Companions Growing Apart: Exploring Actors’ Perceptions with Narratives and Masterplots in ERP Systems Development

Abstract

Collaboration largely determines ERP development success but is fluid with difficulties. We propose them originating from collaborating actors’, such as developers’ and clients’, diverging perceptions. Identifying these perceptions is difficult as they often surface only when the perceptions contradict. In this paper, we utilize the narrative approach, arguing actors being storytellers sharing and living through narratives, to explore an ERP development project where a client and a vendor collaborate in a seeming well-defined manner. Interpreting the actors’ narratives and masterplots shows that they contradict each other. We argue this resulting from the parties’ different perceptions on collaboration, and their unaligned masterplots. This also explains severe problems in the project and illustrates narratives and masterplots as useful for uncovering the actors’ underlying perceptions, driving their actions.