The aim of this thesis is to provide an original interpretative rationale of the role and effect of culture which may influence the development of a modern Small to Medium sized Enterprise (SME). Substantively, the research is two-fold: firstly, to examine organisational culture and, secondly, its relationship with IT implementations, specifically computer-based Management Information Systems (MIS). An extensive literature review has revealed a lack of synthesis between organisational culture and computer-based implementations, particularly in the SME environment. The research uses an approach based on ethnographic methods from qualitative research within inductivist confines. A thirty-month ethnographic study at a small engineering firm, verified and validated by triangulation techniques, has been used to form a Conceptual Model for successful MIS implementation. This new Model has been validated in several, unconnected, external organisations. The main case-study is supported by smaller studies which has provided a holistic (and therefore more realistic) view of the complexity of organisational culture. It is emphasised that achieving a change in organisational culture is a deeply political and turbulent process. Due regard must be given to managerial, cultural, organisational, human, technical, psychological and political issues. The research takes full account of these factors and discusses the importance of core competency, both from the organisation and its actors, to facilitate and realise effective cultural change. The Model proposed is one methodology for implementation in organisations with cultural and organisational difficulties. Due to the intricacies and complexity of culture, the implementation strategy is potentially a lengthy process. Contributions are made to knowledge in a number of different arenas. Firstly, a contribution is made in the area of IT change management by proposing a new Model for MIS implementation. The Model is given credibility having been verified and validated at several external organisations. Secondly, a contribution is made in the area of organisational theory as the SME focus provides this vital sector of the business community with additional, pertinent, information when undergoing IT implementations. Finally, the research contributes to knowledge in the area of research methodology as the novel combination of diverse paradigms has resulted in a new research approach for use in the SME environment.

The use of digital communication has become more interesting for organizations since the rise of globalization and liberation of markets. It allows employees within multinational companies to communicate effectively with each other. The use of digital communication when managing global, IT-enabled change is, however, an area that has not received much attention from scholars. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to investigate use of digital communication in a global IT change project. Iveroth (2010) argues that a high degree of willingness to change is achieved when employees understand the intended change, accept the meaning of the change, have an interest in changing and finally act accordingly towards the new intended state (behaviour). Thus, a research question needed to be addressed: How do employees perceive digital communication and what impact does this communication have on their willingness to change? The study was carried out within a global organization that performed an IT change project in which a content management system (CMS) was updated from an old to a new platform. With support from the chosen theoretical framework, empirical data was then collected through interviews, observations and document analysis during a 10-week internship. To grasp the full complexity of IT change, a meta-framework was used as the theoretical framework of this study. Since the meta-framework focuses on how change leaders can manage successful IT change, and does not solely focus on communication aspects within an IT change initiative, extensions of relevant organizational change communication theories were included in the framework. The result showed that when change leaders use digital communication in an IT change initiative, it has a strong effect on how employees perceive communication. In general, we found patterns indicating that the use of digital communication can create a certain amount of understanding for a global IT change initiative among employees. However, reaching meaning, interest and behaviour among employees is more complex.

O planejamento de mudanças é um elemento-chave para a gerência e a operação de infraestruturas de redes e serviços. Ele compreende desde a especificação, em alto nível, de requisições e planos preliminares de mudança (por um operador da mudança) até a geração, possivelmente automatizada, de planos detalhados que, se executados, concretizarão as mudanças solicitadas (por exemplo, alteração da configuração de dispositivos de rede e implantação de novos serviços). Por limitação das soluções de refinamento existentes, um problema fundamental é que, embora corretos, tais planos de mudança podem não necessariamente estar alinhados com os propósitos definidos em nível de negócio (ex: minimização do tempo de indisponibilidade de um dado serviço). Outro problema encontrado no planejamento de mudanças de TI é a ausência de modelos e algoritmos para realizar a especificação adequada da associação de humanos a tarefas. A correta especificação pode impactar em resultados mais otimizados (menor custo de execução) e com maior qualidade (conformidade com as habilidades/experiências, requeridas pelas atividades, e adquiridas pelos recursos humanos). Para abordar estes problemas, nesta dissertação propõe-se uma solução para alinhar o planejamento de mudanças em infraestruturas de TI a objetivos/restrições de negócio, utilizando estratégias inovadoras de alocação de humanos a atividades. A solução proposta é avaliada experimentalmente por meio da implementação prototípica de um sistema de suporte à decisão denominado CHANGEADVISOR, o qual auxilia os gerentes de TI a entender o "compromisso" entre planos de mudança alternativos e a efetuar escolhas mais adequadas aos propósitos de negócio. / Change planning represents a key element for the operation and management of Information Technology infrastructures and services. Its scope ranges from the high level design of change requests and change plans (by an operator) to the generation, possibly automated, of detailed plans that, if executed, will perform the requested changes (e.g., modification of network device settings and deployment of new services). A fundamental problem - considering the limitations of existing refinement solutions - is that, although correct, these refined change plans can not necessarily be aligned with the purposes defined in the business level (eg, minimizing the downtime of a particular service). Another problem encountered in the IT change planning is the absence of models and algorithms to achieve the correct association of human to tasks. These correct association can impact in results more optimized (lower cost of deployment) and with higher quality (according to the skills/experience required for the activities and acquired by human resources). To overcome this problem, in this thesis we propose a solution for the alignment of change plans with business objectives/constraints using novel strategies for the human assignments to activities. The proposed solution is experimentally evaluated through a prototypical implementation of a decision support system called CHANGEADVISOR, which helps IT managers to understand the trade-offs between alternative change designs and to choose change plans more aligned to the business purposes.

