Examining the influences of external expertise and in-house computer/IT knowledge on ERP system success

External expertise and adequate levels of internal computer skills and knowledge are essential factors that can contribute to the success of complex information technology (IT) systems, including enterprise resource planning (ERP). Studies examining the effects of external expertise and in-house or internal computer/IT knowledge on the success of ERP packages are rare. This present study was designed to fill this gap in research. A relevant research model was developed to test fifteen (15) hypothesized paths or relationships among the study's variables. Data was collected in a cross-sectional field survey of 109 firms in two European countries. The partial least squares (PLS) technique was used for data analysis. The PLS results supported eleven (11) out of the fifteen (15) hypotheses. Essentially, this research's results confirmed that external expertise (an exogenous factor) and internal computer/IT knowledge (endogenous factors) are pertinent to success enhancement of ERP system success for adopting organizations. The implications of the findings for both practice and research are discussed, and possible areas of future research identified.     

The mediating effect of organizational culture and knowledge sharing on transformational leadership and Enterprise Resource Planning systems success: An empirical study in China

Senior leadership has been identified as a critical factor in fostering Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems success, however, the specific impact mechanism of transformational leadership on ERP success is still largely unknown. Based on organizational culture theory and knowledge based view, this study developed a theoretical model to explore the mediating effect of organizational culture and knowledge sharing on transformational leadership and ERP success. Data was collected from 115 IS executives and 413 ERP end users in 115 organizations in China. Partial Least Squares (PLS) analysis results suggest that transformational leadership is directly related with all the four types of organizational culture – development culture, group culture, hierarchical culture and rational culture, and is indirectly related with knowledge sharing and ERP success. Specifically, development culture has direct impact on ERP success, while hierarchical culture, group and rational culture are indirectly related with ERP success, mediated by explicit and tacit knowledge sharing. The research findings can provide guidelines for the top executives to facilitate appropriate organizational culture, so as to foster ERP knowledge sharing and achieve business benefits with the assimilation of ERP systems.     

The effects of organizational citizenship behaviors on ERP system success

Although the research on organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs) has increased dramatically in diverse fields during the past decade, little is known about the OCBs in the information systems area. The purpose of this study was to explore the effect of OCBs on enterprise resource planning (ERP) system success. In order to perform empirical analyses, measurements on the OCBs constructs based on the five dimensions of [Organ, D.W. (1988). Organizational citizenship behavior: The “Good Soldier” syndrome. MA: Lexington Books]: altruism, conscientiousness, courtesy, civic virtue, and sportsmanship were developed, and the research model including the relationships between the OCBs constructs and ERP system success variables of information quality, work efficiency, and intention of IT innovation was proposed and empirically analyzed using structural equation modeling.     

Measuring information systems success: models,dimensions, measures,and interrelationships

Since DeLone and McLean (D&M) developed their model of IS success, there has been much research on the topic of success as well as extensions and tests of their model. Using the technique of a qualitative literature review, this research reviews 180 papers found in the academic literature for the period 1992–2007 dealing with some aspect of IS success. Using the six dimensions of the D&M model – system quality, information quality, service quality, use, user satisfaction, and net benefits – 90 empirical studies were examined and the results summarized. Measures for the six success constructs are described and 15 pairwise associations between the success constructs are analyzed. This work builds on the prior research related to IS success by summarizing the measures applied to the evaluation of IS success and by examining the relationships that comprise the D&M IS success model in both individual and organizational contexts.     

Antecedents of application service continuance: A synthesis of satisfaction and trust

Although ASP (Application Service Provider) has the potential to fundamentally change the manner in which IT services are provided for user firms, current ASPs often fail to provide good results in accumulating and retaining customers. To fill the gap between the expected benefits of application service and its disappointing results in the real world, we present a conceptual model including three quality measures – System Quality, Information Quality, and Service Quality. To extend the horizons of ASP acceptance, this study sharpens the model that these quality measures regulate Satisfaction and Trust, which lead to Continuance Intention. We test the research model and hypotheses through the use of the data from 203 small and medium enterprises with application service experience. Data analysis results using LISREL reveal that Satisfaction and Trust have significant effects on a client firm’s Continuance Intention. Trust is found to be the most salient determinant while previous studies mainly focused on the role of Satisfaction. Furthermore, an empirical support is found for the direct effect of Service Quality on Continuance Intention as well as its mediating effects.     

