Power and Enterprise System Implementation: An Analysis using Clegg's Circuits-of-Power

Recently, Marshall (2006) pointed out that the project management literature was largely silent on issues of organisational power, and further, indicated that where it did appear, power was treated as an aberration or as a negative and damaging phenomenon that needed to be eliminated so that the rational progress of the project could be restored. As part of an answer to Marshall's (2006) implied criticism of the literature, this paper gives a social and political analysis of the power relations in an ES project. The analysis utilises Clegg's Circuits of Power model has a theoretical leans. The interpretive case study presented seeks to explore the power relations in ES projects and to enrich the understanding of both theoreticians and practitioners regarding this phenomenon. The study finds that the careful use of facilitative power and the building of dispositional power in the circuits of social and systemic integration are both necessary for the effective use of causal or coercive power.