A critical examination of the causes of failed is implementation: A review of the literature on power and culture

Abstract

As organizational life is becoming increasingly dependent on information systems (IS), proper IS implementation has become imperative. If it is not properly implemented, it may disrupt the organizations’ daily operations and strategic decision-making, which can carry significant monetary consequences. Sometimes IS implementation is halted halfway, or at any stage of the implementation process, which may also carry significant monetary consequences to the organizations, especially when the size of the IS implementation projects is large. This paper focuses on the latter. Through our literature review, we discovered that it is the human aspect, instead of the technology aspect, that contributes to most of the failed IS implementations. To better understand how this could take place, our study highlights two possible reasons of failed IS implementation: (1) organizational culture complexity and (2) power and politics in the organization.