How a firm supports its enterprise resource planning system after putting it into production, when its maintenance may be said to be emergent, is critical to the benefits it will eventually derive. Here we report a longitudinal case study of one firm's emergent maintenance of its SAP R/3 system. The study reveals that maintenance‐related roles and relationships differ substantively from those typical of traditional maintenance. We view this firm's maintenance practices to be a harbinger of broader and longer‐term change in maintaining application portfolios. We suggest that the roles and relationships involved are likely to be more complex and therefore more varied in organizational form. In particular, we anticipate: (1) greater sharing of the maintenance task among more participants, with the firm's users often assuming the lead, supported by vendors and third parties; (2) the IS department often playing a more limited, but still key role in providing a portfolio's ongoing support services; and (3) a contingency approach to maintenance, the best approach being a function of specific organizational and systems circumstances.
No takes yet. Share an insight, caveat, or question.
Hirt et al. (2001) studied this question.
Synapse has enriched 5 closely related papers on similar clinical questions. Consider them for comparative context: