Abstract (eng)
In the last decades Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems became an integral part of the working life within many organizations. These systems are part of a complex, heterogeneous network consisting of technologies, humans with various interests, and practices, embedded in historically grown environments. The question that emerges is, how is such a technology developed, and how is it shaped through these various interests and influences. In return, it also opens the reverse question, asking how such a technology transforms grown structures and practices.
This research is thereby based on interviews and ethnographically observed interactions while following the developer of an ERP technology through his daily work routines.
Moving away from the starting point of this research, which was to gain a better understanding of the socio-cultural issues and practices of user driven design, it became soon clear, that these systems do not only emerge from the interaction between the designers and the specific users of such a technology.
Indeed various actors exist which influence the shaping of such a technology. In the course of this work, three such actors are analyzed and discussed in detail. The first focus lies on the interaction between the developer and the individual user of the software in the context of a user driven design philosophy. After that the interaction between the developer and another professional market participant is analyzed, while the third part is concerned with the tension between developer, user and the fiscal state.
Thereby it becomes observable how, through the introduction of a new technology, ideas of roles and boundaries between different actors can become more and more blurred. Further, strategies of the developer and opposing resistances could be identified, leading to adaptations and renegotiations which influenced the shaping of the technology and local practices.