A structural equation model for analyzing the impact of ERP on SCM

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) and supply chain management (SCM) represent important information technology investment options for operation or IT managers, and have been acclaimed in the practitioner and academic literature for their potential to improve business performance. The purpose of this article is to provide further insights into the adoption of ERP systems and the impacts on firm competence in SCM. We propose a model featuring ERP benefits to firm competences in supply chain management. We also hypothesize that three constructs of ERP benefits positively impact firm competences in SCM. To clarify the relationships among these constructs, structural equation model (SEM) is conducted to examine the model fit and nine hypotheses. The SEM results clearly demonstrate that there exist close interrelations among the benefits of implementing ERP systems and firm competences in SCM. The data from Taiwanese IT firms was collected through interviewing of experts and surveys. The results provide empirical evidence that the beneficial impacts of ERP on the supply chain do lead to better overall SCM competence. That evidence confirms that operational benefits, business process and management benefits, and strategic IT planning benefits of ERP in turn enhance firm competences of SCM in operational process integration, customer and relationship integration, and planning and control process integration.     

Rethinking ERP success: A new perspective from knowledge management and continuous improvement

Most IS research about ERP implementation stops short at system start-up and seldom addresses post-implementation issues. However, ERP implementation is a continuous improvement effort and continued efforts after system start-up will influence the ultimate success of an ERP implemented system. We defined a four-phase ERP refinement model that incorporated knowledge management (KM) into each major implementation phase. This knowledge-enhanced ERP implementation model adds insights when used to investigate ERP success. It also provides practitioners with a guideline for incorporation of KM into their ERP strategy to improve success rates of ERP systems.     

IT governance for enterprise resource planning supported by the DeLone–McLean model of information systems success

I investigated the role of IT governance in driving the success of ERP projects. The tool for assessing ERP value was a comprehensive, multivariate and validated model adapted from the widely used Delone and McLean model of IS success. This showed that ERP investments were more effective in organizations having an IT governance domain consisting of proactive strategic guidance and participatory team building. Large enterprises, however, under-performed compared to SMEs and needed specific performance drivers, such as top management commitment to become effective.     

Examining the effects of information system characteristics and perceived usefulness on post adoption usage of information systems

Understanding post adoption behavior has emerged as an important issue in IS research. Organizations have invested in a plethora of Information Systems (IS) and the benefits that can be gained from these systems depend on their usage. Prior research has examined factors that impact users’ intention to continue using the IS. However, comprehending post adoption IS usage behavior has not received much attention. Building on TAM and IS success model, this study proposes that information quality and system integration influence perceived IS usefulness which will then drive post adoption usage of the IS. Post adoption IS usage is conceptualized as a broad concept that includes extended usage and exploratory usage. Data (N = 1032) was collected to test the model, in the context of a web-based student information system that students use to manage their academic work. The results show that at the post adoption stage, perceived IS usefulness is a good predictor of extended usage and exploratory usage. However, surprisingly IS usefulness was found to explain a much larger variance in exploratory usage. Information quality and system integration were found to influence IS usefulness. However, information quality also has a direct affect on extended usage, while system integration directly influenced exploratory usage. Assessment of the moderating role of gender and internet experience on model relationships reveals interesting insights. Implications are drawn for future research and practice.     

The ERP Revolution: Surviving vs. Thriving

This paper presents preliminary findings from a research project that examined how firms are generating business value from their investments in enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. The research, which was done jointly with Benchmarking Partners, describes the stages of ERP implementation, the obstacles that firms encountered in generating benefits from the systems, and some critical success factors for getting business value from the implementation of an ERP system in business.     

The roles of social identity and dynamic salient group formations for ERP program management success in a postmerger context

Large enterprise resource planning (ERP) programs and their critical success factors (CSFs) have been subject to intensive research in recent years. One of the key challenges is their complexity in terms of their duration, context, and social dynamics. The aim of this study is to investigate these matters with the help of an interpretative case study using the coding techniques of the grounded theory method. We extend extant ERP research by introducing a new theoretical perspective that helps to clarify how stakeholder perceptions and CSFs are interrelated, and evolve throughout the life cycle of a large ERP implementation conceptualized as a program in a postmerger context. Using Social Identity Theory as a metatheory for interpretation, we find that different perceptions of opposing salient groups are particularly important. Our result offers a dialectic process view of ERP program implementation success, which (1) considers the different perceptions of salient groups (2) at different points in time (phases) and (3) proposes that a low perceptual fit in relation to a specific CSF contributes to program failure as opposed to (4) a high perceptual fit in relation to the respective CSF, which contributes to program success. We offer a new theoretical lens and propositions for future work highlighting the importance of salient groups and their CSF perceptions for ERP program success. Practitioners can use our findings as a guide towards increasing the probability of success throughout the course of their ERP program life cycles.     

