723G79/80
Enterprise systems
Özgün Imre
[email protected]
EIS-IE Linköping University
2016-05-13
Agenda
•  Project reminders
•  Lecture
2
• 
Feldman, Martha S., and James G. March. 1981. “Information in
Organizations as Signal and Symbol.” Administrative Science Quarterly 26
(2): 171–186.
• 
Kotter, John P. 1982. “What Effective General Managers Really Do.”
Harvard Business Review 60 (6): 156–167
Reminders
•  Method
•  Theory
•  Purpose
•  Begin working now
•  Doable trumps excellent
•  We didn’t have a lot of time is not a good excuse!
3
Information
•  Today we are living in the information age
•  Everybody is connected to each other
•  The network society
•  For good and the bad!!!
4
Hoarding information
•  Some things to consider:
•  We already have a lot of information, why do we want more?
•  How do we use the existing information?
•  How do you think we will use the extra information?
5
Human vs machine
•  This has been a long time debate
•  Should the humans adapt to the “best” system
•  Should the system adapt to the humans
•  Today we still have no answer
6
Seeking information
•  Cost benefit analysis
•  Explicit or implicit
•  For future pay-offs, for reducing uncertainty etc
•  To improve our decisions we need to have more information
•  (We have billion ERP systems!)
•  And that means, we won’t collect information that is not relevant for
our decisions
7
Some observations
•  Much of the information that is gathered and communicated by
individuals and organizations has little decision relevance.
•  Much of the information that is used to justify a decision is
collected and interpreted after the decision has been made, or
substantially made.
•  Much of the information gathered in response to requests for
information is not considered in the making of decisions for
which it was requested.
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Observations cont’d
•  Regardless of the information available at the time a decision is
first considered, more information is requested.
•  Complaints that an organization does not have enough
information to make a decision occur while available
information is ignored.
•  The relevance of the information provided in the decisionmaking process to the decision being made is less conspicuous
than is the insistence on information
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Some issues
We have too much information
We have bad information
Who gathers the info, who uses the info?
We don’t know the future
Better to be prepared, so keep your ears and eyes open
Information as a source of power
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Examples to these issues
•  Some of you have worked before
•  Or from your private life
•  Do you also gather information – more than you might need?
•  How do you deal with these issues
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Information gathering
•  Gathering the information can also be taken as a ritualistic
behaviour
•  Assurance that we are doing what we should do
•  Perceived competence
•  Close contact with the world
Use of information as such, secures a social standing
We signal our competence
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Big data
Some considerations and thoughts
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What does a general manager do?
•  Planning
•  Organising
•  Controlling
•  Directing
•  Staffing
14
GM’s work cont’d
•  Kotter and many others argue that the daily life is not as clear
cut
•  Figure out what to do under uncertainty and diversity
•  Get things done through a large amount of people
15
GM’s work cont’d
•  Agenda setting
•  Loosely coupled goals and plans for long- medium- and short-term
•  Most of is not written in exact forms
•  Can cover different time periods
•  Can be rather unconnected among each other
16
14
CALIFORNIA MANAGEMENI
Strategy
Figure 1. Deliberate and Emergent Strategies
Unrealized
Strategy , JJ
Realized
Strategy
17
the rider and general to the battle, "all for want of Care about a Horseshoe
Nail."'^ Indeed one of the reasons Henry Eord lost his war with General
Source:
1987
Motors Mintzberg
was that he
refused to paint his cars anything but black.
Strategy: Why an ERP?
Similar to what we discussed with AHP:
Some questions remain:
Are we that rational?
Do we have complete information?
What can we control within the?
GMs are great at being intuitive and combining that with vast
amounts of knowledge
Able to put things into a logical perspective that touches multiple
issues
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So, next step…
How will you execute the agenda?
Network!!!
Networking with both internal and external actors
They get them working by suggesting, posing questions,
persuading them
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What say you
•  Now you have read some cases in the literature
•  Do you see what Kotter says about GMs?
•  How did they act, did it differ from what Kotter said? How?
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Or reversely…
•  What role does ERP play in this story?
•  How does the GM use ERP? How should the GM use ERP?
•  How does ERP effect the GM?
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