Everyday power struggles: living in an IOIS project

The broad aim of this interpretive study was to investigate the lived experiences of inter-organisational information system (IOIS) project members who worked in a 3-year-long IOIS project. The study presents an original longitudinal study of project member experiences. In this paper, we have described and analysed one core category, project power, which was derived from a grounded theory (GT) study. This study extends existing theories about power in organisational contexts, in particular the everyday use of power in projects. The paper shows how GT can be used to gain significant insights into a case study, and also generate new concepts. This paper gives detailed insights into the power issues as they played out in a complex IOIS project. This IOIS project spanned four user organisations, two suppliers, one national organisation, a research organisation and a government Ministry. One key finding is that, given the complexity of the project management structures in an IOIS project such as this, project members often resorted to formal authority as a means of getting things done, in the absence of informal links between organisations. The project history also had major ramifications on the use of power in this project. European Journal of Information Systems (2013) 22, 76-94. doi:10.1057/ejis.2012.43; published online 4 September 2012