Actors and structure in IS projects: What makes implementation happen?

Several “perspectives” are assumed to be required in order to reach a sufficient understanding of complex (implementation) processes. Three perspectives on implementation processes are derived from the literature: an administrative, a political and a network perspective. These reflect different assumptions about the nature and control of implementation processes. The implementation of a formalized project management system in a large computing centre is analysed from these three perspectives. The analyses yield different explanations of the implementation process, and may be regarded as supplementing each other. However, the rupture of the network perspective with the conception of structure and the structure–actor relation of the two other perspectives contests traditional, normative “project organization thinking”. The multi-perspective analysis indicates the potential of in-depth studies of implementation processes.