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Conflicting Institutional Logics and the Loose Coupling of Practice with NASA's Enterprise Information System

Berente, Nicholas

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2009, Doctor of Philosophy, Case Western Reserve University, Management.

This dissertation reports on an exploration of the interaction of standardized, linear, mechanistic enterprise information systems with the often pluralistic, nonlinear, organic contexts into which they are introduced. This exploration involves three independent studies: (1) a qualitative meta-analysis of published, interpretive case studies on the adoption of enterprise systems; (2) a study of conflicting institutional logics and loose coupling in the wake of NASA’s ERP implementation; and (3) a study of the dynamics of this loose coupling and related effects across the four years post implementation.

The goal of the research is to theorize about the causes and effects of loose coupling between local practices and an enterprise system. Findings indicate that in situations where the institutional logics associated with incumbent practices conflict with the institutional logics of the enterprise system, the result will likely involve some form of loose coupling between those practices and the system. Local responses to the system are not uniform within organizations nor within communities of practice, but instead appear to align with society’s broader institutions that guide micro-level behavior. Thus, the theoretical device of an institutional logic is put forth to aid researchers in explaining regularities in adaptive behavior associated with enterprise systems within institutionally pluralistic organizations.

This research also finds that incidents of loose coupling early in the implementation tend stabilize over time into states of loosely coupled equilibrium rather than into the tight alignment that is often assumed to be necessary for system success. Thus, “stability” is found to be a key objective relating to enterprise system implementation in addition to the presumptive goals of integration and control. The relationships between loosely coupled stability, integration, and control are multifaceted across three levels of analysis: (1) activities within processes; (2) overall processes; and (3) the organizational level. Loose coupling that undermines integration and control associated with activities in an organizational process can be vital to establishing the enterprise system stability. This stability, in turn, may enable certain forms of integration and control at an overall process level of analysis. Further, due in part to the legitimizing influence that a stable enterprise system affords, the tightly coupled enterprise system can counter-intuitively be viewed as an enabler of NASA’s loosely coupled organizational structures.

Kalle Lyytinen, PhD (Committee Chair)
Youngjin Yoo, PhD (Committee Co-Chair)
Richard J. Boland, PhD (Committee Member)
Susan Helper, PhD (Committee Member)
Betty Vandenbosch, PhD (Committee Member)
313 p.

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Berente, N. (2009). Conflicting Institutional Logics and the Loose Coupling of Practice with NASA's Enterprise Information System [Doctoral dissertation, Case Western Reserve University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=case1228496125

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Berente, Nicholas. Conflicting Institutional Logics and the Loose Coupling of Practice with NASA's Enterprise Information System. 2009. Case Western Reserve University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=case1228496125.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Berente, Nicholas. "Conflicting Institutional Logics and the Loose Coupling of Practice with NASA's Enterprise Information System." Doctoral dissertation, Case Western Reserve University, 2009. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=case1228496125

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)