As atuais pesquisas em gerência de mudança em um ambiente de TI (Tecnologia de Informação) têm explorado diferentes aspectos desta nova disciplina, porém normalmente assumindo que as mudanças expressas em documentos de Requisição de Mudanças (RFC – Request for Change) são sempre executadas com sucesso sobre uma determinada infraestrutura de TI. Esse cenário, muitas vezes, pode não refletir a realidade em sistemas de TI, pois falhas durante a execução de mudanças podem ocorrer e não devem ser simplesmente ignoradas. Para abordar esta questão, esta dissertação propõe uma solução onde atividades em um plano de mudança podem ser agrupadas, formando grupos atômicos. Esses grupos são atômicos no sentido de que quando uma atividade falha, todas as outras atividades já executadas do mesmo grupo precisam retroceder para o último estado consistente. Automatizar o processo de rollback em mudanças pode ser especialmente conveniente no sentido de que não seja necessário um operador humano desfazer manualmente as atividades que falharam de um determinado grupo atômico. Para avaliar a solução proposta e a sua viabilidade técnica foi implementado um protótipo que, usando elementos da linguagem BPEL (Business Process Execution Language), torna-se possível definir como sistemas de gerenciamento de mudanças em TI devem se comportar para capturar e identificar falhas. Os resultados mostram que a solução proposta não somente gera planos completos e corretos com base em marcações de atomicidade, mas também que a geração dos planos de rollback interfere minimamente no processo de agendamento de mudanças. / The current research on IT change management has been investigating several aspects of this new discipline, but they are usually carried out assuming that changes expressed in Requests for Change (RFC) documents will be successfully executed over the managed IT infrastructure. This assumption, however, is not realistic in actual IT systems because failures during the execution of changes do happen and cannot be ignored. In order to address this issue, we propose a solution where tightly-related change activities are grouped together forming atomic groups of activities. These groups are atomic in the sense that if one activity fails, all other already executed activities of the same group must rollback to move the system backwards to the previous consistent state. The automation of change rollback is especially convenient because it relieves the IT human operator of manually undoing the activities of a change group that has failed. To prove concept and technical feasibility of our proposed solution, we have implemented a prototype system that, using elements of the Business Process Execution Language (BPEL), is able to control how atomic groups of activities must be handled in IT change management systems. Results showed that the rollback solution not only generates complete and correct plans given a set of atomicity marks, but also that the rollback plan generation minimally interferes in the change scheduling process.

