Abstract Potential Impact of Cultural Differences on Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Projects (original) (raw)

ERP Implementation and Cultural Issues: A case study

2007

Business Process Reengineering (BPR) is defined as the fundamental rethinking and radical redesign of business processes. Implementing an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system involves reengineering the existing business processes to accommodate the best practices adopted by these software packages. It is also suggested that an awareness of cultural differences, both at organizational and national levels, is critical to ERP success. This paper reports on a study of BPR through ERP implementation in two Chinese medium sized manufacturing organizations. The selected organizations are the same size and have implemented the same type of ERP systems to reengineer their business processes. One of the companies is a stateowned company and the other is a private organization. The findings suggest that business processes can only reflect technical aspect from socio-technical view. Other two subsystems, human system (eg, culture, motivation, communication, willingness to change) and manag...

ERP Implementation: A Cross-Cultural Perspective

The literature on ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) systems implementation is replete with stories of unsuccessful project outcomes. One of the issues that have attracted relatively little research is the interplay between national culture and the manner in which the ERP project unfolds. The goal of this article is to explore this issue through the use of two case studies from the US and Italy. The data from the case studies is used to demonstrate the impact of national cultural on the two ERP implementation projects. Based on the unique patterns of the implementation process in each of the two cultures, broader issues of ERP implementation are explored and directions for future research on ERP implementation across cultures are proposed.

The Importance of Culture in ERP Adoption – A Case Study Analysis

Athens Journal of Business & Economics

The purpose of this study is to explore the importance of culture in (Enterprise Resource Planning) ERP adoption and to understand why ERP projects commonly fail. This study identifies culture as an underlying issue for such failures. The researchers use the Handy model of culture as a self-diagnosis tool for culture and organisational change that can be utilised as a facilitator for culture and ERP adoption success. This study uses a case study analysis as a qualitative approach to identify a diverse array of perceptions across hierarchal structures within a selected organisation who has recently adopted a cultural change program prior to adoption. Our study found that a cultural change led to enhanced communication, leadership and a sense of coherency across the whole organisation. We argue that if the organisation continues to improve its culture then successful ERP adoption could become a reality rather than an ideal.

The Influence of Organisational Culture on the Implementation of Enterprise Resource Planning

World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology, International Journal of Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering, 2016

The critical key success factors, which have to be targeted with appropriate change management, are the user acceptance and support of a new Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system at the early implementation stages. This becomes even more important in Arab context where national and organisational culture with a different value and belief system, resulting in different management styles, might not complement with Western business culture embedded in the predefined standard business processes of existing ERP packages. This study explains and critically evaluates research into national and organizational culture and the influence of different national cultures on the implementation and reengineering process of ERP packages in an Arab context. Using a case study, realized through a quantitative survey testing five of Martinsons’s and Davison’s propositions in a Libyan sample company, confirmed the expected results from the literature review that culture has an impact on the implemen...

ERP Implementation Across Cultures

International Journal of E-Politics, 2011

Implementing an ERP project is a political process. This paper starts with a literature review of organizational politics and its implications to the implementation of ERP systems. The Political Strategies Framework which categorizes different ePolitics strategies in the cases is introduced. The framework is applied in the later sections of the paper to case study data from two companies, one in the US and one in Italy, that both implemented a SAP Enterprise Planning Systems (ERP) with very different outcomes. The discussion highlights the political dynamics in each case and the way in which the framework can help us understand these differences. The conclusion section discusses the differences between the political dynamics in each case and the implications from the findings to broader issues of research on ERP implementation and politics.

What Went Wrong? Lessons Learned from Studying ERP Implementation Across Cultures

2005

Following a literature review that sets this research in context, case study data from two companies, one in the United States and one in Israel, are presented. Data are used to compare the implementation process of SAP Enterprise Planning Systems (ERPs) in the two cultures. The unique patterns of the implementation process that emerge from the two case studies are discussed as examples of the decision-making patterns typical of the two cultures. When relevant, areas where the findings did not agree with the theory are highlighted. The conclusions section explores the implications from this research to broader issues of ERP implementation across cultures, including the implementation of ERP systems within the higher education sector, and possible directions for future research emanating from this study.

“Cultural Intelligence” During ERP Implementation: Insights from a Thai Corporation

International Business Research, 2014

Much attention has been devoted to challenges related to ERP implementation. However, there is a wealth of papers that are focusing on cultural issues related to ERP depending the country they are implemented. The objective of this article is to analyze and to illustrate how project managers achieve ERP implementation whereas users face cultural changes concerning the way new tasks and business processes must be done? It differs from the perspective considering IT adoption as depending primarily on IT characteristics and organizational needs. We posit that ERP acceptance/resistance cannot be reduced to use behaviors taken at face value but that they must be analyzed considering their underlying cultural dimensions. The case study was done at Eastwater, a corporation in charge of water distribution across Thailand and that succeeded into implementing SAP in only one year. The semi-structured interviews done with project managers and consultants of the company reveal how cultural values shared by employees were used as change management vectors, showing for example how the project director used the-Bunkhun‖ values to legitimate the ERP adoption and force users' acceptance of the ERP. The result can help managers to better deal with observed misfits between organizational values and IT project, so that it does not ultimately become an obstacle to user acceptance.

Social and Cultural Challenges in ERP Implementation

International Journal of Information Systems and Social Change, 2011

This paper studies the differential practices of change management in organizations of western origin and compares it with the best practices prevalent in Indian organizations, with special emphasis on social and cultural challenges faced in these countries. Since Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), as part of an information and communication technology (ICT) initiative, is frequently associated with organization change and transformation in relation to its adaptation, it has been used as the context in this study. The impact of social factors and cultural challenges on change management processes and elements are compared and contrasted using multiple case studies from USA, Canada, European (Western/Eastern) and Indian organizations who have adopted ERP technologies. The conceptual framework highlights cultural and social factors that affect ERP implementation, and offers suggestions to researchers to empirically test these influences using sophisticated analytical methods and deve...