Enhancing functionality in an enterprise software package

Abstract

Although enterprise resource planning (ERP) packages strive to integrate all the major processes of a ®rm, customers typically discover that some essential functionality is lacking. To address this issue and to complement their capabilities, both ERP vendors and customers increasingly recognize the importance of collaboration. Using a grounded theory approach, this study's objective is to derive a theoretical understanding of how customers collaborated on enhancements to an ERP module. The main contribution is, therefore, a theoretical model that relates the two processes Ð selection of participants, and interorganizational collaboration Ð to share knowledge of a subsysytem's best practices. Important ®ndings are that`swift trust' from the occupational community, con¯ict resolution, reciprocity, and informal networks impact functionality enhancement. The implication from these ®ndings is that a deeper understanding of the functionality enhancement process bene®ts not only team members, but also ERP customers and collaborators overall. #

Requirements engineering for cross-organizational ERP implementation undocumented assumptions and potential mismatches

“…Our research also builds on the works of Davenport [12,13,14], Hong and Kim [22], Gattiket and Goodhue [18], Markus [5,31], Scott & Kaindl [37], and Soh et all [39,40] in analyzing the alignment perspective in ERP projects. Although the ERP literature highlighs the issue of misalignments in ERP projects, the mere assertion that they arise from unmet organizational requirements masks the variety of sources of misalignments.…”

“…12 The more rigid the solution, the more standardized the business processes [5,9,12,13,14,17,20,24,25,26,27,36,39,40,42]. 13 The more rigid the solution, the tighter the integration of operational and informational procedures that the organization can achieve [1,5,9,10,11,12,13,14,17,18,19,20,21,22,24,25,26,27,31,35,36,37,38,39,40,41,42]. 14 The more rigid the solution, the better the level of interoperability that can be achieved [1,24,25].…”

“…15 The more rigid the solution, the more predictable the global business processes [12,13,14,20,25]. 16 The tighter the integration of operational and informational procedures, the greater the changes in processes and data management imposed on the organization [1,5,9,10,11,12,13,14,17,18,19,20,21,22,24,25,26,27,31,35,36,37,38,39,40,41,42]. 17 The tighter the integration in terms operational and informational procedures, the more complex the changeover management processes [5,13].…”

Hybridity as a process of technology's ‘translation’: Customizing a national Electronic Patient Record

“…This largely emerges because of the distance, physical and literal, between software developers and end users. Typically, standard EPR products are developed either in isolation from the user or in line with the requirements and the needs of a few organizations only, usually the largest, more profitable and innovative, compromising in either case their malleability (Pollock et al, 2003;Scott & Kaindl, 2000;Timmermans & Berg, 2003).…”

Value-Based and Context-Aware Selection of Software-Service Bundles: A Capability Based Method

“…From a service science perspective, the collaboration between client and vendor (i.e., cocreation of value) is considered as precondition for successfully implementing the service part of software-service bundles. Data and knowledge sharing has been shown to create substantial mutual benefits by suing techniques such as vendor managed inventory [8] and best practice based configuration of enterprise applications [9].…”