An institutional perspective on sources of ERP package–organisation misalignments

Understanding the Social Structure of Academic Social Networking Sites: The Case of ResearchGate

The goal of ResearchGate (RG) is to help users exchange scholarly information around the world. This study drew on adaptive structuration theory (AST) to investigate the social structure of RG, which had been largely overlooked by prior research. Data were crawled from RG and results were presented based on content analysis. For the social structure embedded in RG, the most frequent updates of structural features and spirit occurred in the first two years. Six representative updates for information exchange were analyzed and the newly embedded social structures were presented. For the social structure emerging in using RG, users were more willing to answer questions than ask questions, which countered intuition. Three categories were elicited to present the purpose and expectation of questions. Users were more willing to publish publications than publish projects. Compared with reading publications and projects published by others, users seldom commented on them. For the comparison between the two social structures, this paper analyzed and compared the two social structures in terms of three types of information exchange, finding that the social structure emerging in using RG differed from that embedded in RG. We suggest that this paper could potentially help the two social structures of RG promote the optimization of each other.

Theorizing the configuration of modifiable off-the-shelf software

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to theorize the social dynamics of modifiable off-the-shelf software (MOTS) configuration process. The authors do so by formulating theoretical propositions about the configuration process.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors have conducted a comprehensive review of the literature on MOTS configuration and the associated challenges to draw on the properties of MOTS. The authors then examined these properties through the lens of social construction of technology to formulate the authors’ theoretical propositions.

Findings

The authors formulate theoretical propositions about the configuration process. The authors also develop four scenarios based on the authors’ theoretical propositions for managing the configuration process of MOTS. These scenarios categorize the difficulty level of the configuration by two theoretical groups: malleability and interpretive flexibility.

Practical implications

The findings especially the scenarios can guide practitioners when managing configuration processes.

Originality/value

The authors synthesize the literature on MOTS. The theoretical contributions emphasize the social dynamics in configuring this type of software which is an angle that has not been developed in previous literature.

Relationships among ERP, supply chain orientation and operational performance

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the interactions among enterprise resource planning (ERP) practices, supply chain orientation (SCO), and operational performance (OPER) by forming a macro perspective based on a scientific foundation powered by a resource-based view.

Design/methodology/approach

Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were used to verify the underlying dimensions of SCO and ERP practices. The covariance-based structural equation modeling was employed to test the direct and indirect effects of SCO and ERP practices constructs on OPER.

Findings

Results revealed that SCO has significant and positive effects on OPER, whereas ERP practices do not. Moreover, the indirect effect of ERP practices with the mediating effects of SCO is stronger than their direct effects. In addition, the origin of the ERP practices is found to be an important critical success factor.

Originality/value

Although much research has investigated the direct effect of ERP practices on performance, this study points out the importance of SCO in observing the stronger impacts of ERP practices.

Strategies for modern operations management

Purpose

This research enlarges the debate on the operations management strategies pursued by manufacturing companies. The purpose of this paper is to focus on issues concerning servitisation and customisation, enterprise resource planning (ERP) and Lean-agile, supply chain orchestration, corporate social responsibility (CSR) and Lean for design management.

Design/methodology/approach

A questionnaire of eight questions which stemmed from a literature review was completed by 152 senior operations managers from 120 large European manufacturing companies. Responses were scaled from strongly agree to strongly disagree. The results were tested for reliability using Cronbach’s α test. The questions were tested through a one-sample t-test.

Findings

The 152 respondents consider servitisation and standardisation to be a trade-off. They consider integration of ERP strategies with Lean and agile systems and customised products/processes to be difficult. Furthermore, suppliers’ orchestration is considered not that suitable for manufacturing companies and suppliers’ CSR performance measurement excessive. By contrast, a CSR internal performance measurement is helpful for increasing sales. The respondents also indicate that there is a lack of Lean tools for design and development processes and Six Sigma is the only strategy for improving quality performance in design and development processes.

Research limitations/implications

The findings are applicable only to the manufacturing sector. The findings of this research indicate many avenues of research for scholars.

Practical implications

The findings can be very useful for manufacturing operations managers deciding their future strategies on operations.

Originality/value

Findings related to servitisation and customisation, ERP and Lean-agile, supply orchestration for manufacturing companies and Lean and agile for product design are original and open a valuable debate.

Workarounds to hospital electronic prescribing systems: a qualitative study in English hospitals

BACKGROUND

Concerns with the usability of electronic prescribing (ePrescribing) systems can lead to the development of workarounds by users.

OBJECTIVES

To investigate the types of workarounds users employed, the underlying reasons offered and implications for care provision and patient safety.

