Title: ERP – a moving target

Authors: Christian Koch

Addresses: Technical University of Denmark, 2800 Lyngby, Denmark

Abstract: Enterprise Resource Planning systems are central elements in long term wide-ranging design and use networks. Present ERP research focuses on single-enterprise implementation and fails to address important features of the ERP networks such as multi-spatiality, the design of the generic and the dynamics over time. A six-field matrix is proposed as a conceptual frame, encompassing short- and long-term, and micro, meso and macro elements and leaving implementation as but one out of six aspects. Empirical research shows the long-term drift of an ERP community crosscutting locally and globally, and a single-enterprise case combines implementation and use underlining the marked reconfiguration of ERP modules and processes in a professional service company.

Keywords: enterprise resource planning; ERP; actor network theory; biography; community; organisational change; configuration; multi-spatiality; networks; information systems; professional services.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBIS.2007.012544

International Journal of Business Information Systems, 2007 Vol.2 No.4, pp.426 - 443

Published online: 22 Feb 2007 *

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