The Relation of Shadow Systems and ERP Systems—Insights from a Multiple-Case Study

Abstract

ERP systems integrate a major part of all business processes and organizations include them in their IT service management. Besides these formal systems, there are additional systems that are rather stand-alone and not included in the IT management tasks. These so-called 'shadow systems' also support business processes but hinder a high enterprise integration. Shadow systems appear during their explicit detection or during software maintenance projects such as enhancements or release changes of enterprise systems. Organizations then have to decide if and to what extent they integrate the identified shadow systems into their ERP systems. For this decision, organizations have to compare the capabilities of each identified shadow system with their ERP systems. Based on multiple-case studies, we provide a dependency approach to enable their comparison. We derive categories for different stages of the dependency and base insights into integration possibilities on these stages. Our results show that 64% of the shadow systems in our case studies are related to ERP systems. This means that they share parts or all of their data and/or functionality with the ERP system. Our research contributes to the field of integration as well as to the discussion about shadow systems.

Shadow IT – Systematic Literature Review

“…Whether it is due to gaps in the software solutions function or other reasons, organizations provide a fertile ground for system de-Information Technology and Control 2020/1/49 velopment by end users who are not software developers by profession. The following terms are used in the literature for systems developed by end users or used without the knowledge of IT departments: shadow system(s), shadow IT, feral system(s), grey IT, hidden IT, rogue IT, workaround systems, workaround IT, unofficial IT, bolt-on [6,17,28,40,61,62,70,76,81,86,87]. Huber et al [28] state that all these terms are used to describe the shadow system phenomenon.…”

“…Huber et al [28] add end user computing to the list of terms that indicate IT systems developed by end users, although Rentrop and Zimmermann [62] stated in the paper published in 2012 that it is necessary to distinguish shadow IT from end user computing. Similar to Retrop and Zimmerman [62], Tambo et al [81] emphasize that feral systems (shadow systems) should not be confused with end user development (EUD) because EUD is controlled and rooted in the official IT.…”

Gamification of Enterprise Systems

“…Factors influencing use and acceptance include computer self-efficacy, organization size, organizational support, technical support, social influence, receptivity to change, innovativeness in technology, ability to experiment with the system before adoption, beliefs about the system, compatibility, fit, and top management support [8,31,32,46]. User attitudes and satisfaction are also two important aspects of acceptance of enterprise systems [8,[47][48][49]. Training, which plays a critical role in enterprise system implementation, can help overcome some of the challenges in acceptance and use.…”

Shedding Light on Shadow IT: Definition, Related Concepts, and Consequences

“…argumentam que a existência do uso de shadow IT desafia a importância da autonomia dos usuários para o surgimento de comportamentos inovadores, uma vez que o uso de sistemas shadow parece ser uma manifestação da criatividade e inovação pessoal dos usuários. Assim, a literatura também aponta um caráter inovador das soluções shadow conduzidas pelos usuários (Fürstenau & Rothe, 2014;Györy et al, 2012;Fürstenau et al, 2016;Zimmermann et al, 2016;Singh, 2015).…”