O planejamento de mudanças é um elemento-chave para a gerência e a operação de infraestruturas de redes e serviços. Ele compreende desde a especificação, em alto nível, de requisições e planos preliminares de mudança (por um operador da mudança) até a geração, possivelmente automatizada, de planos detalhados que, se executados, concretizarão as mudanças solicitadas (por exemplo, alteração da configuração de dispositivos de rede e implantação de novos serviços). Por limitação das soluções de refinamento existentes, um problema fundamental é que, embora corretos, tais planos de mudança podem não necessariamente estar alinhados com os propósitos definidos em nível de negócio (ex: minimização do tempo de indisponibilidade de um dado serviço). Outro problema encontrado no planejamento de mudanças de TI é a ausência de modelos e algoritmos para realizar a especificação adequada da associação de humanos a tarefas. A correta especificação pode impactar em resultados mais otimizados (menor custo de execução) e com maior qualidade (conformidade com as habilidades/experiências, requeridas pelas atividades, e adquiridas pelos recursos humanos). Para abordar estes problemas, nesta dissertação propõe-se uma solução para alinhar o planejamento de mudanças em infraestruturas de TI a objetivos/restrições de negócio, utilizando estratégias inovadoras de alocação de humanos a atividades. A solução proposta é avaliada experimentalmente por meio da implementação prototípica de um sistema de suporte à decisão denominado CHANGEADVISOR, o qual auxilia os gerentes de TI a entender o "compromisso" entre planos de mudança alternativos e a efetuar escolhas mais adequadas aos propósitos de negócio. / Change planning represents a key element for the operation and management of Information Technology infrastructures and services. Its scope ranges from the high level design of change requests and change plans (by an operator) to the generation, possibly automated, of detailed plans that, if executed, will perform the requested changes (e.g., modification of network device settings and deployment of new services). A fundamental problem - considering the limitations of existing refinement solutions - is that, although correct, these refined change plans can not necessarily be aligned with the purposes defined in the business level (eg, minimizing the downtime of a particular service). Another problem encountered in the IT change planning is the absence of models and algorithms to achieve the correct association of human to tasks. These correct association can impact in results more optimized (lower cost of deployment) and with higher quality (according to the skills/experience required for the activities and acquired by human resources). To overcome this problem, in this thesis we propose a solution for the alignment of change plans with business objectives/constraints using novel strategies for the human assignments to activities. The proposed solution is experimentally evaluated through a prototypical implementation of a decision support system called CHANGEADVISOR, which helps IT managers to understand the trade-offs between alternative change designs and to choose change plans more aligned to the business purposes.

As atuais pesquisas em gerência de mudança em um ambiente de TI (Tecnologia de Informação) têm explorado diferentes aspectos desta nova disciplina, porém normalmente assumindo que as mudanças expressas em documentos de Requisição de Mudanças (RFC – Request for Change) são sempre executadas com sucesso sobre uma determinada infraestrutura de TI. Esse cenário, muitas vezes, pode não refletir a realidade em sistemas de TI, pois falhas durante a execução de mudanças podem ocorrer e não devem ser simplesmente ignoradas. Para abordar esta questão, esta dissertação propõe uma solução onde atividades em um plano de mudança podem ser agrupadas, formando grupos atômicos. Esses grupos são atômicos no sentido de que quando uma atividade falha, todas as outras atividades já executadas do mesmo grupo precisam retroceder para o último estado consistente. Automatizar o processo de rollback em mudanças pode ser especialmente conveniente no sentido de que não seja necessário um operador humano desfazer manualmente as atividades que falharam de um determinado grupo atômico. Para avaliar a solução proposta e a sua viabilidade técnica foi implementado um protótipo que, usando elementos da linguagem BPEL (Business Process Execution Language), torna-se possível definir como sistemas de gerenciamento de mudanças em TI devem se comportar para capturar e identificar falhas. Os resultados mostram que a solução proposta não somente gera planos completos e corretos com base em marcações de atomicidade, mas também que a geração dos planos de rollback interfere minimamente no processo de agendamento de mudanças. / The current research on IT change management has been investigating several aspects of this new discipline, but they are usually carried out assuming that changes expressed in Requests for Change (RFC) documents will be successfully executed over the managed IT infrastructure. This assumption, however, is not realistic in actual IT systems because failures during the execution of changes do happen and cannot be ignored. In order to address this issue, we propose a solution where tightly-related change activities are grouped together forming atomic groups of activities. These groups are atomic in the sense that if one activity fails, all other already executed activities of the same group must rollback to move the system backwards to the previous consistent state. The automation of change rollback is especially convenient because it relieves the IT human operator of manually undoing the activities of a change group that has failed. To prove concept and technical feasibility of our proposed solution, we have implemented a prototype system that, using elements of the Business Process Execution Language (BPEL), is able to control how atomic groups of activities must be handled in IT change management systems. Results showed that the rollback solution not only generates complete and correct plans given a set of atomicity marks, but also that the rollback plan generation minimally interferes in the change scheduling process.

