While IT can be seen as leveraging dynamic capabilities, it can also be considered as a core organizational capability for exploitation, and thus as a dimension of socio-technical inertia. This paper investigates the latter. When the environment becomes uncertain or when organizations engage in an organizational transformation, inertia or the propensity of an organization to continue its run on the same path is dangerous. Based on a survey with 108 senior managers, this paper investigates the relationships between three dynamic capabilities and Socio-Technical (ST) inertia. Results supports the general idea that the greater the capability to sense weak signals, to routinize experience of past transformations, and to reconfigure strategic resources, the lower the ST inertia. Moreover, the effect of reconfiguring is amplified with the uncertainty of the environment. Identification and understanding of particular contingencies such as firm size and industry can shed additional light on this phenomenon.

Les difficultes du deploiement des ERP soulevent une interrogation troublante : avons nous la maturite et les competences manageriales de cette technologie ? A partir d'une analyse de la conflictualite extraordinaire des ERP, l'auteur demontre que la cause principale de l'echec reside dans les limites cognitives des concepteurs d'ERP. Ceux-ci se trompent de concept d'organisation. Ils abordent les ERP comme s'il s'agissait d'implementer un dispositif technique sans consequence significatives sur les systemes de metiers, d'influence et de valeur des parties prenantes. L'auteur souligne ainsi que la diffusion des nouvelles technologies de l'organisation telles que les ERP suppose une fondation du cadre conceptuel de l'ingenierie organisationnelle atour de trois concepts cles de processus, de changement et de projet.

Les difficultés du déploiement des ERP soulèvent une interrogation troublante : avons-nous la maturité et les compétences managériales de cette technologie ? A partir d’une analyse de la conflictualité extraordinaire des projets ERP, l’auteur démontre que la cause principale de l’échec réside dans les limites cognitives des concepteurs d’ERP. Ceux-ci se trompent de concept d’organisation. Ils abordent le projet ERP comme s’il s’agissait d’implanter un dispositif technique sans conséquence organisationnelle significative sur les systèmes de métiers, d’influence et de valeurs des parties prenantes. L’auteur souligne ainsi que la diffusion des nouvelles technologies de l’organisation telles que les ERP suppose une fondation du cadre conceptuel de l’ingénierie organisationnelle autour des trois concepts-clés de processus, de changement et de projet.

Twenty years after the promise of Information Systems enabling Organizational Transformation (IS-enabled OT), what have we learned? This paper reviews the literature in order to better understand this phenomenon. As specialists in IS, strategy and organizational studies, we analyze the discourse on OT found in the strategy, organizational theory and IS literature, and identify four structuring themes: organizational inertia, process, agency and performance. We apply the coding derived from these themes to a set of 62 empirical papers and discuss the results. Ten research avenues are then identified to show that IS-enabled OT is still a new frontier for strategic information systems research.

PurposeResearch has recognized the importance of middle management in the strategy process. Nonetheless, two questions raised by the involvement of middle management remain largely unexplored; they are central to this study. The first question concerns the conditions of this involvement. Before the 1970s, middle managers were subjected to operational processes. During the 1980s and 1990s they often embodied bureaucratic unwieldiness. How, then, has an actor in an organization migrated from a position excluded from the strategy process to a key position in this process? The second question concerns the functioning of the strategy process itself: what are the conditions of strategic creativity in this type of expanded process? This paper aims to address these issues.Design/methodology/approachThe approach taken is that of a longitudinal case study.FindingsOn the basis of a seven‐year longitudinal case study of strategy practices in a firm facing radical change, this article pinpoints two research results. The first result shows that becoming a strategist is not the simple result of training in strategy techniques. Involvement in the strategy process goes beyond the cognitive dimension; it entails the construction of new systems of roles and identities, along with development of appropriate dialogue modes. The second result is more interesting, and was largely unpredicted. The observations indicate that to achieve the necessary strategic creativity, the strategizing process itself must be transformed. If strategy is envisioned as an emerging social reality made up of strong situations and interactions between strategists, in a dynamic context structured by role systems, spatial and temporal conditions and discourse, developing a new strategy necessitates transformation of its social fabric.Practical implicationsUnderstanding the microprocesses at play in the inclusion of middle managers in the strategy process is important to help companies better conceive and apply their policy of including middle managers in the strategy process. This entails the definition of activity content and new skills required, along with career and loyalty building, and of the forms of organization in which middle managers evolve and develop. In this sense, the approach we proposed can be practical for companies and their stakeholders facing these challenges.Originality/valueThe longitudinal and very detailed case study over a long period of middle managers doing strategy during a radical change situation.

