Changing Spaces for Social Learning in ERP
Implementation: A Situational Analysis
Gian Marco Campagnolo* and Samantha Ducati†
Abstract The research presented in this paper focuses on two different periods of
implementation choices in the history of an Italian public sector organization as
ERP software support shifts from being provided in-house to a market-based sup-
ply. The case illustrates a deeply contextual reflexivity between the various com-
positions of supply and use space and the social learning that shapes organiza-
tional members’ representations of ERP system implementation choices. Data on
distinctive situational maps of organizational resources concerning implementa-
tion choices and post-implementation enhancements of the system were gathered
through biographic interviews and observations of the system in use. Two differ-
ent situational maps of IT related expertise were identified across different time
periods: the “Steering Committee” period (1998–2001) and the “Key Users” pe-
riod (2002–2005). We explore the role played across time by the reconfiguration
of actors and their interactions along the ERP system support chain in patterning
the way project participants make sense of notions like “customization” or “stan-
dardization”.
Research Approach
This paper presents an analysis of how the notions of standardization and customi-
zation changed according to the varied distribution of responsibilities for realiza-
tion of the software in Dante Province from one time period to the next. This is
organized as one “organizational move” representing a major change in the sup-
ply/use space. The empirical data are used to illustrate how different strategies of
knowledge mobilization enacted different learning spaces and how representations
of implementation choices emerging from each historical period were interlinked.
We want to show how the varied composition of the supply and use space at dif-
ferent times was enlisted in knowledge formation. Our analysis highlights the dis-
tributed [1] and abductive [2] nature of technical knowledge formation in ERP
implementation and post-implementation at Dante Province. The analytical tools
adopted to interpret time periods are situational maps [3] including (i) the map of
the supply/use space; (ii) the implementation trajectory of the ERP system from
supply to use; (iii) the moving locus of implementation choices and (iv) the mean-

* Università di Trento, Trento, Italy, gianmarco.campagnolo@soc.unitn.it
† Univeristà di Trento, Trento, Italy, samantha.ducati@studenti.unitn.it
A. D’Atri et al. (eds.), Management of the Interconnected World
DOI 10.1007/978-3-7908-2404-9_12, © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2010
,

98 G.M. Campagnolo and S. Ducati
ing of standardization versus customization emerging from each time period con-
stituency. The following section analyzes the move from the period when the
Steering Committee was in place to manage a cross-organizational project to the
time when the adoption of SAP – the ERP system selected by Dante Province –
was managed by the appointment of key users representing each organizational
unit involved. We organize the narrative around the “move” from one time period
to another in order to highlight how changes in the meanings given to notions like
“customization” or “standardization” were due to changes in actors’ roles and im-
plementation management devices coupled with the varying size of the supply/use
space from one period to the next, and how implementation choices in each his-
torical period were interlinked with each other as resources for sense making.
From the “Steering Committee” (1998–2002) to the “Key Users”
(2002–2005) Time Period
In the supply/use space enacted during the “Steering Committee” time period, im-
plementation actors worked within a “hum” of “continuous reporting among par-
ticipants” [4]. Communication from the use side to the supply side was ensured by
the Committee, on which Dante Province’s organizational Department and the
implementation support providers were all represented. The supply space con-
sisted of a limited number of intermediaries, the most important of which was the
in-house IT company. The use space comprised representatives of Dante Prov-
ince’s Departments of Organization, Planning and Accounting. More global com-
munication about SAP implementation issues was limited by various factors. De-
spite the technology provider’s efforts to disseminate SAP implementation
experiences across user organizations, SAP had been translated into Italian only in
1997. A verticalization for the public sector was not yet available. The only public
administrations implementing SAP at that time were in foreign countries–Austria
and Spain. And they have different accounting practices from Italy’s:
they have an Anglo-Saxon accounting model. We have a Latin model. In the Anglo-
Saxon model controls are all final. Ours are estimates (Project Manager).
Another example of the limited access to specialist knowledge about SAP at that
time is the fact that the local university consultants were described by the project
manager as possessing information about the implications of customization which
they had gathered from newspapers.
Communication among members of the implementation project’s “hum” took place
within this limited learning space on implementation choices. However, the presence
of the General Director of the in-house IT company and of a number of Dante Prov-
ince heads of department ensured the fundamental management commitment to the
project [5] and empowered cross-sectorial project management functions. The goal