Requirements for the Summary-Reflection Paper:
For each reading article, you are responsible for writing a summary-reflection essay. This essay should reflect your reflections of the concepts and theoretical frameworks discussed and the confusions you may have.Rather than simply repeat or even copy/paste from original reading materials, please focus on your understanding of the concepts and theoretical frameworks. To be more specific, besides a brief summary, you should have a major section dedicated to the confusions you have with the concepts and models in the reading materials. You should comment on those concepts and models with your own opinions based on working experiences, readings from the library, and reflections of your previous learning.
If you just repeat abstract concepts from the reading materials, you will not earn a high score. You should connect concepts with job/internship experiences.
The following rubrics of essay evaluation could be used to guide your writing. All essays are single-spaced with top and bottom margins of 1 inch and left and right-side margins of 1 inch and the font size should be 12.
Learning to Implement Enterprise Systems: An Exploratory Study of the Dialectics of Change DANIEL ROBEY, JEANNE W. ROSS, AND MARIE-CLAUDE BOUDREAU DANIEL ROBEY is Professor and John B. Zellars Chair of Information Systems at Georgia State University, holding a joint appointment in the Departments of Com- puter Information Systems and Management. He earned his doctorate in Administra- tive Science in 1973 from Kent State University. Professor Robey is editor in chief of Information and Organization and serves on the editorial boards of Organization Science, Information Technology & People, and the John Wiley series on Information Systems. His current research includes empirical examinations of the effects of a wide range of technologies on organizational structure and pattems of work. JEANNE W. ROSS is Principal Research Scientist at the MIT Center for Information Systems Research. Her research focuses on the management of the information tech- nology (IT) unit, particularly on the management of the IT infrastructure and on changes in management demanded by new technologies and new organizational forms. Much of her work involves development of case studies that describe the human, technology, and IS-business relationship resources of firms that have successfully implemented technology-based changes. Her current research focuses on the man- agement of technology infrastructures that enable organizational transformations and on the discussion of IT value between IT and business management. Dr. Ross has served on the faculty at Worcester Polytechnic Institute and St. Norbert College. MARIE-CLAUDE BOUDREAU is an Assistant Professor of MIS at the University of Geor- gia. She received a Ph.D. in Computer Information Systems from Georgia State Uni- versity, a Diplome d'Enseignement Superieur Specialise from l'Ecole Superieure des Affaires de Grenoble, and an M.B.A. from l'Universite Laval in Quebec. Dr. Boudreau has conducted research on the implementation of integrated software packages, orga- nizational change induced by information technology, organizational leaming, orga- nizational culture, and research methodologies. Her teaching interests include the design and management of databases, programming languages, and globalization of IS. ABSTRACT: This paper reports on a comparative case study of 13 industrial firms that implemented an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. It compares firms based on their dialectic leaming process. All firms had to overcome knowledge barriers of two types: those associated with the configuration of the ERP package, and those associated with the assimilation of new work processes. We found that both strong core teams and carefully managed consulting relationships addressed configuration knowledge barriers. User training that included both technical and business processes, along with a phased implementation approach, helped firms to overcome assimilation knowledge barriers. However, all firms in this study experienced ongoing concems Journal of Management Information Systems/Summer 2002,Vol. 19, No. l,pp. 17—46. © 2002 M.E. Sharpe. Inc. 0742-1222 / 2002 $9.50 + 0.00. 18 ROBEY, ROSS. AND BOUDREAU with assimilation knowledge barriers, and we observed two different approaches to address them. In n piecemeal approach, firms concentrated on the technology first and deferred consideration of process changes. In a concerted approach, both the technol- ogy and process changes were undertaken together. Although most respondents clearly stated a preference for either piecemeal or concerted change, all firms engaged in practices that reflected a combination of these approaches. KEY WORDS AND PHRASES: dialectics of change. Enterprise Resource Planning, infor- mation technology implementation, organizational leaming, process theory. ENTERPRISE RESOURCE PLANNING (ERP) software packages have become popular means for both large and medium-sized organizations to overcome the limitations of fragmented and incompatible legacy systems. ERP systems are designed as integrated sets of software modules linked to a common database, handling basic corporate functions such as finance, human resources, materials management, sales, and distri- bution [61]. Most ERP packages also provide mulfiple language and currency capa- bilities, enabling integrafion of global operadons. The popularity of ERP is documented in a study that showed that nearly 19 percent of organizations across all industry sectors have installed ERP software, with the manufacturing sector leading the trend [11]. The study also showed that ERP's popularity continues to rise, with 34 percent of the surveyed organizafions investigating, pilofing, or implementing ERP pack- ages. Davenport characterized ERP as "the most important development in the corpo- rate use of information technology in the 1990s" [14, p. 122]. The growing interest in ERP packages may be explained by their proclaimed ben- efits. ERP systems permit companies to implement fully integrated systems to re- place legacy systems, which are notoriously difficult to maintain because of their age, size, mission-critical status, and frequent lack of documentation. ERP systems are beneficial because they are integrated instead of fragmented, embed allegedly best business practices within software routines, and provide direct access to real-time information [53]. ERP projects are often associated with more fundamental organiza- tional improvement efforts, such as business process reengineering. Indeed, the pri- mary benefits