METHODS

We collected a large qualitative data set, comprising interviews, observations and project documents, as part of an evaluation of ePrescribing systems in five English hospitals, which we conceptualised as case studies. Data were collected at up to three different time points throughout implementation and adoption. Thematic analysis involving deductive and inductive approaches was facilitated by NVivo 10.

RESULTS

Our data set consisted of 173 interviews, 24 rounds of observation and 17 documents. Participating hospitals were at various stages of implementing a range of systems with differing functionalities. We identified two types of workarounds: informal and formal. The former were informal practices employed by users not approved by management, which were introduced because of perceived changes to professional roles, issues with system usability and performance and challenges relating to the inaccessibility of hardware. The latter were formalised practices that were promoted by management and occurred when systems posed threats to patient safety and organisational functioning. Both types of workarounds involved using paper and other software systems as intermediaries, which often created new risks relating to a lack of efficient transfer of real-time information between different users.

CONCLUSIONS

Assessing formal and informal workarounds employed by users should be part of routine organisational implementation strategies of major health information technology initiatives. Workarounds can create new risks and present new opportunities for improvement in system design and integration.

Classifying systemic differences between Software as a Service- and On-Premise-Enterprise Resource Planning

Purpose

– The technological innovation of Software as a Service-Enterprise Resource Planning (SaaS-ERP) opens several relative advantages, which may be realized by choosing the proper operation mode. Thus a company looking for a new ERP system faces the question: When and under what conditions does it make sense to choose a SaaS-ERP system? The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Design/methodology/approach

– The relative advantage criterion of the diffusion of innovation theory, derived as operation mode differences, determine the conditions under which SaaS- or On-Premise-ERP is preferable: a classification of all main systemic operation mode differences between SaaS and On-Premise for the more complex ERP systems is presented. The systemic differences were identified by analytic generalization using triangulation between a literature review and a multiple case study with four ERP producers.

Findings

– The most significant decision factors between ERP operation modes are flexibility, customization, cost, and operation and maintenance. General strategies have been derived by bringing the theoretical reasons together with the operation mode difference criteria. Typical criteria for selecting SaaS-ERP are a lack of IT-capacity or capabilities, as well as high need for flexibility, due to business development, seasonality, growth, collaboration and/or expansion. On-Premise-ERPs should be selected if specific or strategic resources would be outsourced or when major customization is a need.

Research limitations/implications

– Case research is limited in that it reveals only ERP producers’ view and omits outlying cases.

Practical implications

– The findings implicate that ERP selecting customers should consider and expand their criteria for ERP selection by operation mode criteria.

Originality/value

– The classification of the most essential operation mode differences allows, for the first time, ERP selecting customers to design selection strategies. ERP selecting companies should strategically favor the operation mode that best suits their respective organizational characteristics so as to obtain the best possible support from the ERP operation modes.

Effects of decision rationality on ERP adoption extensiveness and organizational performance

Purpose

– The purpose of this paper is to examine how decision rationality affects ERP adoption extensiveness and subsequently, organization performance. The mediating roles of system usage and user satisfaction on the relationship between adoption extensiveness and organizational performance are also examined.

Design/methodology/approach

– This study was based on a questionnaire survey of 976 public-listed companies and 200 unlisted manufacturing companies. Responses of 93 ERP adopters were analyzed.

Findings

– ERP adoption extensiveness is significantly affected by the overall measure of expected economic benefits, but not by any of the economic benefit type individually. On the other hand, mimetic pressure individually affects ERP adoption extensiveness, but not the overall measure of institutional pressures. ERP adoption extensiveness is significantly associated with organizational performance, and the mediating roles of system usage and user satisfaction are supported.

Research limitations/implications

– This study has the limitations associated with questionnaire-based research and its small sample size may also limit the generalizability of its findings.

Practical implications

– The high emphasis on operational benefits of ERP adoption and the significant effect of mimetic pressure on ERP adoption extensiveness imply that organizations in Malaysia are largely “followers” of the technological innovation and generally have yet to exploit the full potentials of their ERP systems. Government agencies may need to play a more active role to facilitate fuller utilization and adoption of the higher end ERP applications. Vendors of ERP systems may need to review their strategies to increase their sales of ERP systems to the smaller business enterprises.

Originality/value

– The paper addresses the relatively void in literature on the link between decision rationality and technology adoption extensiveness and the subsequent organizational performance in the context of an emerging economy.

Integration of healthcare and financial information: Evaluation in a public hospital using a comprehensive approach

Public healthcare organisations are moving towards the use of new technologies to automate and improve their internal processes in order to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of their use of resources. The aim of this research is to tackle the systematic evaluation of an experience of integrating information in a healthcare organisation, paying attention to the implications that this entails. The results show that the integration of the information in the hospital results in higher levels of quality. This study contributes a vision of interrelated work, in which tasks are shared and aims are jointly established.

