Framgång - för vem?

Sammanfattning: Change is inevitable and ubiquitous. You encounter it at your workplace, in your neighbourhood or at places associated with your free time. Organizations need to change continuously in order to keep up with the ever changing market conditions, due to powerful macroeconomic forces (Ancona 2005, Kotter 2012, Balogun & Hailey 2008). The interesting thing about the subject of change is that research shows that about 70% of change initiatives fail (Balogun & Hailey 2008) and as technology is rising and at the same time characterized by time-consuming and costly implementation (Swanson, 2012), it's critical for companies to retain its effects. The purpose of this thesis is to get a deeper understanding of the factors leading system changes not to get their intended effects, although the project's goals is reached (i.e. the system is completed, in time and on budget). Thereafter to get a deeper understanding of the change process from the user perspective. To get a better understanding of the critical factors we interviewed 9 employees, involved in two system changes, at one of the largest retail company on the Swedish market - ICA Sverige AB. We are taking the user's perspective and analyzing the projects through Rogers diffusion of innovation theory combined with established change management theories. Although the thesis is characterized by a qualitative research method, which makes it inappropriate drawing generalizable conclusions, we see some tendencies. We see that the initiate state of the change, i. e. having a clear vision and goal and involving the user in developing the system is critical for the change initiative because it influences future stages of the change. Also, having the resources and giving the users time and training is critical in these projects. We suggest future research to do comparative analyses of projects that has reached both the projects goal and effects with those who doesn't.