Recognition the politics of MIS

MIS development and implementation is a highly political process where users and developers may be more concerned about furthering their self-interests than about contributing to their organization. At the same time, MIS professionals have often been accused of being oblivious to this political process and being unaware of the ulterior motives and hidden agendas that their users actually follow. This political process can be viewed as a system of games. A typology, adopted from Bardach and from Keen, describes the games. In-depth interviews with eighteen MIS practitioners produced numerous examples of these games and thus confirmed that practitioners can recognize them during MIS development and implementation. Furthermore, the interviews provided some practical implications for MIS professionals who know that they must face the political machinations within their organizations but do not necessarily know how to recognize them. The interviews also laid the groundwork for future investigations.