Knowledge prioritisation for ERP implementation success. Perspectives of clients and implementation partners in UK industries
| Pages | 1521-1546 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/IMDS-09-2016-0390 |
| Date | 14 August 2017 |
| Published date | 14 August 2017 |
| Author | Uchitha Jayawickrama,Shaofeng Liu,Melanie Hudson Smith |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management,Information systems,Data management systems,Knowledge management,Knowledge sharing,Management science & operations,Supply chain management,Supply chain information systems,Logistics,Quality management/systems |
Knowledge prioritisation for ERP
implementation success
Perspectives of clients and implementation
partners in UK industries
Uchitha Jayawickrama
School of Computing and Digital Technologies,
Staffordshire University, Stoke-on-Trent, UK
Shaofeng Liu
University of Plymouth, Plymouth, UK, and
Melanie Hudson Smith
Bristol Business School, University of the West of England, Bristol, UK
Abstract
Purpose –Knowledge managemen t is crucial for enterprise r esource planning (ERP) system s
implementation in real industrial environments, but this is a highly demanding task. The purpose of
this paper is to examine the effectiveness of knowledge identification, categorisation and prioritisation that
contributes to achieving ERP implementation success.
Design/methodology/approach –This study adopts a mixed methods approach; a qualitative phase to
identify and categorise knowledge types and sub-types; conducting in-depth interviews with ERP clients and
implementation partners; plus a quantitative phase to prioritise knowledge types and sub-types based on
their contribution to achieving ERP success for business performance improvement. An analytic hierarchy
process-based questionnaire was used to collect empirical data for the quantitative phase.
Findings –This study has been able to identify, categorise and rank various types of ERP-related
knowledge based on in-depth interviews and survey responses from both ERP clients and implementation
partners. In total, 4 knowledge types and 21 sub-types were ranked based on their contribution to achieving
ERP success; 4 variables of information quality, systems quality, individual impact and organisational impact
were used to measure ERP success.
Originality/value –The empirical findings demonstrate exactly what kinds of knowledge need to be
managed, enabling knowledge prioritisation when a client organisation or an implementation partner steps
into an ERP implementation, in a real industrial environment.
Keywords AHP, ERP implementation, Enterprise resource planning, Knowledge categorization,
Knowledge identification, Knowledge prioritization
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
Organisations are integrating their business processes seamlessly across the value chain
using information systems (Gattiker and Goodhue, 2004; Annamalai and Ramayah, 2011)
and are expecting to minimise information redundancy and improve information integrity
and security through implementing information systems (Zhou, 2002; Olson, 2004).
Enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems are information systems that are essential for
organisations to improve business processes. Over the past two decades, ERP systems have
become one of the most important and expensive implementations in the corporate use of
information technology. Despite the benefits that can be achieved from a successful ERP
system implementation, there is an evidence of high failure in ERP implementation projects
in numerous industries (Huang et al., 2004; Sun et al., 2015).
One of the main reasons for ERP failure has been identified as the lack of sufficient
support from knowledge management (KM) approaches throughout the ERP project
lifecycle (Sedera and Gable, 2010; Jayawickrama et al., 2013). Implementation of ERP
Industrial Management & Data
Systems
Vol. 117 No. 7, 2017
pp. 1521-1546
© Emerald PublishingLimited
0263-5577
DOI 10.1108/IMDS-09-2016-0390
Received 22 September 2016
Revised 22 December 2016
21 February 2017
Accepted 12 April 2017
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/0263-5577.htm
1521
Knowledge
prioritisation
for ERP
systems in organisations requires a variety of complex and detailed knowledge in order to
gain measurable business benefits (Mcadam and Galloway, 2005; Newell, 2015).
Effectively managing a wide range of knowledge which resides in multiple stakeholders,
including experienced implementation consultants and business users/representatives,
has been identified as a crucial factor for ERP project success (Xu and Ma, 2008). Therefore,
this study attempts to identify, categorise and prioritise the types of knowledge related to
the successful implementation of ERP systems. This study aims to answer a specific
research question:
RQ1. What are the most important knowledge varieties required for a successful ERP
implementation in real industrial environment?
The answer to the above research question can be viewed as a sustainable, knowledge-
based, decision-making process which comprises various types of ERP-related knowledge,
linked with organisational priorities to achieve ERP success in improving business
performance.
2. Related work
This section reviews the literature on ERP knowledge types, ERP success variables and the
use of the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) in IT/IS-related studies.
2.1 Knowledge types related to ERP implementations
Knowledge types are essential to understand a particular subject in a great detail. The
whole pool of knowledge pertaining to ERP implementation can be categorised into different
knowledge types to investigate issues of KM for ERP implementation (Gable, 2005). This
section evaluates how and why knowledge types have been used in past studies specifically
into ERP KM. Davenport (1998) identifies three types of knowledge which need to be
managed during ERP implementation (1) software-specific knowledge, (2) business process
knowledge (3) organisation-specific knowledge. Sedera et al. (2003) combine (2) and (3), and
define them as “knowledge of the client organisation”. They denote software-specific
knowledge as “knowledge of the software”. Gable et al. (2008) and Sedera and Gable (2010)
have used the same two knowledge ty pes to explain and categorise enter prise
systems knowledge. Furthermore, both the studies state that knowledge of the software
is low with clients, medium with consultants and high with vendors, whereas knowledge of
the client organisation is low with vendors, medium with consultants and high with clients.
It is clear that knowledge of the software is mostly the knowledge external to the client
organisation and knowledge of the client organisation is internal to the organisation
( Jayawickrama et al., 2014).
Parry and Graves (2008) also argue about two distinct types of knowledge required for
ERP implementations, i.e. knowledge internal to the client organisation and knowledge
external to the client organisation. Knowledge of ERP functionality, use of ERP, basic ERP
system and IT infrastructure, programming and best business practices come under
external knowledge, which are vital to improve business performance in the real industrial
environment. Internal knowledge comprises of the knowledge of business processes and
legacy systems in place in the client organisation, according to the knowledge centres of
Parry and Graves (2008). Table I shows the different knowledge types used in past studies
in order to represent the pool of all ERP-related knowledge.
The common pattern of external knowledge and internal knowledge to the client
company is evident from the past literature. However, it can be argued whether this
simplistic segmentation of knowledge types is adequate to evaluate the complex and
detailed pool of ERP-related knowledge.
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