O planejamento de mudanças é um elemento-chave para a gerência e a operação de infraestruturas de redes e serviços. Ele compreende desde a especificação, em alto nível, de requisições e planos preliminares de mudança (por um operador da mudança) até a geração, possivelmente automatizada, de planos detalhados que, se executados, concretizarão as mudanças solicitadas (por exemplo, alteração da configuração de dispositivos de rede e implantação de novos serviços). Por limitação das soluções de refinamento existentes, um problema fundamental é que, embora corretos, tais planos de mudança podem não necessariamente estar alinhados com os propósitos definidos em nível de negócio (ex: minimização do tempo de indisponibilidade de um dado serviço). Outro problema encontrado no planejamento de mudanças de TI é a ausência de modelos e algoritmos para realizar a especificação adequada da associação de humanos a tarefas. A correta especificação pode impactar em resultados mais otimizados (menor custo de execução) e com maior qualidade (conformidade com as habilidades/experiências, requeridas pelas atividades, e adquiridas pelos recursos humanos). Para abordar estes problemas, nesta dissertação propõe-se uma solução para alinhar o planejamento de mudanças em infraestruturas de TI a objetivos/restrições de negócio, utilizando estratégias inovadoras de alocação de humanos a atividades. A solução proposta é avaliada experimentalmente por meio da implementação prototípica de um sistema de suporte à decisão denominado CHANGEADVISOR, o qual auxilia os gerentes de TI a entender o "compromisso" entre planos de mudança alternativos e a efetuar escolhas mais adequadas aos propósitos de negócio. / Change planning represents a key element for the operation and management of Information Technology infrastructures and services. Its scope ranges from the high level design of change requests and change plans (by an operator) to the generation, possibly automated, of detailed plans that, if executed, will perform the requested changes (e.g., modification of network device settings and deployment of new services). A fundamental problem - considering the limitations of existing refinement solutions - is that, although correct, these refined change plans can not necessarily be aligned with the purposes defined in the business level (eg, minimizing the downtime of a particular service). Another problem encountered in the IT change planning is the absence of models and algorithms to achieve the correct association of human to tasks. These correct association can impact in results more optimized (lower cost of deployment) and with higher quality (according to the skills/experience required for the activities and acquired by human resources). To overcome this problem, in this thesis we propose a solution for the alignment of change plans with business objectives/constraints using novel strategies for the human assignments to activities. The proposed solution is experimentally evaluated through a prototypical implementation of a decision support system called CHANGEADVISOR, which helps IT managers to understand the trade-offs between alternative change designs and to choose change plans more aligned to the business purposes.

As atuais pesquisas em gerência de mudança em um ambiente de TI (Tecnologia de Informação) têm explorado diferentes aspectos desta nova disciplina, porém normalmente assumindo que as mudanças expressas em documentos de Requisição de Mudanças (RFC – Request for Change) são sempre executadas com sucesso sobre uma determinada infraestrutura de TI. Esse cenário, muitas vezes, pode não refletir a realidade em sistemas de TI, pois falhas durante a execução de mudanças podem ocorrer e não devem ser simplesmente ignoradas. Para abordar esta questão, esta dissertação propõe uma solução onde atividades em um plano de mudança podem ser agrupadas, formando grupos atômicos. Esses grupos são atômicos no sentido de que quando uma atividade falha, todas as outras atividades já executadas do mesmo grupo precisam retroceder para o último estado consistente. Automatizar o processo de rollback em mudanças pode ser especialmente conveniente no sentido de que não seja necessário um operador humano desfazer manualmente as atividades que falharam de um determinado grupo atômico. Para avaliar a solução proposta e a sua viabilidade técnica foi implementado um protótipo que, usando elementos da linguagem BPEL (Business Process Execution Language), torna-se possível definir como sistemas de gerenciamento de mudanças em TI devem se comportar para capturar e identificar falhas. Os resultados mostram que a solução proposta não somente gera planos completos e corretos com base em marcações de atomicidade, mas também que a geração dos planos de rollback interfere minimamente no processo de agendamento de mudanças. / The current research on IT change management has been investigating several aspects of this new discipline, but they are usually carried out assuming that changes expressed in Requests for Change (RFC) documents will be successfully executed over the managed IT infrastructure. This assumption, however, is not realistic in actual IT systems because failures during the execution of changes do happen and cannot be ignored. In order to address this issue, we propose a solution where tightly-related change activities are grouped together forming atomic groups of activities. These groups are atomic in the sense that if one activity fails, all other already executed activities of the same group must rollback to move the system backwards to the previous consistent state. The automation of change rollback is especially convenient because it relieves the IT human operator of manually undoing the activities of a change group that has failed. To prove concept and technical feasibility of our proposed solution, we have implemented a prototype system that, using elements of the Business Process Execution Language (BPEL), is able to control how atomic groups of activities must be handled in IT change management systems. Results showed that the rollback solution not only generates complete and correct plans given a set of atomicity marks, but also that the rollback plan generation minimally interferes in the change scheduling process.

