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PurposeTo identify, classify, and propose a preliminary theory of the value conflicts and social choices that arise in enterprise system use.Design/methodology/approachEthnographic case study of a medium‐sized manufacturing firm, using a participant‐observer approach.FindingsThree areas of value conflict are identified between functional areas: conflicts over work priorities, conflicts over dependency on the commitments of others, and conflicts over evaluation fairness. When participants perceived that the value conflicts were accommodated in a balanced and legitimate way, they chose to use information resources within the enterprise system. When the conflicts were perceived as too great, participants chose to ignore the enterprise system, or develop their own competing information resources.Research limitations/implicationsThis paper reports on theory building from one intensive case study. It implies, however, that previous attempts to account for the difficulty of enterprise resource planning (ERP) use have not focused enough on the social relationships between the functional areas that are tightly integrated through enterprise systems.Practical implicationsThe three value conflict questions (work priorities, dependency on commitments, and evaluation fairness) can be used to identify potential ERP problem areas, and to clarify the costs and benefits of different ERP choices for various functional areas.Originality/valueFor information systems researchers and practitioners, this paper offers another means for identifying value conflicts and social choices in computerization, hopefully bringing us closer to Rob Kling's dream that computerization choices be made in a more socially benign way.

The ongoing energy transition toward more sustainable energy systems implies a change in the values for which such systems are designed. The energy transition however is not just about sustainability but also about values like energy security and affordability, and we witness the emergence of new values like energy justice and energy democracy. How can we understand such value changes and how can or should they affect the design of future energy systems? This introduction to the special section on value change in energy systems introduces the main themes and questions. It discusses different understandings of values and value change, explains why the topic is important and how it can be methodologically studied.

Compares managerial values, in terms of loyalty, boss, money, big
companies, profit, work, job freedom, and company rules, across
different sectors of enterprise by questionnaire survey: 232. Iraqi
managers participated in the study. MANOVA and ANOVA tests revealed some
differences among managers in public, mixed and private organizations,
with regard to manipulative and sociocentric values. Results, however,
indicate that managers, regardless of their sector of enterprise, score
high on sociocentric values.

Tavistock Press was established as a co-operative venture between the Tavistock Institute and Routledge & Kegan Paul (RKP) in the 1950s to produce a series of major contributions across the social sciences. This volume is part of a 2001 reissue of a selection of those important works which have since gone out of print, or are difficult to locate. Published by Routledge, 112 volumes in total are being brought together under the name The International Behavioural and Social Sciences Library: Classics from the Tavistock Press. Reproduced here in facsimile, this volume was originally published in