The nature of top management support : a grounded theory exploration of enterprise system implementation in the Irish Health Service

Abstract

The promise of a fully integrated enterprise has been an organisational dream for many decades. Such a dream would unite individual departments and functional areas into a single system. As a result management would have a single view of the organisation. Enterprise systems (ES) aim to make this dream a reality, with the promise of 'seamless integration' of the entire organisation. Such systems work from a central database, uniting back-office and front-office departments. Consequently, the demand for these systems has been significant over the past decade, with vendors now moving onto the small to medium sized enterprises due to market saturation amongst larger organisations. However, the pinch o f reality often shadows the m ost utopian of dreams. Despite promises of seamless integration, ES implementations have not been the most successful. Many organisations spend millions of euro over years committing to such initiatives; with return on investment either minimal or, all too often, none at all. In fact, some studies cite up to 90% failure rates with the implementation of these systems.