Rapporten har ett fokus på Byggnads Informations Modeller (BIM), ett IT-tekniskt verktyg och arbetssätt som har vuxit fram i byggbranschen alltmer under de senaste åren. Hur detta IT-verktyg används hos medelstora byggentreprenadföretag redovisas i denna rapport.Syftet med rapporten är att verka positivt på utvecklingen mot effektivare och resurssnålare arbetsprocesser inom byggbranschen genom att bidra med kunskap om hur användandet av BIM ser ut bland dessa företag, varför det ser ut som det gör, ifall BIM behövs och vad som kan förändra läget i någon riktning.Metodarbetet har bestått av litteraturstudier och intervjuundersökningar.Arbetet inleddes med studier av rapporter och texter relaterade till BIM och intervjuer med representanter för ledande branschföretag inom bygg samt ett par branschorganisationer med inriktning på BIM. Därefter följde ytterligare litteraturstudier med inriktning på förändring och förändringsarbete och enkät och intervjuteknik. Arbetet ledde fram till olika grundteser och förklaringsmodeller som låg till grund för och utformade de intervjufrågor som ställdes vid huvudintervjuerna med elva medelstora byggentreprenadföretag.Huvudintervjuerna gav ett resultat som visade att företagen generellt sett såg på BIM som något positivt, med fördelar såsom lättare kommunikation och som ett hjälpmedel att minska fel i produktionen. Resultatet visade även att det fanns utmaningar såsom mjukvarukompabilitet och en beroendeproblematik mellan projektets involverade parter som innebar att för att tekniken ska kunna ge fördelar måste alla parter använda tekniken.Förklaringarna till det låga användandet bland medelstora byggentreprenadföretag var flera, vanligast var brist på krav från beställarna. Förklaringarna var också avsaknad av behov, kostsamma investeringar, konkurrerande målsättningar, kompabilitetsproblem med mjukvaror och avsaknad av kunskap om BIM.För att gynna en större användning föreslås att tekniska hinder elimineras genom standardisering och utveckling av arbetssättet och mjukvaran rörande BIM, det föreslås också att konkurrerande målsättningar elimineras genom kunskapsspridning om BIM i branschen, både hos entreprenörerna, -för att främja god utbildning så att personalen vill arbeta med tekniken, och hos beställare, -så att de börjar efterfråga BIM och därigenom ger tekniken konkurrensfördelar. / The report has a focus on Building Information Models (BIM), an IT-technical tool- and workmethod that have emerged increasingly in the construction industry in recent years. How this IT tool is used in medium-sized building construction companies is presented in this report.The purpose of the report is to promote positive development towards more efficient and resource-efficient work processes in the construction industry by providing knowledge on how the use of BIM exists among these companies, why it is the way it is, if BIM is needed and what can change the current status in any direction.The work-method has consisted of literature studies and interview surveys.The work began with studies of reports and texts related to BIM and interviews with representatives of leading construction industry companies and a couple of industry organizations with focus on BIM. This was followed by continued literary studies focused on change and change management, survey and interview techniques. This work led to various basic theories and explanatory models as the basis for and the design of the interview questions asked at the main interviews.The main interviews was conducted with eleven medium-sized building construction companies and gave a result that showed that companies generally looked at BIM as something positive with advantages such as easier communication and as a means to reduce errors in production. The result also brought some light to the fact that there existed challenges like software compatibility and dependency between the parties involved in the project, which means that for the technology to be able to provide wanted benefits all parties involved have to use the workmethod.The reasons for the low usage among medium sized construction contractors was several, the most common was the lack of demands of the clients. The reasons were also the absence of need, costly investments, competing objectives, compatibility issues with software and lack of knowledge of BIM.In order to promote a greater usage of BIM it is proposed that the technical obstacles are eliminated through standardization and development of the processing method and software, it is also proposed that the competing objectives are eliminated by spreading and increasing knowledge of BIM in the industry, both amongst entrepreneurs, -to promote good staff training so that the staff will want to work with the technology, and amongst construction clients, -so that they start asking for BIM and thereby provide the technology with a competitive edge.