of an ERP installation may result from new business processes, organizational structures, human resource skill requirements, and knowledge man- agement [13, 37]. Realizing the high promise of ERP systems comes at a potentially high cost, as the transition to ERP is neither easy nor quick. The out-of-pocket costs of software, con- sultants, and staff training are considerably higher for ERP than for most system projects. It is common for companies to spend more than $100 million to implement an ERP system [17, 24, 42, 60], especially when they implement multiple modules across multiple divisions. Moreover, ERP investments are risky because organiza- tions often adjust slowly to ERP's inherently complex software. ERP projects often experience escalating budgets [57], and approximately one-half of all ERP projects LEARNING TO IMPLEMENT ENTERPRISE SYSTEMS 19 fail to achieve anticipated benefits because managers underestimate the efforts in- volved in managing change [1]. Many organizations, including AeroGroup [32], Nash Finch [64], Boeing [65], FoxMeyer [16], Siemens [58], Panasonic [72], and Bruno Magli [63], have failed to implement ERP packages as intended, either departing significantly from their original design specifications or missing project deadlines. The consequences of ERP failures are considerable, given the amount of resources that ERP projects consume. Given the growing significance and risk of ERP projects, it is essential that research focus on ways to improve ERP implementation. The research reported in this article employed a comparative case study methodology to explore the processes by which 13 large industrial companies implemented ERP systems supplied by a variety of vendors. Drawing upon Van de Ven and Poole's [69] theoretical analysis of organiza- tional change, we viewed ERP implementation as a dialectic process involving forces promoting and opposing change. From this analysis, we report findings about knowl- edge barriers in ERP implementation and ways that they may be overcome. Prior Research on ERP ALTHOUGH ERP ENIOYS WIDE COVERAGE in the trade press, academic research has appeared only recently [23]. To organize our review of academic research on ERP, we used Mohr's [44] distinction between variance and process research. Variance research seeks to explain variation in outcome variables by associating those outcomes with antecedent conditions and predictor variables. By contrast, a process approach seeks to explain outcomes by examining sequences of events over time. Both approaches offer insights into organizational changes enabled by information technologies [33]. Variance Research on ERP The bulk of academic research on ERP has adopted a variance approach. Two par- ticular streams can be distinguished: studies of ERP's critical success factors, and studies of ERP's effects. The former stream focuses on the antecedent conditions that predict or explain ERP success, whereas the latter group focuses on the outcomes of ERP implementation. Studies of ERP's Critical Success Factors Research on critical success factors tends to define success in terms of either tradi- tional project management metrics (such as meeting project deadlines, working within budget, and sustaining a harmonious relationship among the project participants) or business benefits (such as reduced inventory, decreased labor costs, and faster finan- cial closings). Although project management metrics are intermediate indicators of success, they are relevant because ERP systems must be implemented before they can generate benefits, and many ERP projects have failed to meet project management 20 ROBEY, ROSS, AND BOUDREAU goals. In general, these studies revealed factors that have historically been associated with project management success; top management support of the ERP project, an effective project team staffed full time with top business and information technology people, and organization-wide commitment [6, 10, 12, 28, 45, 46, 54, 56, 66, 70]. Critical success factors that generate business value from an ERP include: using metrics that clarify managerial objectives for ERP, developing processes and struc- tures for managing cross-functionally, investing in organizational change, and as- signing accountability for benefits [ 15,51,54]. Firms can also benefit from recognizing and addressing misalignments between organizational structures and ERP packages [62]. Like the critical success factors for project management, these factors are not unique to ERP systems. In sum, studies of ERP's critical success factors offer few insights beyond conven- tional wisdom. Most studies lack a theoretical framework that adequately explains why the investigated project and business outcomes occur.' Thus, their contribution to understanding ERP implementation is limited. Studies of ERP's Effects Research on ERP's effects has revealed that some effects are immediate whereas others are delayed, and some effects are positive whereas others are negative. For example, some firms begin to see improvements in inventory levels and deliveries soon after implementation, but others do not see such improvements for more than one year following implementation. Firms have discovered that poor data quality hindered potential process improvements [21, 52] and that users were unhappy with at least some system features [30]. Research has also identified contradictory effects from ERP. For example, Pawlowski and her colleagues [47] observed tbat ERP was associated witb greater job flexibility by expanding individual awareness, creativity, and innovation. However, ERP systems were also seen as less flexible than the legacy systems that they replaced. These findings support Davenport's [14] observation that ERP systems can empower users by equipping them with real-time data, but that ERP systems also demand organizational discipline and strict adherence to standardized processes. Like the literature on ERP's critical success factors, studies of ERP's ef- fects offer little in the way of theoretical explanations for reported findings. Process Research on ERP Unlike variance research, which speculates about the processes connecting anteced- ents with outcomes, process research seeks to explain how change emerges, devel- ops, and diminishes over time [33, 68]. In process research on ERP, implementation is typically conceived as a sequence of stages. Researchers have described ERP tran- sition with models having three [5,15], four [34], five [52],^ and six stages [22]. Each of these models recognizes that firms have a planning stage, an implementation stage, a stabilization phase, and a stage in which new systems are