Le thème de la transformation organisationnelle est particulièrement relié à la spécialité des systèmes d’information. Cet article propose une lecture du phénomène de la transformation a partir d’une littérature choisie qu’elle synthétise en quatre thématiques : 1) la nature de l’initiative de transformation, 2) l’écologie de la transformation, 3) le processus de transformation, 4) les résultats de la transformation et leur mesure. Puis il revient sur les théories qui traitent plus directement, mais partiellement, le phénomène pour mieux en dresser les postures, les forces et les manques et situer les travaux présentés dans ce numéro spécial de la revue. Il met en évidence que la recherche sur la transformation organisationnelle doit être renforcée sur les thématiques du processus de transformation auquel ce numéro de Systèmes d’Information et Management contribue particulièrement et sur celle de l’évaluation des résultats et de sa mesure.

Merging two firms, developing a service offer solution within a product culture, introducing performance culture into a public administration, restructuring an industrial, logistical or commercial system, rebalancing global/local relationships within a matrix or carrying out an ambitious performance programme—these are the organisational transformation initiatives that lie at the heart of corporate strategic manoeuvring. What sort of tactical repertoire does a business executive require to be successful in this domain? Transformation initiatives' surprisingly high failure rate makes this an exceedingly topical question.KeywordsHigh Failure RateMiddle ManagerHarvard Business SchoolOrganisational TransformationBusiness ExecutiveThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

Résumé Des managers intermédiaires jouent un rôle majeur dans les grandes entreprises face à la turbulence des marchés. Pour eux, c’est une nouvelle posture managériale à endosser qui n’est pas évidente. Cette posture est faite de capacités d’action et de rôles mobilisables dans des configurations de parties prenantes et de contextes diversifiés. Nous abordons la question de l’ingénierie sociale du dialogue stratégique et des nouvelles frontières des fonctions de direction.

L es dirigeants sont préoccupés par le développement des capacités stratégiques de leurs managers intermédiaires. Nous analysons ici les actions de développement proposées au management intermédiaire et les dispositifs d’apprentissage correspondant à ces actions. Nous proposons une typologie et un cadre explicatif pour mieux comprendre la portée et les limites des actions de formation-transformation proposées. Face à la prolifération d’une offre de formation qui submerge les entreprises, le cadre d’analyse proposé nous semble de nature à discriminer les actions proposées selon leurs capacités à construire un nouveau profil de dirigeant intermédiaire, acteur essentiel de la manœuvre stratégique requise désormais par les grands groupes en transformation rapide. En première hypothèse, nous considérons que les actions proposées se différencient selon le degré de compréhension du jeu stratégique et d’implication dans la recomposition du processus stratégique de la part des acteurs qui conçoivent ces actions. Pour formuler notre deuxième hypothèse, il nous faut préciser ce qui, selon nous, est au cœur des processus concrets d’organisation : les routines organisationnelles. La façon dont ces routines sont mises en question différencie les types d’action de développement managérial. Notre recherche se base sur une enquête dans huit grandes entreprises d’origine française.

Different views on change and IT- related outcomes have been proposed in the literature. Most privilege the technological deterministic and organizational imperative positions. This article introduces two types of process views on change arising from designers' inability to forecast the impacts of ERP on work and governance:• a dialectical process due to the lack of perceived leeway by the actors, and• a teleological process view, where actors feel they have more leeway and where they try to take advantage of technological effects that they feel they can controlBuilding on the concept of enactment and on the nature of conflicts, this work demonstrates the necessity to articulate these views in a theoretical framework describing the dynamics of ERP projects.This framework is employed to interpret problems arising from ERP choice and implementation in the French context. During the "chartering phase," the deterministic vision dominates the perceptions of designers. During the "project phase," the designers come closer to the organizational imperative view when they customize the system and make integration/differentiation choices. During the "shakedown" and subsequent phases, organizational outcomes are often not realized because of job and governance conflicts with end users.