Assessing e‐commerce systems success: a respecification and validation of the DeLone and McLean model of IS success

Abstract. DeLone & McLean (2003) propose an updated information systems (IS) success model and suggest that it can be extended to investigating e‐commerce systems success. However, the updated IS success model has not been empirically validated in the context of e‐commerce. Further, the existing IS/e‐commerce success models have been subject to considerable debate on the ‘IS Use’ and ‘Perceived Usefulness’ constructs, and the nomological structure of the updated DeLone and McLean model is somewhat inconsistent with the IS acceptance and marketing literature. Based on the IS and marketing literature, this paper respecifies and validates a multidimensional model for assessing e‐commerce systems success. The validated model consists of six dimensions: Information Quality, System Quality, Service Quality, Perceived Value, User Satisfaction and Intention to Reuse. Structural equation modelling techniques were applied to data collected by questionnaire from 240 users of e‐commerce systems in Taiwan. The empirical evidence suggests that Intention to Reuse is affected by Perceived Value and User Satisfaction, which, in turn, are influenced by Information Quality, System Quality and Service Quality. The nomological structure of the respecified e‐commerce systems success model is concurred with that of the technology acceptance model (TAM) in the IS field and the consumer behaviour models in the traditional business‐to‐business and retail contexts. The findings of this study provide several important implications for research and practice. This paper concludes by discussing the contributions of this study and the limitations that could be addressed in future studies.     

Assessing the success of e-government systems: An employee perspective

By using information system (IS) success-based approaches from the perspective of government employees, this paper investigates the success of e-government systems. Structural equation modeling (SEM) techniques were applied to data collected by a questionnaire from 154 employees of e-government systems in Serbia. In this study, we empirically evaluated the model for measuring the success of e-government systems consisting of constructs from the updated DeLone and McLean IS success model coupled with the demographic conditions. Seven out of ten hypothesized relationships between the seven success variables are significantly supported. The findings of this study can be used to assess the success of e-government systems from the standpoint of the government employees.     

Information Systems Use: Construct conceptualization and scale development

Information Systems Use (ISU) is an essential part of the human behaviors in utilizing computers in organizations. The construct has been widely used to measure IS adoption or IS success. However, few studies attempt to understand ISU in a job and organizational setting where employees use various types of IS for different tasks. To better understand ISU, it is necessary to contextualize the construct in users’ overall work related activities. We classified the overall IS/IT use in an organization into three different types of IS; Information Reporting Systems (IRSs), Decision Support Systems (DSSs), and Group Support System (GSSs). Based on this classification, we developed four items for each type of ISU behaviors. The resulting ISU instrument was tested using a dataset of 231 responses collected in a survey. Both exploratory factor analysis and PLS are employed to successfully establish reliability, convergent/discriminate validity, and predictive validity. The contribution of this research is to provide better and more robust measurements for the ISU construct, which should help to lay a firmer foundation for further research on IS success.     

Drivers, barriers and critical success factors for ERPII implementation in supply chains: A critical analysis

This paper reviews existing literature to determine the drivers of and barriers to Enterprise Resource Planning II (ERPII) implementation. The ERPII literature is then extended through interviews with potential players in ERPII implementations to identify the critical success factors (CSFs) or preconditions required for successful implementation throughout supply chains. These interviews were conducted with leading ERP vendors/consultants and organisations involved in the entire supply chain to gather evidence on the success, or lack thereof, of ERPII implementations. The results were compared and contrasted to existing literature on ERPII, collaborative networks, and the extended enterprise. We found more barriers to than drivers of successful ERPII implementation. This leads prospective implementers to have a pessimistic forecast for ERPII implementation success. Our research reveals that main reason for this negativity is a general lack of understanding and appreciation of the capabilities of the extended enterprise network. Second, the research presents two sets of CSFs: CSFs which apply to traditional ERP and carry forward to apply to ERPII, and CSFs that are tailored to the new needs for successful ERPII implementations. Finally, the research questions the suitability of ERPII in today’s modern business environment, and suggests that technology may have overtaken management’s capabilities to capture the full benefits of such an advanced enterprise system. Future trends in ERPII development are also considered in an attempt to find the next phase in the enterprise system life cycle. Beyond ERPII, the research suggests that infrastructure such as large-scale business intelligence (BI) systems must be heavily incorporated into modern enterprise systems to fully understand how information flows throughout an organisation and to make sense of that information.     

