Issues in inter-organisational information system development

Inter-organisational information system developments differ from intraorganisational ones in several aspects. This article discusses a development project that, in addition to producing an inter-organisational information system, was carried out by several organisations that also included the future user organisations. The research highlights issues that are special to multi-organisational projects. The core in the research is the social dynamics instead of the technical information system. Interaction between stakeholders is emphasised and collaboration is needed both in and between organisations. The research material was collected from a case by using participatory observation and the approach is intentionally subjective. We argue that the findings are alike in other organisations and that the nature of the organisations does not matter. Despite a challenging starting point, the output was evaluated successful both by the users and owners.