Managing critical success factors for IS implementation: A stakeholder engagement and control perspective

Enterprise information systems (IS) implementation is often part of an organization's strategic IT initiatives and requires a large investment of organizational resources, yet may fail due to inadequate management of critical success factors (CSF). Using a revelatory case study of a multi-partner COTS implementation process by a large Canadian government organization, this research investigates successful management of CSF through optimal stakeholder engagement and a balancing of control configurations. This research identifies four distinct project orientations related to stakeholder engagements-strategic, responsibility, harmony, and persuasion-that can be of significant value in managing CSF and other challenges during implementation and post-implementation phases. In addition to the identification of a need for control balancing in a multi-partner IS implementation, three key drivers responsible for triggering control balancing are identified: (a) shared understanding, (b) negative anticipation, and (c) deviation of expectations. Copyright (C) 2017 ASAC. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.