Resolving conflict of interests in the process of an information system implementation for advanced telecommunication services

From many empirical studies, organizational issues have been considered the most critical bottleneck for successful information system (IS) implementations. In this paper, an organizational issue of resolving conflict of interests among the stakeholders is addressed. Using the decision analytic approach, the major sources of disagreement among the stakeholders were identified, discussed and resolved. The approach was applied to a problem of implementing an information system for advanced telecommunication services. The case presented here showed how to resolve the conflicting interests proactively and demonstrated the value of the approach. The decision analytic approach presented in this paper was a viable and very useful tool in resolving the conflict of interests among the people included in the negotiation process. As a result of the successful negotiation, it was estimated to have saved $6.9 million dollars after tax for AT&T.