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Sharing Knowledge in a Shared Services Center Context: An Explanatory Case Study of the Dialectics of Formal and Informal Practices

Author

Listed:
  • Dragos Vieru

    (UQAM - Université du Québec à Montréal = University of Québec in Montréal)

  • Pierre-Emmanuel Arduin

    (DRM - Dauphine Recherches en Management - Université Paris Dauphine-PSL - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)

Abstract

This study focuses on how knowledge sharing across boundaries of merging entities during an information system (IS) implementation project in a shared services center (SSC) context affects the resulting system functionality. Although the literature stresses the growing adoption of the SSC as an outsourcing model, there is a lack of studies that examine shared services as a dynamic process of knowledge sharing across the organizational boundaries. We draw on a sociomaterial practice perspective and on the theory of workarounds to analyze an IS implementation project in a healthcare organization resulting from a merger of previously independent hospitals. The results suggest that new technology can be enacted in different ways as it links up with practices of different communities of users. We propose a multilevel process model that indicates at the end of the project a resulting mix of formal and informal (workarounds) practices that emerged from a dialectic process of resistance to, and negotiation of, the IS configuration during its implementation.

Suggested Citation

  • Dragos Vieru & Pierre-Emmanuel Arduin, 2016. "Sharing Knowledge in a Shared Services Center Context: An Explanatory Case Study of the Dialectics of Formal and Informal Practices," Post-Print hal-01292702, HAL.
  • Handle: RePEc:hal:journl:hal-01292702
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Keywords

    Shared services center; Knowledge sharing; Sociomaterial practice perspective; Workarounds; Performativity; Sociomaterial assemblages;
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