Task Interdependence Impacts on Reciprocity in IT Implementation Teams: Bringing Out the Worst in Us, or Driving Responsibility?

Abstract

Task interdependence has received a great deal of attention as a critical driver of project dynamics. This study focuses on one of these key dynamics: helping among information technology (IT) implementation project team members. We uniquely distinguish between perceptions of receiving more help than one personally provides to other team members (positive inequity), vs. giving more than one receives (negative inequity). We argue, using an equity theory frame, that members have a tendency to resolve perceived inequity by adjusting subsequent levels of helping, but that the extent of adjustment is moderated by task interdependence. Results from an empirical evaluation of 591 members in 107 IT implementation teams, examined at several points throughout their project cycles, provide insight into these relationships. Extending and bounding equity theory, we find that lower interdependence augments the effect of positive inequity on subsequent helping, but leaves the effect of negative inequity unaffected. Further, we find support for an inverted U‐shaped relationship between the level of subsequent helping in a team and the final cost of implementation. This holds critical implications for project team design and ensuing dynamics.

Behavioral Operations and Supply Chain Management–A Review and Literature Mapping

“…Studies concerned with behavioral issues in project management have received more attention during the past few years, especially welcomed by the Production and Operations Management and Decision Sciences journals. While there is no single dominant topic in this context, topics such as whistleblowing (Park & Keil, ; Keil, Tiwana, Sainsbury, & Sneha, ), task design, interdependence, and difficulty (Katok & Siemsen, ; Chandrasekaran & Mishra, ; Schoenherr, Bendoly, Bachrach, & Hood, ), and innovation (Lee, Swink, & Pandejpong, ; Hutchison‐Krupat & Chao, ) have been investigated more than others.…”

“…Theories used in these studies are diverse, but the use of surveys is the most common research method. In many respects the examination of quality efforts and implemented programs are emblematic of behavioral studies of enterprise technology implementations and associated organizational change (Bendoly & Cotteleer, ; Schoenherr et al., ). In both cases, processes are almost always altered in ways that prove disruptive, or at least seemingly so, to some subset of the organization.…”

Towards Building Multidisciplinary Knowledge on Management of Technology: An Introduction to the Special Issue

“…In their article "Product upgrades with stochastic technology advancement, product failure, and brand commitment," Kirshner et al (2017) address a problem at the interface between operations and marketing concerning how brand commitment and the risk of product failure in the durable goods market impact the timing of technology upgrades under stochastic technology development. Schoenherr et al (2017) empirically examine task interdependence and its impact on reciprocity behavior among project team members responsible for the implementation of information technology. The title of their paper is "Task interdependence impacts on reciprocity in IT implementation teams."…”

“…We explore how a firm's knowledge-based resource capabilities are leveraged to exploit opportunities and to respond to threats created by innovations in technology . We note that knowledge work is also considered in the contributed papers by Schoenherr et al (2017) and Rahmani et al (2017) as well as in several of the invited papers including Argote and Hora (2017), Kornish and Hutchison-Krupat (2017), Loch (2017), and Shalley and Gilson (2017).…”

ERP Implementation Project in a brewing manufacturer: the quality attribute as a performance differential

“…The last being determined by functional and holistic role that quality plays in the Organization, observed from high commitment dimensions such as management and knowledge of the use of tools and techniques associated to the quality (Basu, 2014). Authors as Schoenherr et al (2017) considered the project quality performance as an opportunity of study, because of the lack of publications on the topic.…”