سیستم های برنامه ریزی منابع سازمانی (ERP) به عنوان یک توانمندساز نوآوری پایدار فرایند کسب و کار : دیدگاه مبتنی بر دانش

This research examines the relationship between ERP systems and innovation from a knowledge-based perspective. Building upon the multi-dimensional conceptualization of absorptive capacity by Zahra and George [Zahra, S.A., George, G., 2002. Absorptive capacity: a review, reconceptualization, and extension. Academy of Management Journal 27 (2), 185–203], a theoretical framework is developed to specify the relationships between ERP-related knowledge impacts and potential/realized absorptive capacity for business process innovation. The implication of the knowledge-based analysis in this paper is that ERP systems present dialectical contradictions, both enabling and constraining business process innovation. The model highlights areas where active management has potential to enhance the capabilities of a firm for sustained innovation of its business processes. Future research directions are also outlined.

The research in this paper challenges conventional beliefs about the relationship between enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems and business process innovation. While common views of ERP systems as constraining and inflexible (“like cement, the critics say – highly flexible in the beginning, but rigid later” (Davenport, 2000, p. 16) seem incommensurate with the notion of innovation, the analysis presented in this paper reveals a different picture. Rather than focusing exclusively on the structural constraints that these systems impose, we direct attention to the impacts of an ERP system on the knowledge capabilities of the organization. In contrast to prevailing views, a knowledge-based perspective reveals that ERP systems have the potential to significantly enhance the capabilities of a firm for sustained innovation of its business processes. The implication of our analysis is that ERP systems present dialectical contradictions, both enabling and constraining business process innovation. The theoretical model presented in this paper makes several important contributions. First, the model provides a foundation for understanding the dialectical and often complex relationship between ERP systems and innovation. Moreover, the model highlights the ways that organizations can cultivate and leverage the enabling elements to create enhanced business process innovation capabilities. Finally, the model provides a foundation for future empirical investigations to further explore these relationships. For many firms, an ERP system is critical to ongoing operations of the company and also represents their largest IT investment. For these same organizations, knowledge capabilities (generation, combination-recombination and exploitation of knowledge) can provide a source of competitive advantage (Conner and Prahalad, 1996, Grant, 1996 and Kogut and Zander, 1996). The objective of the research in this paper, then, is to carefully examine the relationship between the technological and operational capabilities provided by an ERP system and the knowledge capabilities of the firm for sustained business process innovation. Broadly defined, the process of innovation is the development and implementation of new ideas in an organization, including inventions, imitations and adaptations (Van de Ven, 1986 and Webster, 2004). The premise of the research presented in this paper is that an ERP system provides the potential for enhanced knowledge capabilities for business process innovation. The realization of these capabilities, however, is dependent on the development of associated social integration mechanisms for knowledge sharing, integration and creation, and routines for innovation, learning and renewal. The research presented here develops a theoretical framework to explore these ideas and to provide a foundation for future research to better understand organizational strategies to: (1) reduce the gap between the potential and realized knowledge capabilities enabled by ERP systems, and (2) develop routines to utilize these capabilities for sustained business process innovation. To this end, we build upon and extend the model of absorptive capacity by Zahra and George (2002) to introduce a new theoretical framework – ERP Systems and Business Process Absorptive Capacity. In alignment with the original framework, business process absorptive capacity is viewed as a dynamic capability influencing the firm’s ability to create and deploy knowledge to build its business processes. The framework also incorporates insights from prior research on ERP systems from a knowledge perspective and studies on boundary spanning/knowledge brokering and information systems ( Levina and Vaast, 2005, Pawlowski and Robey, 2004 and Volkoff et al., 2004). The resulting theoretical framework provides a more holistic picture of both the enablers and inhibitors to process innovation related to ERP systems over the long term.

The framework presented in this paper offers a new theoretical perspective of ERP systems and business process innovation. Employing a knowledge-based approach and Zahra and George’s (2002) multidimensional view of absorptive capacity, we seek to present a more balanced and comprehensive picture of the impacts of ERP systems on innovation capabilities. The main theme of this paper is that an understanding of the impacts of ERP systems on innovation of business processes requires recognition of the opportunities as well as the constraints. Overemphasis on the structural constraints presented by ERP systems may hinder the pursuit of innovation of business processes by organizations. In contrast, our analysis focusing on the concept of business process absorptive capacity highlights the opportunities ERP systems can provide, enabling organizations to build new capabilities to create and deploy knowledge to improve business processes. Clearly, neither view alone provides an adequate understanding. Rather, new perspectives are needed that incorporate the dialectical contradictions of ERP systems as enabling and constraining business process innovation. The model presented in this paper is one step in that direction. The work in this paper also makes a valuable contribution by providing a conceptual bridge between two important streams of research – post-implementation ERP system research and work on the organizational antecedents of absorptive capacity (Jansen et al., 2005). Our adaptation of Zahra and George’s (2002) general model to the context of ERP systems in organizations preserves the richness and multidimensionality of the absorptive capacity concept, thus providing a foundation for cross-contributions between IS/management studies on the topic. This is currently an active area of management research that IS researchers can both draw upon and contribute to in the future. The framework developed in this paper, for example, could be used in empirical studies to understand the relationships of other IT-related organizational antecedents with the different dimensions of absorptive capacity. Our work also resonates with emerging theory on the impacts of organizational integration as seen in the recent work by Barki and Pinsonneault (2005). Their analysis suggests that organizational integration “can simultaneously improve organizational efficiency and flexibility, two organizational performance concepts frequently pitted against each other in the traditional organization theory literature” (p. 172). They specifically identify higher innovation rates as one of the potential benefits of functional integration of administrative/support activities of a company’s process chain.