The Business of Being a User: The Role of the Reference Actor in Shaping Packaged Enterprise System Acquisition and Development

Author List: Pollock, Neil; Hyysalo, Sampsa;
MIS Quarterly, 2014, Volume 38, Issue 2, Page 473-496.
The paper extends the concept of “user” to account for a new, more formalized role that some client organizations play in the diffusion of packaged enterprise systems. Package vendors are attempting to draw parts of their user base into activities related to the promotion, selling, and commodification of systems. Users, in turn, appear willing to help construct these systems as objects of consumption for others. This can appear to be rather idiosyncratic behavior. Information Systems scholars have argued that relations between packaged enterprise system vendors and users are attenuated. Why might the user help the vendor market its systems in this way? What benefits accrue from it? And what role are users performing in carrying out this work? To show how this is becoming a general facet of the work of some packaged enterprise system users, we develop the notion of “reference actor,” which is an extension of the earlier Information Systems concept of “social actor.” In combining insights from the social shaping of technology and the biography of artifacts, and drawing on long-term qualitative fieldwork, we analyze this new actor role in relation to expectations and commitments coming from the wider packaged enterprise system community. In return for the help provided to prospective adopters, reference actors are also able to gather various kinds of benefits for themselves and others. In particular, they build closer relations with vendors such that they can influence product development strategies.
Keywords: User; reference site; demonstration; testimonial; commodification; marketing; enterprise system; procurement; innovation; social actor
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List of Topics

#250 0.199 enterprise improvement organizations process applications metaphors packaged technology organization help knows extends improved overcoming package learning better evolution build lead
#100 0.153 affective concepts role questions game gaming production games logic play shaping frames future network natural processes evidence addresses reference theorizing
#284 0.112 users user new resistance likely benefits potential perspective status actual behavior recognition propose user's social associated existing base using acceptance
#237 0.097 boundary practices capacity new boundaries use practice absorptive organizational technology work field multiple study objects actors actor theory practical spanning
#240 0.093 systems information management development presented function article discussed model personnel general organization described presents finally computer-based role examined functional components
#111 0.089 e-government collective sociomaterial material institutions actors practice particular organizational routines practices relations mindfulness different analysis ways draw agencies drawing ideas
#47 0.063 outsourcing vendor client sourcing vendors clients relationship firms production mechanisms duration mode outsourced vendor's effort activities in-house managing technology domestic
#49 0.056 adoption diffusion technology adopters innovation adopt process information potential innovations influence new characteristics early adopting set compatibility time initial current