Abstract

Though there has been considerable research effort expended on enterprise systems (ES) in general, the issues surrounding the implementation of ES in the public sector are still not well understood. The public sector differs considerably from the private sector in type of stakeholders, regulations, available resources, location restrictions, and organizational culture. An important factor in any large information systems project is employee motivation, which can be defined as the intensity of desire to support the project in performing work related tasks (Pinder 2008). Thus, keeping employees motivated during ES implementation should be a major focus of project managers and administrative leadership. The aim of this study is to gain a better understanding of how public sector organizations motivate their employees during large information systems implementations, such as ES. Employee motivation in the public sector may be intrinsic, determined by general job satisfaction as well as a desire to do good for other people and society (Van den Broeck et al. 2021), however, employee motivation is also affected by explicit rewards, monetary or otherwise (Esteve and Schuster 2019). In this research we use a multi-case study approach, with semi-structured interviews for our primary data source, supplemented with archival documents. Our interviewees were top and middle level officials, information technology managers, ES administrators, and ES users in five city administration offices (City Halls) in Poland. These City Halls had implemented large ES in recent years and have vast experience with such projects. All interviews were recorded, and transcribed, then translated into English. The interview transcripts were analyzed using open coding method supported by MAXQDA, a software program designed for qualitative and mixed methods data analysis. The results of our study confirm that employee motivation is an important driving force in public sector ES implementation. The results also reveal several communication practices, typical for public sector organizations, that promote employee motivation. Trustworthy leadership that demonstrates firm control of the project, as well as effectively communicating the value of the ES implementation, seem to help motivate employees. Conducting regular meetings to resolve existing concerns is also a successful practice to keep up motivation. While economic incentives are persuasive with some employees, offering non-monetary rewards, such as providing specialized training, promising promotion, and opening career paths seem to be effective in motivating as well. Furthermore, making frequent intermediate versions of the system available helps maintain interest and motivation during a lengthy implementation project. References Esteve, M., and Schuster, C. 2019. "Motivating Public Employees." Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pinder, C. 2008. Work motivation in organizational behavior, (2nd ed.). Psychology Press. Van den Broeck, A., Howard, J.L., Van Vaerenbergh, Y., Leroy, H., and Gagné, M. 2021. "Beyond intrinsic and extrinsic motivation: A meta-analysis on self-determination theory’s multidimensional conceptualization of work motivation," Organizational Psychology Review (11:3), pp. 240-273.

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