Inside Ericsson: A Framework for the Practice of Leading Global IT-Enabled Change

Abstract

This article explores what it is that managers actually do to successfully lead IT-enabled change. It is based on a three-year case study of the practice of leading IT-enabled change inside the global telecommunications company Ericsson. This organization managed to successfully change their finance and accounting department from an independent structure of numerous local finance and accounting organizations with their own information systems and their own way of doing things into one interdependent global network of shared service centers enabled by a single information system. Based on this and other studies, this article develops a commonality framework for IT-enabled change, which offers important guidelines to improve managerial practice.