The Issue of Post-Merger Integration Boundary Management

This study analyzes the interactions among individuals engaged in two information system development (ISD) projects aimed to support an organization created by the merger of previously independent entities. The literature on post-merger integration (PMI) suggests that new information systems (IS) that would span the boundaries of the previously independent firms need to be implemented to facilitate a specific level of integration. Yet, there is a lack of studies on the issue of post-merger boundary management during ISD projects. The authors draw on a sociomaterial perspective to analyze two ISD projects in a PMI context of a merger of three hospitals. In both projects, the final IS-enabled practices differed from the post-merger practices that had been planned by the new hospital management. The analysis suggests that post-merger practices were the result of dialectic processes of resistance to, and negotiation of, the two systems reconfiguration after their implementation.