Abstract
Higher education is a sector entering an era of IT-enabled modernization
in which it may have to cope with an influx of unfamiliar corporate
concepts and practices. This paper analyzes one of the first Enterprise
Resource Planning implementation projects within the academic administration
of an Ivy League university. We contribute to existing qualitative
literature in information systems by developing the theme of temporality
within actor-network theory to support our analysis. This enables
us to extend process-oriented ERP research by focusing on the identification
of temporal zones and creation of durable work times designed to
re-order priorities between competing visions for the future of higher
education. We analyze detailed negotiations during periods of controversy
to reveal how standard work practices come to be created and recreated.
We consider how the ERP that emerges is affected by progressive trials
of strength during the project and analyze the achievement of order
as an on-going process. Our findings highlight the distinctive contribution
that a ‘temporal turn’ can bring to longitudinal research studies
by providing insight into the technical agency of ERP packages and
how its temporal inscriptions shaped the emergence of a socio-technical
information system. This reordered organizational work life and created
a hybrid temporality that still needs to be negotiated into the working
rhythms of the University’s actors.
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