European Conference on Information Systems ( ECIS ) 2005 Tinker , Tailor : Information Systems and Strategic Development in Knowledge Based SMEs

Small and Medium Sized Enterprises (SMEs) can experience difficulties in adopting Information Systems (IS) and aligning them with their strategic development. Using the concept of bricolage, an improvisational approach that allows learning from concrete experience, we explore IS adoption and organisational change in two SME case studies. The case studies cover IS rationalisations and innovations and smalland large-scale change over a four year period, and highlight the roles of different actors, internal and external to the SMEs. We find that bricolage is a useful concept as it deals with the need for SMEs to learn about the possibilities of IS in situ, simultaneously exploiting the can-do approach that can be found in many SMEs. However bricolage needs organisation space and the possibility for trust to grow between end users, developers and management as visions are explored and revised.

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