اثرات عملکرد سازمانی استفاده از سیستم های برنامه ریزی منابع سازمانی (ERP) : تأثیر تغییرات پس از اجرا

This paper examines the long-term financial performance effects of ERP system changes/revisions for firms that have previously reported ERP adoptions. The study is motivated by the mixed results of recent studies examining the financial effects of ERP systems and by studies which demonstrate that ERP implementations are modular in nature and thus may yield organizational performance gains or losses as a result of discrete changes that might be initiated after the initial system implementation. This study empirically examines the extent to which discrete changes to ERP systems over a post-implementation time-frame impact on firms' ability to deliver long-run financial performance. It further examines whether the timing and nature of system transformation during the post-implementation period presents a significant moderating condition of ERP performance outcomes. We specifically consider the ERP-adopting firms previously examined by Nicolaou [Nicolaou, A.I. 2004a. Firm performance effects in relation to the implementation and use of enterprise resource planning systems. Journal of Information Systems 18 (Fall): 79–105] and track them for changes/revisions in the form of enhancements, upgrades, abandonments and switches during the post-implementation period. Two research hypotheses are developed in the study which posit that both the nature and the timing of system implementation changes represent significant conditions for ERP post-implementation success. From the original sample of 247 firms used in Nicolaou [Nicolaou, A.I. 2004a. Firm performance effects in relation to the implementation and use of enterprise resource planning systems. Journal of Information Systems 18 (Fall): 79–105], a total of 83 firms were identified to report 182 discrete changes during their ERP system post-implementation period. The results suggest that, in general, subsequent changes in ERP systems often help resolve or surface implementation issues that affect subsequent use of and success from the use of such systems. Specific findings indicate that ERP-adopting firms, which initiate early enhancements in the form of either add-ons or upgrades, may enjoy superior differential financial performance in comparison to other ERP-adopting firms' differential performance. Late enhancements and both early and late abandonments lead to apparent differential performance deterioration for the ERP-adopting firms. These findings support the theoretical propositions developed in the study The study's findings provide an important contribution to the ERP systems success literature and present important insights for future research in this area.

This paper examines the long-term financial performance effects of ERP revisions (enhancements, upgrades, abandonments and switches) for firms that have previously reported ERP adoptions. The study is motivated by the mixed results of recent studies examining the financial effects of ERP systems. Prior studies such as Hunton et al. (2003) found that while ERP adopters demonstrated no change in their post-ERP financial performance, the financial performance of non-adopters deteriorated during the post-implementation period. Poston and Grabski, 2000 and Poston and Grabski, 2001, on the other hand, reported mixed and somewhat contrarian differences between ERP adopters and non-adopters on a number of financial performance measures. While ERP-adopting firms did no better than their counterparts on some measures, the non-adopting firms actually improved their performance on others. In a long-term examination of differences between ERP adopters and non-adopters, Nicolaou (2004a) reported that a lag of at least 2 years was necessary before adopters would begin to demonstrate positive differential financial performance in comparison to their non-adopting peers. While the time lag may partly explain the results obtained by Poston and Grabski, 2000 and Poston and Grabski, 2001, a number of conditions were also found to moderate the degree to which use of ERP systems would result in positive differential returns for adopting organizations. In this paper we examine the change/revision condition as a moderating factor to ERP systems success. We posit that the complexity and scope of ERP systems is such that the implementation process typically does not end when the system goes live. In fact, the implementation of ERP systems is considered a strategic investment decision (Cooke and Peterson, 1998 and Wah, 2000) with benefits expected to accrue over several periods of time as opposed to one-time windfall gains (Nicolaou, 2004a, Nicolaou, 2004b and Shang and Seddon, 2000). Additionally, ERP implementations are often modular in nature and thus may yield productivity gains or losses as a result of discrete changes that might be initiated after the initial system implementation (Holland and Light, 2001, Markus et al., 2000 and O'Leary, 2000).

Our research hypotheses specifically recognize that the time beyond initial implementation of an ERP system describes a period that is required by a company to adjust to the new system and train its users so that anticipated benefits may materialize. Such adjustments either take on the form of positive changes as upgrades or add-ons contingent on the time period elapsed since initial implementation; or assume the form of less-positive/negative changes in the form of switches or outright abandonments again qualified by the elapsed time since implementation. The joint consideration of both the nature of the change and the timing of the change make it especially important that the measurements in this study are made during time periods over which an ERP-adopting firm would be expected to initiate changes to its installed ERP-base. Based on prior consideration of such periods (Nicolaou, 2004a), we limited our analysis to 4 years beyond the time of initial ERP implementation. Our first research hypothesis predicted that a firm's differential performance as compared to a matched control firm, following changes made after the adoption of an ERP system, would be significantly higher than its differential performance prior to the adoption of the ERP system. This hypothesis considered the nature of the transformation itself. We specifically considered system enhancements, which consist of add-ons and upgrades, and system abandonments, which consist of switches and abandonments. We used eight operational performance measures previously used by Nicolaou (2004a) and described as first-order performance measures in prior studies (Bhattacharya et al., 1997 and Barua et al., 1995). These performance measures included return-ratios and expenses. As may be expected, positive coefficients on the return-ratios represented positive firm performance as a result of ERP changes while negative coefficients on the expense metrics represented positive performance derived from ERP changes as a result of the lowering of expense items for the change firms.