The final assessment of the project is a complex one based on the important expectations or, in our terms, the defining characteristics held by each stakeholder. The actions taken by each stakeholder regarding the project are easily understandable in the context of their defining characteristics. Of greatest interest is the case of the middle management. Their initial approach to the project was supportive based on their expectation of improved systems for personnel and pay management without significant impact on organisational power relationships. Once it became clear that implementation of the system as planned by the project would have involved such impact, they then worked to destroy it and pursued other options for system improvement. On the other hand, stakeholders without this defining characteristic (e.g. the developers) worked hard for the project to continue because this constituted the path to success from the perspective of their own defining characteristics.

Lastly, if the project management had realised what the defining characteristics were for each stakeholder, then care could have been taken to try to satisfy these. Or, if this proved impossible because of mutual incompatibility between them (as was the case), then perhaps the aims or nature of the project itself could have been modified to take this into account. For example, abandonment of at least some of the project’s original aims might have permitted it to progress (Sauer, 1993). Or division of it into several separately controlled but related sub-projects could have avoided the problems that were actually encountered since it is well known that introducing an information system, especially a centralising one, can have unforeseen social and political impacts (Seddon et al, 1999). The importance of considering the stakeholder defining characteristics is, we think, evident.