The dilemma of internal audit function adaptation

Purpose

– The purpose of this paper is to provide a conceptual framework that helps to investigate how the internal audit function (IAF) responds to both the introduction of the control logic of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems, and corporate governance’s (CG) institutional pressures. Furthermore, the paper aims to articulate the concurrence between the external pressures of CG and internal control logic of ERP systems.

Design/methodology/approach

– The paper presents a review of the normative literature pertaining to the increase in significance of CG in the light of the worldwide economic crisis. The paper highlights a literature gap related to the lack of studies focusing on the impact of ERP systems implementation on the IAF practices.

Findings

– The authors articulate institutional theory to formulate a conceptual framework that explains the reciprocal interplay between the macro external governance pressures, micro internal institutional logics inscribed in the ERP systems and their effect on IAF practices and structure within organisations.

Research limitations/implications

– The paper is conceptual in nature and therefore the proposed framework will be subsequently validated using a qualitative research approach in future research.

Practical implications

– The conceptual framework would offer the internal auditors some strategies for enabling adaptation to the different internal and external pressures. Also the paper provides a platform for research community to investigate the influence of CG and ERP systems implementation on IAF adaptation.

Originality/value

– The paper provides a clearer articulation of the various constructs that affect the IAF, which has gained great attention for assuring good CG.

Product diversity and spectrum of choice in hospital ePrescribing Systems in England

Background

ePrescribing systems have considerable potential for improving healthcare quality and safety. With growing expectations about the benefits of such systems, there is evidence of widespread plans to implement these systems in hospitals in England where hitherto they have had a low uptake. Given the international drive away from developing home-grown to systems to procuring commercial applications, we aimed to identify available ePrescribing systems in England and to use the findings to develop a taxonomy of the systems offered by suppliers.

Methods and Findings

We undertook a scoping review of the published and grey literature, and conducted expert interviews with vendors, healthcare organisations and national ePrescribing experts in order to identify the spectrum of available systems, identify and map their key features, and then iteratively develop and validate a taxonomy of commercial ePrescribing systems available to English hospitals. There is a wide range of available systems including 13 hospital-wide applications and a range of specialty systems. These commercial applications can be grouped into four sub-categories: standalone systems, modules within integrated systems, functionalities spread over several modules, and specialty systems. The findings also reveal that apart from four packaged applications (two of which are specialty systems), all other systems have none or less than two live implementations across England.

Conclusions

The wide range of products developed in the last few years by different national and international suppliers, and the low uptake of these products by English hospitals indicate that the English ePrescribing market is still in its infancy. This market is undergoing rapid cycles of change, both with respect to the number of suppliers and their diversity of offerings. Constant renewal of knowledge is needed on the status of this evolving market, encompassing the products development and adoption, to assist implementation decisions and facilitate market maturity.

Risk of adopting mission-critical OSS applications: an interpretive case study

Purpose

– This study aims to explore the process of open source software (OSS) adoption in small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), and more specifically open source enterprise resource planning (ERP) as a “mission critical” OSS application in manufacturing. It also addresses the fundamental issue of ERP risk management that shapes this process.

Design/methodology/approach

– The approach is done through an interpretive case study of a small Canadian manufacturer that has adopted an open source ERP system.

Findings

– Interpreted in the light of the IT risk management, OSS and packaged application adoption literatures, results indicate that the small manufacturer successfully managed the adoption process in a rather intuitive manner, based on one guiding principle and nine practices. In analyzing the data, diffusion of innovation theory appeared to fit rather well with the situation observed and to offer rich insights to explain the mission-critical OSS adoption process.

Research limitations/implications

– A single case study of successful IT adoption should be eventually counterbalanced by future cases considered to be partial or total failures, using a wider multiple case study approach for comparative purposes. And this should include alternative theoretical interpretations and more detailed empirical work on the extent to which the distinctive features of OSS make its adoption more or less risk-laden. This initial effort should also be followed by further research on mission-critical OSS adoption in contexts other than SMEs (e.g. healthcare organizations) and other than ERP (e.g. customer-relationship management).

Practical implications

– This research confirms that open source is a credible alternative for SMEs that decide willingly or under external pressure to adopt a mission-critical system such as ERP. Moreover, it suggests that a high level of formalization is not always necessary.

Originality/value

– The authors argue that rich insights into the dynamics of the mission-critical OSS adoption process can be obtained by framing this process within an IT risk management context.

