Enterprise System, Covid-19 and Organisational Change Management: A Case Study of Public Universities in Rivers State

Abstract

This paper aims at identifying the causes, effects and probable solutions to the organisational change management failure brought about by the external impact of covid-19 in public universities in Rivers State. While public universities in Rivers state were slowly building their way to an entire Enterprise Resource Planning system (ERP), the sudden pandemic impact meant a sudden upscale to achieve its essential functions. A case study method was employed by interviewing 15 academic staff from the three public universities in Rivers state. The transcripts from the interviews were anaysed using Nvivo 10.0 and compared to models on organisational change. This paper used organisational metaphors to identify how the university works. A review of the metaphor established that the university is predominately a political organisation; hence models with a political undertone were used to identify causes and proffer solutions. Among the answers were the importance of informal political groups, forming a coalition, controlling the agenda, keeping a long-term view by rethinking and redesign, and being reactive as situations develop.