Authors: Chris Nøkkentved
As the applications of information and communication technology (ICT) are converging and become more prevalent, intraorganizational systems like Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) are increasingly permeating industrial networks of companies by impacting an increased number of cross-company processes. This has lead previous vertically integrated, hierarchically organized firms towards more flexible, networked forms of both organization and industrial structure, thus blurring the boundaries of firms and industries alike (Brynjolsson & Mendelson, 1993). This network effect of ICT paired with the increased demands for cost optimization and manufacturing agility encourages companies to extend their supply networks (Zheng, 1998 Harland, 1996) with collaborative, interorganizational infrastructures empowering buyer-seller relationships (Nøkkentved & Hedaa, 2000, 2001). This large scale transformation felt by many industries is changing our perspective of ICT from deliberate technology to emergent, layered information infrastructures (Hanseth & Braa, 1998). In the purchasing-side of the firm, such information infrastructures are realized by Internet-enabled applications also called eProcurement or recently Supplier Relationship Management (Hartmann etal.,2002). The latter provides a relational enablement of the upstream activities of a firm, by encompassing all sorts of strategic and operational, planned and/or unplanned purchasing and sourcing activities. The objective of this paper is an attempt to cross-fertilize the industrial networks approach with the latest developments in Informatics. It presents the results of a study leading to a model of socio-technical factors or SRM initiatives enabling the successful implementation interorganizational procurement & sourcing information infrastructures. This framework has been the result of a qualitative study among SRM project managers from IBM in 2001/2.
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Publish Year: 2004
Conference: Copenhagen, Denmark (2004)