Enterprise content management research: a comprehensive review

Electronic records management – a state of the art review

Purpose

This paper aims to examine the state of the art in electronic records management (ERM) with the goal of identifying the prevailing research topics, gaps and issues in the field.

Design/methodology/approach

First, a wide search was performed on academic research databases, limited to the period between 2008–2018. Second, the search results were reviewed for relevance and duplicates. Finally, the study sources were checked against the list of journals and conferences ranked by computing research and education and JourQual. The final sample of 55 selected studies was analyzed in depth.

Findings

ERM has lost some research momentum due to being deeply embedded in affiliate information systems areas and the changing records management landscape. Additionally, the requirement models specified by Governmental/National Archives might have constrained technology innovation in ERM. A lack of application was identified for the social media research area.

Research limitations/implications

Limitations were encountered in available search tool functionality and keyword confusion leading to inflated search results. While effort has been made to obtain optimal search results, some relevant articles may have been omitted.

Originality/value

The last ERM state-of-the-art review was in 1997. A lot has changed since then. This paper will help researchers understand the current state of ERM research, its understudied areas and identify gaps for future studies.

The adoption of electronic records management system (ERMS) in the Yemeni oil and gas sector

Purpose

Identification of factors for electronic records management system (ERMS) adoption is important as it allows organizations to focus their efforts on these factors to ensure success. The purpose of this paper is to identify the factors that influence ERMS adoption in the Yemeni oil and gas (O&G) sector.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper conducts a systematic literature review (SLR) to extract the most common factors that could facilitate successful ERMS adoption. Information technology (IT) experts were asked to rank the extracted factors via an e-mail questionnaire and to recommend specific critical success factors that must be given extra attention to increasing the success of ERMS adoption. Essentially, the proposed methodology is technology-organization-environment (TOE) modeling to examine the important factors influencing decision-makers in the Yemeni O&G sector regarding ERMS adoption.

Findings

This paper identifies factors influencing ERMS adoption based on SLR and an expert-ranking survey. The data that were collected from IT experts were analyzed using the statistical package for the social sciences. The results showed that only 12 out of 20 factors were significant. The experts then added three new factors, resulting in 15 significant factors classified into the three dimensions as follows: technology, organization and environment.

Originality/value

Limited studies have been carried out in the context of the O&G sector, even among developed countries such as Canada, the UK and Australia. These studies have focused on a limited number of factors for ERMS adoption targeting better utilization of human resources, faster and more user-friendly system responses and suitability for organizational ease. This paper explores the factors that may prove useful in adopting of ERMS in the O&G sector of developing countries, similar to Yemen.

ECM implementations in practice: objectives, processes, and technologies

Purpose

Enterprise content management (ECM) is an important topic in information management, but researchers have long had difficulty developing a consistent definition. The purpose of this paper is to analyze ECM case reports from practice to identify ECM’s objectives, processes and technologies and to provide a foundation on which ECM can be conceptualized and defined.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper assembles more than 1,200 case reports on industrial ECM implementations in order to characterize the ECM concept from a practitioner’s viewpoint. The paper provides a descriptive overview and historical examination of ECM implementations over time and across countries and industries, grounded in a structured content analysis.

Findings

Even though the case reports share some commonalities, their ECM projects differ considerably in terms of their objectives, processes and technologies, and vary widely across countries and industries. In addition, ECM implementations are much broader today than they once were, so the scope and boundaries of the ECM concept are increasingly blurred in practice.

Originality/value

While several researchers have characterized the ECM concept based on literature reviews, only a few have approached the definition problem from a practical viewpoint. This paper provides a foundation from which to evaluate how well researchers’ conceptualizations of ECM match current business practice.

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.

Shared Services Management

The cloud computing technology has accelerated shared services in the government and private sectors. This paper proposes a research framework of critical success factors of shared services in the aspects of strategy identification, collaborative partnership networking, optimal shared services process re-designing, and new policies and regulations. A survey has been employed to test the hypotheses. The test results indicate that clear vision of strategies of shared services, long term business relationships among shared services partners, business process re-design, human resource structure re-design, effective governance and service center for shared services, effective cost distribution scheme, and ethical code and access control for shared services significantly positively contribute to the success of shared services.

Factors Impacting the Implementation of Enterprise Content Management Systems

Enterprise content management (ECM) is a new and fast growing area. It is still undergoing the same defining process as predecessor systems such as decision support and enterprise resource systems. A qualitative case study was conducted to identify key factors that impact the success of ECM systems implementations. A theoretical framework was developed from the information systems (ISs) literature resulting in a research model defining five categories of factors that impact ECM implementation success with these questions: Are there managerial, user, task, technological and content related factors that impact ECM implementation success? The research model was tested using a mix methods approach. Content analysis of the project documentations and interviews of 15 team leads and members that implemented ECM systems within their departments in their organization. The results included 12 factors that were supported by the interview data as well as the content analysis of related project documents.