Using system justification motives to understand stakeholder resistance in ES project implementation

The research reported in this paper uses system justification theory (SJT) as a lens to understand stakeholder resistance to ES implementation. A case study involving a problematic enterprise systems implementation is presented and illustrates the efficacy of SJT in this respect. The findings of the research show that SJT explains a number of features of stakeholder resistance including the tendency of stakeholders to vigorously defend established systems on which people feel that they depend and from which they draw feelings of stability and predictability, the tendency of system defenders to attack not just the features of the new system but the advocates of the new system as well, the tendency of stakeholders to switch allegiances when the new system is seen to be inevitable, and the emotional and non-rational nature of some resistance behaviours. The paper concludes with some practical implications of SJT for the management of ES implementations.