator literally has to sell his/her idea. The article therefore comes up with a crea-political process model in which there is ample room for the thought that ideas emerge and survive within a social-political context. In addition, the crea-political process model is used to analyse the way in which the Corus Group Research Development and Technology (RD&T) department has implemented an electronic idea-management system. The system, called eureka!, has been designed as a straightforward platform to capture, review, evaluate and select creative ideas. The findings challenge the literature on idea management in organizations to consider the political activities of ideators in the whole process of creativity.

Questioning Big Data: Crowdsourcing crisis data towards an inclusive humanitarian response

The aim of this paper is to critically explore whether crowdsourced Big Data enables an inclusive humanitarian response at times of crisis. We argue that all data, including Big Data, are socially constructed artefacts that reflect the contexts and processes of their creation. To support our argument, we qualitatively analysed the process of ‘Big Data making’ that occurred by way of crowdsourcing through open data platforms, in the context of two specific humanitarian crises, namely the 2010 earthquake in Haiti and the 2015 earthquake in Nepal. We show that the process of creating Big Data from local and global sources of knowledge entails the transformation of information as it moves from one distinct group of contributors to the next. The implication of this transformation is that locally based, affected people and often the original ‘crowd’ are excluded from the information flow, and from the interpretation process of crowdsourced crisis knowledge, as used by formal responding organizations, and are marginalized in their ability to benefit from Big Data in support of their own means. Our paper contributes a critical perspective to the debate on participatory Big Data, by explaining the process of in and exclusion during data making, towards more responsive humanitarian relief.

Editorial: Incident Command Systems: A Dynamic Tension among Goals, Rules and Practice

This special issue examines the process of implementation, change and adaptation of Incident Command Systems (ICS) as a strategy for mobilizing and managing disaster operations in comparative perspective, focusing on ICS in practice in the United States, France, the Netherlands and Norway. Shorter essays present perspectives on ICS from China, Japan and New Zealand.The question is whether there is a distinctive organizational framework that is recognizable in all countries as the ICS, or whether there is a general set of principles for mobilizing and organizing emergency response operations that has generated a varied set of ICSs as they have been adapted to different operational contexts, resources, and training procedures for emergency personnel.

Developing new knowledge in collaborative relationships in megaproject alliances: organising reflection in the Dutch construction sector

This paper describes the development of new forms of public- private collaboration by members of a project-based organisation as a Community of Practice (CoP) in the Dutch construction sector. Cost overruns, time delays and corruption have put pressure on the relationship between the government and the construction sector. Political and public actors are forcing the construction industry to develop new cultural practices of collaboration in public-private partnerships. The paper incorporates power relations and shows how public and private partners, together with the researchers, develop an innovative tendering process. Based upon the literature on project-based organisations functioning as CoPs, we show how temporal organisational settings can enable new forms of learning. The specific development of a CoP in the Dutch construction sector has resulted in a 3-D virtual simulation programme which can be used to experience new behaviour and to train people in new approaches.

Writing history for business: The development of business history between ‘old’ and ‘new’ production of knowledge

Abstract This article focuses on the recent developments in business history as an academic discipline. Recently, the strategies used by commissioned, academic researchers are to make corporate history an institutional form of knowledge production. Corporate history is the more narrowed, often commissioned, brand of business history. Whereas in the past the commissioned activities of the business historians were looked down upon, with the increasing pressure towards valorization of knowledge, their work is connected with the importance of contract research from within the university. In this paper we use the actor network approach to show how the book – the most important output of the business historian – plays a role in the recognition of business history as a academic discipline.Throughout the article, the business history of the Royal Dutch Shell is used as an illustration.

Zooming in on 'heterotopia': CCTV-operator practices at schiphol airport

Airports are places that are heavily surveilled by different (technical) means, including CCTV (Closed Circuit Television). So far, the literature on CCTV has not paid much attention to the practices behind the screens of the CCTV monitors at airports. In this article, we present an in-depth, ethnographic study of the use of CCTV in the Military Polices control room at Amsterdam Airport Schiphol. We find that, since nobody is ‘at home’ at Schiphol, surveillance through CCTV is a challenge for the police. The operators in the control room are constantly struggling with the question how to spot deviance in a situation where they believe normal behavior does not exist. Our study shows that the categories for singling out the abnormal identified by Norris and Goold are rarely used by the Military Police at Schiphol. Instead, they heavily rely on routine, transmitted, and retrospective surveillance.

Are you Ready2Help? Conceptualizing the management of online and onsite volunteer convergence

Citizens have often been found to converge on disaster sites. Such personal convergence is increasingly supported by online informational convergence. The adoption of online platforms represents an opportunity for response organizations to manage these two different manifestations of citizen convergence. We analyse one such platform, “Ready2Help”, developed by the Red Cross in The Netherlands. Our research demonstrates that by utilizing platforms, response organizations are able to transcend the boundaries between different types of organized behaviour during disaster. We extend the original conceptualization of organized behaviour, as previously described by the Disaster Research Center, explaining how the development of new platforms channels convergence of citizens and information. As such, platforms provide an interface between established, expanding, extending, and emergent forms of organized behaviour. These developments change the landscape of organized behaviour in times of disaster.