ICT development and deployment and supporting policies take place within a fiercely contested globalised political economy. For organisations there is a pervasiveness of change processes, often externally imposed, which are rising with these globalising effects. This not only implies that the context in which organisations are situated is continuously changing, but also that the nature of the organisation itself is subject to change (Van Tonder, 2004). However, the external influences imposed on an organisation are often heterogeneous and make the management of adapting to the external environment extremely complex. This thesis explores such an externally imposed change on an organisation around the implementation of a contentious national policy. This entails not only dealing with the more usual dimensions of change in an organisation, but also the implications of the national debate and contentions around the national policy playing out in the local setting of the organisation. In this thesis the change explored is within a government department from a proprietary Enterprise Content Management (ECM) system to an open source ECM system. An interpretative approach was followed, using a longitudinal case study. Two main aspects of this change process are explored. The first is the impact of the national open source policy on government departments - an externally imposed change of mission, vision and values. The second is how internally the government department changed its internal work processes and information systems to comply with that policy. These two aspects are intertwined. Alignment of the organisation mission, values and objectives, with the proposed technological innovation and change management models emerges as a necessary condition for managing change. However, what emerged as a more challenging issue was whether internal organisational changes can be aligned with contentious national policy imperatives. Three theoretical lenses are used to explore this contentious issue: the HEM model of Du Plooy’s (1998); the improvisational change management model of Orlikowski and Hofman (1997); and institutional theory as it applies to Information Systems. The improvisational change model of Orlikowski and Hofman (1997) in combination with Du Plooy’s (1998) HEM model, was used to understand the change process unfolding in the implementation of an OS ECM system in a Government department in SA. The result of this application is some practical recommendations for government officials on future OS implementations, as well as a theoretical add-on to extend the change management model applied. The researcher found that models can increase our understanding and reveal how one can ‘cultivate’ the human environment within which technology is to be implemented. However, the process of developing an understanding of how national policy was developed and the rationale for it was also found to be important, as is developing an understanding of the rationale of this particular department for choosing to implement the OS ECM system. By adding to, or expanding on Orlikowski and Hoffman’s (1997) model to include a fourth element, indicating the external forces in the environment, such as government regulations; government policy; and the debate on global and national FOSS versus PS, highlights the need for this external alignment as well as prevents the focus on internal alignment only. Institutional theory was consequently applied in an attempt to unpack the organisational and change management dimensions of the change model, aiming at understanding the institutional forces which legitimates or contradicts the technical/rational ideas and actions of the change. The findings were threefold. Firstly, the role played by IS as an institutional process in and of itself and the way in which this could have affected the implementation of the new OS ECM system was discussed, pointing to the possibility that the new system was not necessarily being implemented to streamline the work practices, but rather due to its institutional status of being a ‘rational myth’; something which had to be done as ‘it’s just the right thing to do.” Secondly, OSS and PS were argued to be different ‘types’ of institutions. Using the institutional pillars it was argued that OSS and PS were driven by different institutional forces, with PS leaning towards the regulative pillar and OSS being more in line with the normative pillar. These two institutions were found to mainly differ with regard to their basis of compliance and the logic behind them. The insights offered by this argument revealed that when changing from OSS to PS, it would be very valuable to recognise that OSS and PS are two different ‘types’ of institutions, and to not only understand that the new system could therefore change the organisational processes when it is implemented, but to also acknowledge the change which will take place within the IS/IT institution itself – moving from the regulative to the normative. The change should thus be understood both within the two different IS innovations themselves, and in how these two innovations interact. Lastly, the research in this thesis went beyond the technical/rational actions of the stakeholders, and included an in depth analysis of the institutional forces at play in the broader social context of the Government department. It explained the institutions which were at play on the international, national and organisational levels, pointing out which of these forces worked in favour of or against the technical/rational actions, and in the process contributed to the unexpected outcome of the new OS ECM implementation process. / Thesis (PhD-- University of Pretoria, 2014 / Informatics / unrestricted