The Institutional Logic of Harmonization: Local Versus Global Perspectives

Perspectives in organizations differ to which extent information systems (IS) should be tailored towards local (e.g., business unit) needs or toward organization-wide, global goals (e.g., synergies, integration). For contributing to overall IS performance success, the harmonization of different perspectives becomes essential. While many scholars have highlighted the role of IS management approaches, institutional studies argue that harmonization is not solely the result of managerial action, but a consequence of institutional pressures that guide organizational decision-making. In the paper at hand, we follow the call for adopting institutional theory on the intra-organizational level of analysis and study the logic of attaining harmonization along institutional pressures. By means of a revelatory case study, we find harmonization attained in a dynamic interplay between different institutional pressures. Mimetic pressures influence normative pressures, which in turn influence coercive pressures. Our findings as well as our implications for enterprise engineering guide prospective research in studying the attainment of harmonization through an institutional lens.