Abstract

The international industry of engineering products and services is characterized by high complexity and competition. Corporations that expand globally have experienced that managing interdependent activities and business processes across several countries requires an effective deployment of advanced information technology. Whereas the literature has described implementation of global information systems as a means to coordinate and control the business processes, empirical studies have shown that introducing a large-scale information systems involves several managerial challenges when organizations are geographically dispersed. This paper studies deployment of a global enterprise system to support evolvement of global business processes. On the basis of a qualitative case study of a multinational corporation implementing an enterprise system across several geographical locations, we identify counteracting forces in the process of global standardization of IS and business processes and discuss how the organization try to manage these forces and challenges therein. The findings suggest that global business processes develop through diverse processes of learning and negotiation between local practices of use and infusion of the global enterprise system.

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