Firms often face challenging issues such as organizational change, conflicts,and resistance when they adopt large scale information systems that could havewide range influences on the enterprise. Problems of misalignments betweensystem and business processes and conflicts in laws and cultures, especially when asystem is implemented across borders, make the introduction of enterprise systemdifficult. ERP characterized by “best practices” and powerful functions ofinformation integration nevertheless can become a critical tool for global firms toobtain real-time business information, increase the visibility of value chain, andenhance responsiveness to market changes. This study investigates the dialecticalinterplay among different actors and the contextual impacts on ERPimplementation and usage. Our results help managers understand these processesmore thoroughly, reduce the difficulties of system implementation, and thus betterutilize the system.Taking a polarized approach (e.g. a vanilla approach versus customization strategy) to ERP implementation and use may be problematic or even impractical.A pure vanilla approach is impractical because there are always local contingenciesthat the global technology cannot foresee or cope with in advance. In the samevein, taking a customization approach also appears problematic because in so doingone may create another big legacy system that reproduces the dis-integrated socialstructures and decreases the benefits of process and data integration expected fromimplementing the ERP system. Therefore, while seeking to resolve themisalignments between ERP and local business processes, managers should knowthat the resolution of misalignments does not necessarily contribute toorganizational efficiency, especially when the customizations are just to satisfyoperational convenience of the users or old business routines. Managers aresuggested to pay more attention to the nature of misalignments. Mechanisms and classification schemes should be setup to evaluate and classify the misalignmentsbefore beginning to resolve them. By deep reflection on the nature ofmisalignments, managers can reexamine the fundamental assumptions oforganizational practices and the global solutions and thereby identify better, if notthe best, resolution strategy.Social alliance can have great influence on shaping the resultant ERP. Thefunctional constitution of the social alliance portraying the adoption of the ERPlargely defines the scope of ERP implementation and use. The social allianceconstituted by IT and user departments enrolls, facilitates, and stabilizes thetechnology by implementing selective ERP modules within their business scopes.The scoping and stabilizing, however, may come with a price: numerousnon-standard interfaces and data inconsistencies as most ERP modules areexcluded. Therefore, managers should be aware of both the positive and negativeeffects of social alliance when trying to build and maintain the actor-network corresponding to the ERP.