پرورش اعتماد مشتریان برای موفقیت مشارکت در طول سفارشی سازی سیستم های ERP

Customization is a crucial, lengthy, and costly aspect in the successful implementation of ERP systems, and has, accordingly, become a major specialty of many vendors and consulting companies. This study examines how such companies can increase their clients’ perception of engagement success through increased client trust that is brought about through responsive and dependable customization. Survey data from ERP customization clients show that, as hypothesized, clients’ trust influenced their perception of engagement success with the company. The data also show that clients’ trust in the customization company was increased when the company behaved in accordance with client expectations by being responsive, and decreased when the company behaved in a manner that contradicted these expectations by not being dependable. Responses to an open-ended question addendum attached to the survey corroborated the importance of responsiveness and dependability. Implications for customization companies and research on trust are discussed.

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems have changed many aspects of Information Technology (IT) implementation [1], including an increased dependency on vendor and consultant support in the customization of these complex IT [2]. This dependency—reinforced by the intricate complexity of ERP systems and by the specialization involved in customizing them to each client's unique market and specific work procedures—has led to the proliferation of companies that specialize in ERP customization. As in other service industries, it is in the interest of these customization companies to increase their clients’ trust in them and through it to encourage their clients’ perception of having a successful engagement with them. Such a relationship could also increase the customization company's reputation and market-share and provide it with other strategic business benefits, primarily the drastic reduction in negotiation costs, transaction costs, and control costs, as well as client preference to do more business with the company, even at a premium price because of the value of a trust-based relationship [3]. Indeed, client trust should be a central ingredient in this relationship because the relationship between ERP customization companies and their clients is typically a relationship characterized by client dependency on and limited control of the customization company and the quality of its work. Often, this dependency is further increased by the client's limited ability to monitor the quality of the customization while it is still in progress, that is before the software has been actually deployed [4] and [5]. This dependency has also been noted by industry reports of ERP completion problems [6], [7], [8] and [9]. In many comparable business interactions involving dependency and a limited degree of control, trust is a central issue governing companies’ expectations from business relationships [3], [10] and [11]. Moreover, companies prefer to engage in business agreements with other companies that they trust and to decline such relationships with companies that they do not trust. Trust is the expectation that other people or companies over whom one has little or no control will fulfill their expected commitments [12], [13], [14] and [15] in situations that involve a significant risk or potential loss [13] and [16]. The objective of this study is to examine how customization companies can influence their clients’ trust and the downstream effects of this trust on their clients’ perception of having a successful engagement with the customization company. The study examining two antecedents of this trust: perceived responsiveness and perceived lack of dependability. Perceived responsiveness measures the clients’ assessment that the customization company is customizing the IT as requested. Perceived lack of dependability measures the clients’ assessment that the customization company does not keep promises and is not open about what is going on. The conceptual background of the study presents the research model and then elucidates the nature of trust, its effects on clients’ perception of engagement success, and its antecedents. Hypotheses are developed within the context of ERP customization. Next, the research design considerations, data collection and data analyses are discussed. The study concludes by discussing the results and their implication for industry and for research on trust.

The importance of trust is clearly re4ected in the writings of researchers that have studied it. Blau [12], studying the psychological aspects of social exchange, stated that trust is “essential for stable social relationships” (p. 99). Zand [61] claimed that trust in business is a “ ::: salient factor in deter- mining the eHectiveness of many relations” (p. 229). Luh- mann [18] argued that “Trust ::: is a basic fact of social life” (p. 4) without which people “would be prey to a vague sense of dread, to paralyzing fears” (p. 4), and Lewis and Weigert [17] studying interpersonal relationships explained that trust is “indispensable in social relations” (p. 968). Indeed, the predominant role of trust has been recognized by many of the researchers studying its eHects [14]. Some studies haveeven claimed that overlooking the role of trust in business relationships “results in 4awed conclusions” [11, p. 31]. This study lends support to these positions also in the realm of IT customization. Given the apparent strong in4u- ence of client trust on their perceptions of engagement suc- cess, building and maintaining this trust, and possibly client trust in other software implementation projects too, should not be overlooked