ERP Implementation and Cultural Issues: A case study (original) (raw)
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International Journal of Information Systems and Social Change, 2011
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Abstract Potential Impact of Cultural Differences on Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Projects
Over the last ten years, there has been a dramatic growth in the acquisition of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems, where the market leader is the German company, SAP AG. However, more recently, there has been an increase in reported ERP failures, suggesting that the implementation issues are not just technical, but encompass wider behavioural factors. This conceptual paper examines the role of culture in the implementation of process-oriented ERP systems, and reports on the formulation of a research project to examine the relevance of macro and micro-level cultural issues in the successful operation of such systems. The paper suggests that some of the reported ERP problems may be attributed to the difficulties that staff operating in an Anglo-Saxon culture may experience with a process rather than function-oriented working environment. 1 What is culture? 1.1 Literature Review In his review of the many definitions of the concept of culture, Olie (1995) concludes that most au...
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
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.
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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.
“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.