Understanding the Business Client - System Developer Relationship: a Power Perspective

Abstract

This chapter reports on field research into the relations between developers and the business client and explores the role that systems development methods can play in influencing this relationship. The findings of this field study are distinctive in that they illustrate how the business client (user) is able to exercise power over systems developers through the enactment of organisational structures and routine operating procedures embedded within a development method. The chapter also describes a scenario where developers see the systems development process as unequal and where there is a conflict of interest. Using a neglected view of power in the information systems literature, our particular focus is on applying Hardy’s (1985) model of unobtrusive power to help us understand the dynamics between developers and the business client and why grievances do not exist.