Effective ERP adoption processes: the role of project activators and resource investments

Abstract

This document is the version accepted for publication and -in case of peer review -incorporates referee comments. There are minor differences between this and the publisher version which could however affect a citation.http://epub.wu.ac.at/ This is a post-peer-review, pre-copyedit version of an article published in European Journal of Information Systems. The definitive publisher-authenticated version [BERNROIDER EWN (2013) Effective ERP adoption processes: the role of project activators and resource investments. European Journal of Information Systems 22(2), 232-250.] is available online at AbstractThe aim of this paper is to demonstrate whether stakeholders activating a project shape team building, the structure and magnitude of resource investment levels, and to what extent these levels impact ERP project effectiveness. The process view of an ERP project includes project initiation, system justification and funding, implementation, and early system use. Results from a nationwide empirical survey conducted in Austria (N = 88) show that activating actors influence team formation and resource investments, which impact project effectiveness levels. Resource-intensive justification and funding phases tend to precede resource-intensive implementations in heavy-weight projects, which seem to be less effective than light-weight projects. Resource and change conflicts are associated with lower project performance and are more common in resource-intensive ERP projects, where early system use appears to be relatively less stable.

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

“…Lyytinen and Newman () emphasize the critical influence that divergent actions of different stakeholder groups might have on the ERP implementation process and outcomes. Their statement is consistent with the views of other authors (Bernroider, ; Besson & Rowe, ; Grainger et al, ; Markus, Axline, Petrie, & Tanis, ) who stress the importance of stakeholder actions and perceptions for a successful implementation. For these reasons, authors including Sarkis and Sundarraj () emphasize the need to appropriately manage user expectations and satisfaction for a large‐scale ERP implementation.…”

“…One persistent problem in managing ERP implementations is associated with stakeholder influences and changing perceptions. For example, already in the initiation of the ERP implementation project, stakeholder groups tend to affect the design and course of implementation to their advantage (Bernroider, ; Boonstra, ). Further complicating implementation is dynamically changing stakeholder perceptions over the life cycle of ERP implementation, which can be related with resource and change conflicts negatively affecting implementation success (Bernroider, ; Besson & Rowe, ).…”

“…While the extant literature on critical success factors (CSFs) of ERP implementation offers important guiding principles and activities that should be regarded by managers to reach related objectives (Bullen & Rockart, ; Caralli, Stevens, Willke, & Wilson, ), prior studies insufficiently clarify the effects of existing social networks, social identities, and stakeholder perceptions that alter during the extensive ERP implementation process (Schwarz & Watson, ). This calls for shifting the focus of research from the outcomes as a result of the perceptions on the interplay between human action and technology (Leonardi, ; Schwarz & Watson, ) towards the dynamics of evolving stakeholder perceptions (Bernroider, ; Besson & Rowe, ; Grainger, McKay, & Marshall, ). We assume that dynamically changing perceptions and social influences are major determinants of ERP implementation success.…”

Research opportunities in information technology funding and system justification

“…These two views may sometimes be reconciled in practice, when the interests of owners and other stakeholders coincide, however they are fundamentally different. They may result in very different outcomes, for example, when a funding decision (Bernroider, 2013;Zheng et al, 2013;Cao et al, 2013, Rockart, 1979Kling, 1980;(Peffers et al, 2003) (Myers 1984Zheng et al, 2013) (Cao et al 2013Dos Santos, 1991;Khan et al, 2013) The frequency or reoccurrence of evaluative or justificatory action…”

Dissemination and Impact of Multi-criteria Decision Support Methods for IT Project Evaluation

“…With regard to any significant IT investment, such as information systems [2] or Enterprise Resource Planning solutions [3], problems were reported concerning high levels of intangibility and subjectivity and the complexity and amount of different dimensions when it comes to stakeholders, socio-technical criteria [4] and IT related risks [5,6].…”