Power Interactions in Enterprise System Assimilation

摘要

The assimilation of enterprise systems has extensive influence on power interactions within organizations. Previous assimilation research has typically focused on organizational-level assimilation processes, and the impact of individual characteristics, including personal power, has been overlooked. Social network analysis provides a useful way to empirically examine the changes to personal power during the acceptance, routinization, and infusion stages of the organizational assimilation processes. Enterprise system assimilation involves the empowerment of a firm's employees to utilize the technical capabilities of the system, and the employees' extensive business knowledge, to make effective strategic decisions. Nevertheless, power is multidimensional and the relative prominences of the idiosyncratic bases of power in organizational interactions vary asymmetrically in response to system assimilation. A longitudinal examination of the stages of assimilation using a valued network approach to study the power interactions of individuals within an organization can provide a valuable new perspective inside the assimilation process.