Risk implications for the role of budgets in implementing post-acquisition systems integration strategies

This paper studies the role of budgets in implementing the systems integration strategies in an Australian post-acquisition case of two organisations and reducing its associated often-regarded high risks. It attempts a fresh narrative approach to examine the evolution of accounting and its effects on the challenges of post-acquisition integration processes by using the performative approach such as the sociotechnical networks of Actor Network Theory in a broader analytical framework as a possible solution to reducing the risks inherent in systems integration. The methodology of the case study is based on Callon's model of Four-Moment translation where integration strategy and budgets are regarded as social practice and defined relationally as bundles of activities and take form in and through practice and interaction between diverse actors and actants. A qualitative approach is adopted in the examination of the systems integration networks in an Australian post-acquisition case. Data was collected and analysed using semi-structured interviews. It was found, through the examination of the routine practices of systems integration strategy making and how people enact and draw on a certain financial report on a daily basis to perform systems integration network strategies, that material forms of accounting act as a powerful structuring and inscription tool in integration activities, thus shaping integration strategic options and post-acquisition economic conditions of the organisation. The result shows how the risk could be reduced in the post-acquisition system integration. The research contributes to the risk, change, and accounting literatures by providing insights into the mundane and ordinary practices of different aspects of integration strategy making, and the way employees enact and draw on accounting numbers on a day-to-day basis to perform systems integration network strategies. This case study facilities this research to be further developed and broadened in terms of other cases, industries, and countries.