An integrated model of interaction experience for information retrieval in a Web-based encyclopaedia

An experiment, using two versions of a Web site varying in usability, tested three models of user experience: an interaction experience model, a technology acceptance model and an integrated experience-acceptance model. We found that the perceptions of three product attributes (Pragmatic Quality, Hedonic Quality-stimulation and Hedonic Quality-identification) and technology acceptance variables (the beliefs of Perceived Ease of Use, Perceived Enjoyment and Perceived Usefulness, and Intention to Use) are separate underlying psychological dimensions. A positive effect of usability on task performance, interaction experience and acceptance was found. In the interaction experience model, the evaluation of Goodness (overall interaction quality) was less stable and influenced by both Pragmatic Quality and Hedonic Quality, but the evaluation of Beauty was more stable and only influenced by Hedonic Quality. In the technology acceptance model, Perceived Ease of Use was a determinant of Perceived Enjoyment and Perceived Usefulness, and the latter two were independent determinants of Intention to Use. In the integrated model, perceptions of product attributes were independent determinants of beliefs, but evaluations were not independent determinants of Intention to Use. Future modelling work should address a range of interactive systems, information architecture and individual differences.     

Measuring the success possibility of implementing ERP by utilizing the Incomplete Linguistic Preference Relations

This paper applies an analytic hierarchical prediction model based on the Multi-Criteria Decision Making with Incomplete Linguistic Preference Relations (InLinPreRa) to help the organizations become aware of the essential factors affecting the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), as well as identify the actions necessary before implementing ERP. The subjectivity and vagueness in the prediction procedures are dealt with linguistic variables quantified in an interval [−t, t]. Then predicted success/failure values are obtained to enable organizations to decide whether to initiate ERP, inhibit adoption or take remedial actions to increase the success possibility of ERP. Pairwise comparisons are used to determine the priority weights of influential factors, and the possible occurrence ratings of success or failure outcome amongst decision makers. There are not any inconsistency occurred in this procedures because this proposed approach allows every decision expert to choose an explicit criterion or alternative for the without restriction. When there are n criteria in a decision matrix, only n − 1 times of pairwise comparisons are taken. This approach not only improves the efficiency of pairwise comparison compared with the traditional AHP, but also avoids the checking the consistency of linguistic preference relation when the decision makers undertake the pairwise comparison processes.     

A study of context inference for Web-based information systems

Recently, context-awareness has been a hot topic in the ubiquitous computing field. Numerous methods for capturing, representing and inferring context have been developed and relevant projects have been performed. Existing research has tried to determine user’s contextual information physically by using stereo type cameras, RFID, smart devices, etc. These are heavily focusing on external context such as location, temperature, light, etc. However, cognitive elements of the context are important and need more study. This paper confines its research domain to the Web-based information system (IS) and, first, proposes two algorithms, the context inference algorithm and the service recommendation algorithm, for inferring cognitive context in the IS domain. Second, this paper demonstrates cognitive context-awareness on the Web-based information systems through implementing prototype deploying the proposed algorithms. The proposed system deploying the context inference and service recommendation algorithm can help the IS user to work with an IS conveniently and enable an existing IS to deliver ubiquitous service. In this fashion, we show the direction of existing IS and, ultimately, shows the typical services of a ubiquitous computing-based IS.     

Towards an integrated measurement of IS project performance: The project performance scorecard

Determining the contribution of information system (IS) projects is a difficult endeavour. This research presents a framework for evaluating and measuring IS project performance that seek to address this problem while moving away from the reliance on the traditional assessment method (time, cost, specifications). When IS projects fail or succeed is difficult to determine what conditions enabled the outcome. However, if we are to develop a higher level of IS project management competence we need frameworks that can help in assessing IS project outcomes while critically reflecting and learning from IS project management practices. The Project Performance Scorecard (PPS) recommended here is one framework that can help to advance our understanding IS project management and evaluation approaches. This framework integrates concepts from existing models of IS success, the Balanced Scorecard and project management practices. A case study approach is used to illustrate the use of the PPS, and offers insights into how it can be useful in assessing the performance of IS projects.

Behavioral aspects of enterprise systems adoption: An empirical study on cultural factors

Recently, behavioral aspects of enterprise systems have been called to investigate further in the information systems (IS) community. The purpose of this paper is to apply individual-level measurement of cultural orientation, such as power distance and uncertainty avoidance, to the recent findings of computer self-efficacy and ERP adoption belief, such as perceived ease of use, based on the survey of 101 ERP system experts. An online survey methodology is used to gather data from the various industrial fields. The research model is constructed based on the findings of the previous studies in IS, management, and cultural psychology. The results indicate that low power distance and high uncertainty avoidance cultural orientation influence general CSE. In addition, uncertainty avoidance positively influences ease of use of ERP systems. As expected, general CSE positively influences ease of use of ERP systems. Training and managerial interventions through communication to improve these cultural orientations would be effective for the successful ERP systems project. The findings of this research would be helpful to the project managers, IS researchers, and ERP practitioners who want to understand the behavioral aspects of ERP systems adoption in the organization.