Exploring Emotions during ERP Adoption: A Stakeholder Analysis

Abstract

Emotions play a central part in a person's work experience and have been a topic in organizational behavior for about two decades. Nowhere is there greater potential for emotion-eliciting events than in conjunction with large-scale organizational transformations such as enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. However, little research exists regarding the role of emotions in information systems development and implementation. This research is a case study that seeks to explore affect and emotional reactions from the perspectives of the different stakeholders involved the selection of an ERP package. The results show that ERP selection is a very emotional phase during the ERP implementation life cycle. There are however differences in the emotional experiences of three different types of stakeholders: experts, representatives, and users. These results may have important implications for the proper staffing and management of cross-functional teams in information systems development and implementation.