Goal Equivocality and Joint Account of Meaning Creation in an Enterprise System Program

ABSTRACT

Enterprise systems (ES) integrate global goals for the organization and local goals for functional subunits. An organization must arrive at a goal set that directs ES implementation. Constructive controversy theory provides direction for methods that arrive at an integrated system solution when original goals may be equivocal. Data from 142 organizations confirm such approaches are effective. The results contribute to our understanding of how ES implementations face goal equivocality and derive a resolution process.

KEYWORDS:

• Enterprise systems
• goal equivocality
• program management
• constructive controversy theory

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan [109–2410–H–002 −074 -MY3,109–2410–H–224 −020]; National Natural Science Foundation of China [71722014,71731009,71742005,72032006].

Notes on contributors

Jacob Chia-an Tsai

Jacob Chia-An Tsai is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Information Management, National Yunlin University of Science and Technology, Taiwan. His current research interests include information systems (IS) project and program management.

Xiaosong (Jason) Wu

Xiaosong (Jason) Wu is a Ph.D. candidate in the School of Management at Xi’an Jiaotong University. His research interests focus on R&D project management and IT-enabled or digital transformation program management. His work has been published in International Journal of Operations & Production Management, Journal of Management Science and Engineering, and International Journal of Internet and Enterprise Management.

Gary Klein

Gary Klein is the Couger Professor of Information Systems at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs. His research interests include project management, information system development, technology transfer, and mathematical modeling with over 250 academic publications in these areas. He currently serves as an Editor-in-Chief of the Project Management Journal and the Organizational Cybersecurity Journal. Before pursuing an academic career, Dr. Klein consulted in information system deployment as part of a client-oriented firm and was Director of the IS Department for a major financial institution.

James J. Jiang

James J. Jiang is Professor of Management at National Taiwan University (NTU). He was the inaugural recipient of the NTU Fu-Bon Endowed Professorship and the Outstanding Scholar Chair Professorship for the Foundation for the Advancement of Outstanding Scholarship. His research interests are IS Project/Program/Portfolio Management. He has published more than 200 refereed journal articles with more than 12,000 citations (H-index = 57). Prof. Jiang has serviced as Senior Editor of MIS Quarterly and Journal of Association of Information Systems. Currently, he is the Editor-In-Chief of Pacific Asia Journal of the Association for Information Systems.