Conclusion
In this paper, we observed the changes in collaboration during a large-scale systems development project, with an industrial corporation as the buyer and a professional services firm as the developer. Together, these parties developed a strategic enterprise system over an extended period of time. Our study found that to succeed in a prolonged collaborative project, the collaboration practices between the parties must shift in response to internal and external incidents, whether they are organizational, technical, personal, or interpersonal. In this case, there were few technical incidents, and these incidents seemed to be easier to manage than the interpersonal and interorganizational incidents.
We identified four collaboration modes—the contract mode, the cooperation mode, the personified mode, and the process mode—which differ in their emphasis, requirements, and regularity and can be deployed in reaction to different situations. The study sheds light on how projects can survive and prosper, even after traumatic events and changes in the development environment, by adjusting their collaboration mode accordingly. Collaboration in large enterprise system projects is never static and rigid. Instead, incidents force the project partners to adjust their collaboration mode dynamically to the new situation and its requirements.
As most large-scale development is executed through different kinds of outsourcing arrangements, the ability to identify these collaboration modes and guidance on when to apply them is valuable. The results contribute directly to the practice and theory of enterprise systems development. They emphasize flexible collaboration in enterprise systems development. Collaboration should be considered a dynamic and flexible process, rather than a rigid and preplanned approach as stated in the delivery contract.
The results also provide effective tools that practitioners can use to navigate unexpected project incidents and their effects on collaboration. The identified collaboration modes are responses to different kind of crises, incidents, and situations in enterprise systems development. The understanding of how they require and emphasize different elements and are solutions to different problems is valuable knowledge for systems development practitioners. The theoretical understanding developed here is a step forward in building a comprehensive theory of collaboration in enterprise systems development. As the conceptualization was based on a single case study, more research on different contexts is needed. Studying changes in collaboration entails long-term observation, which will most likely take place retrospectively, as collaboration modes can be difficult to distinguish and define while they are in use. We recommend that the phenomena be approached qualitatively, such as through ethnography or longitudinal archive research. Experimenting with action and design.
Download full report Research Heroes, contracts, cooperation, and processes: Changes in collaboration in a large enterprise systems project 2021
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