ERP Misfit-Reduction Strategies

Misfit between Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system and business is widely recognized as the main cause of ERP system failure. Modification of the ERP system and adaptation of business processes have been hyped as the means to reduce misfits between ERP system and business organizations. Nevertheless, to date, very little empirical evidence exists to demonstrate that the potential has indeed been realized. Thus, the purpose of this study is to empirically examine to which extent the two misfit-reduction strategies, namely system modification and organizational adaptation mitigate the negative impacts of ERP misfits on ERP system performance, which is measured by information quality in this study. A total amount of 305 sets of questionnaire that collected from the ERP system users in manufacturing sector in Malaysia were analyzed using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) approach. The findings of this study have revealed that the effects of the two misfit-reduction strategies vary based on the different characteristic of ERP misfits. Specifically, system modification is found to significantly reduce the negative impacts of deep-structure misfit such as process misfit, whereas organization adaptation is significant in mitigating surface-structure misfit such as data presentation and layout.

Structuring Information Systems-in-Use

It has become commonplace for companies operating in a global marketplace to relocate, extend, or establish new production facilities overseas. In this global context it is also normal for organizations to replicate the implementation and use of an established information system in a new location. Such replication is not trivial however and if not properly managed can lead to IS obsolescence. Drawing on a practice lens approach the paper presents a case study of the attempted replication of an e-procurement system within a global notebook manufacturer. The study argues that effective replication needs to take into account not only the technical aspects of the system but also the interpretive schemes of its users and their awareness of organizational routines that take together amount to a technology-in-use. The paper concludes with a discussion of the issues arising from the study and their implications for global information systems management.

Using Institutional Theory in Enterprise Systems Research

This paper examines the use of institutional theory as a conceptually rich lens to study social issues of enterprise systems (ES) research. More precisely, the purpose is to categorize current ES research using institutional theory to develop a conceptual model that advances ES research. Key institutional features are presented such as isomorphism, rationalized myths, and bridging macro and micro structures, and institutional logics and their implications for ES research are discussed. Through a literature review of 181 articles, of which 18 papers are selected, the author’s built a conceptual model that advocates multi-level and multi-theory approaches and applies newer institutional aspects such as institutional logics. The findings show that institutional theory in ES research is in its infancy and adopts mainly traditional institutional aspects like isomorphism, with the organization as the level of analysis, and in several cases it is complemented by structuration theory and other theories.

The Adoption of Web-Based Supply Chain Management Applications

The objective of this study is to develop a comprehensive model to explain why organizations adopt Web-based Supply Chain Management (SCM) applications from an institutional perspective. Questionnaire survey was used to collect data from manufacturing firms in Jordan. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM), using EQS was used to analyze the data. The results indicated that the environmental coercive and mimetic pressures and organizational characteristics have a positive effect on the top management’s perception and support of Web-based SCM adoption and usage. Furthermore, the study revealed that the Web-based SCM applications represent the pool that reflects the degree of response to institutional pressures. This study was the first to empirically explain why organizations adopt Web-based SCM from an institutional perspective, adding new contribution to the developing literature on Web-based SCM. Understanding the external pressures and the effect of organizational factors will provide the practitioners with better knowledge on how to manage the adoption of Web-based SCM applications.

Managing Erp System Risk in SMEs: A Multiple Case Study

ERP systems are increasingly accessible to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). If the potential benefits of these systems are significant, the same applies to the risk associated with their implementation. A number of authors emphasize that IS risk management is most effective when it is initiated at the earliest possible moment in the system's lifecycle, that is, at the adoption phase. But how do SMEs actually manage the risk of ERP implementation during the ERP adoption process? The research objectives are (1) to identify and describe the influence of the SMEs’ context on their implementation risk exposure, and (2) to understand whether and how, within the adoption process, SMEs actually manage the risk of implementing an ERP system supplied by an ERP vendor, with open source software, or through in-house development. In order to do so, four case studies of SMEs having implemented an ERP system were undertaken. The study shows that to manage risk at the adoption stage, SMEs can proceed in a rather intuitive, informal and unstructured manner, that is explicitly based however upon an architecture of basic principles, policies and practices.

Positioning the Institutional Perspective in Information Systems Research

In recent years, a number of studies have adopted institutional theory as a perspective for examining Information Systems (IS)/Information Technology (IT)-related phenomena such as IT innovation, IS development and implementation, and IT adoption and use. The objective of this paper is to take stock of how institutional theory is being used in IS research. To this end, it first proposes a conceptual framework to encapsulate the main concepts of institutional theory. Second, it synthesizes the findings of 53 articles that adopted an institutional perspective to study IS/IT phenomena. Finally, it identifies conceptual and methodological issues that researchers need to address when adopting an institutional perspective.