کالا یا مزیت رقابتی؟ تجزیه و تحلیل پارادوکس ارزش ERP

A true e-business enabled firm needs the support from a well-tuned enterprise resource planning (ERP) system for providing real time data. However, many companies complain that after their huge investments in ERP systems, they found the ERP systems do not bring them new orders, new profits, or competitive advantage as ERP vendors claim. Academic studies also found mixed results regarding ERP’s payoff. In line with resource based view (RBV), the study proposes an integrated model to shed light on the ERP value paradox. We try to answer “With what organizational resources and by building what firm specific capabilities, the investment in ERP systems may bring firms competitive advantage”. Using a sample of 150 ERP and e-business adopters in the US, we found that (1) organizational resources such as managerial skills and organizational change management play a more important role than IT resources (ERP, e-Business technologies) in generating business integration capability. (2) However, neither IT resources nor organizational resources directly provide firms with competitive advantage. Instead, business integration capability built from the two resources plays a mediating role through which business achieves competitive advantage.

Enterprise resources planning (ERP) systems are large commercial software packages that digitalize business processes (Banker et al., 2006, Davenport, 1998 and Markus, 2000). ERP systems codify and organize an enterprise’s business data into an integrated database, and transform the data into useful information that supports business decisions (Norris et al. 2000). The ability to access information from various parts of an organization helps firms streamline their business processes and reduce inefficiencies (Swaminathan and Tayur 2003). A well-tuned ERP system is also a critical backend solution that supports frontend e-business functionalities (Norris et al. 2000). A true e-business, whose supply, production, logistics, and distribution networks all need to be digitally enabled with a tight linkage from raw materials to end customers (Kauffman and Walden 2001), needs a well-functioning ERP system to provide accurate information in real time. Without seamless internal processes and data provided by ERP systems, e-business may simply be flashy web pages with no real substance behind them (Norris et al. 2000). Many researchers have pointed out that while buzzwords like “B2B,” “B2C,” and just about anything preceded by an “e-” seem to have taken center stage, yet ironically, each of these new terms at its most basic level represents an extension of an ERP system to customers and suppliers (Jacobs and Bendoly 2003). In theory, an integrated ERP system that allows information to transparently flow inside and outside an enterprise would benefit a firm’s supply chain efficiency (Lee et al., 1997 and Rai et al., 2006). ERP vendors, therefore, often claim that ERP systems can bring firms operational excellence and competitive advantage. However, in practice, it is often observed that while firms spend hundreds of millions of dollars implementing ERP systems, not all of them find the systems beneficial to their bottom line (Banker et al., 2006 and Seddon et al., 2010). Some firms complain the expensive ERP systems do not result in new orders, increased profits, or competitive advantage as the vendors claim. Even worse, a few of firms experienced disastrous outcomes resulting from failed ERP implementations (Barker and Frolick, 2003 and Zhu et al., 2010). Academic studies also found mixed results regarding ERP’s payoff. Some studies found that ERP system implementation has positive associations with firm performance, including better productivity (Aral et al., 2005, Aral et al., 2006 and Hitt et al., 2002), greater shareholder returns (Ranganathan and Brown 2006), decreased lead-time (Cotteleer and Bendoly 2006), and improved information quality and coordination (Gattiker and Goodhue 2005), while others did not find similar evidence. For example, Poston and Grabki (2000) reported that ERP adoption has no association with firms’ income changes. Hitt et al.’s (2002) study found that ERP adoption has a significant negative relationship with Return on Equity (ROE), while Aral et al., 2005 and Aral et al., 2006 found that ERP implementation has no association with Return on Assets (ROA), ROE, and profit margin. Seddon (2005) argues that, although ERP may be critical to a firm’s operation, it is an unlikely source of competitive advantage. He believes that ERP systems have become a commodity and the benefits gained from ERP systems are competed away in the long term. Thus, there is an ERP value paradox: Is ERP merely a commodity to firms’ e-business operations or is it a resource that can bring firms competitive advantage? In order to address the ERP value paradox, we draw from two streams of literature to ascertain what has been done in the area and build our knowledge foundation. The first stream is IT value literature that focuses on ERP systems. IT value literature provides evidence that the mere adoption of IT systems does not by itself guarantee competitive advantage. Rather, it requires complementary organizational resources to develop effective capabilities for competitive advantage ( Wade and Hulland 2004). However, while the importance of building these resources/capabilities has become evident, the traditional IT business value literature that applies a production function approach does not clearly explain what these resources/capabilities are ( Mata et al. 1995, Melville et al. 2004). Given this, we examined the Resource-Based View (RBV) which provides a framework for identifying valuable resources and capabilities and can be used to analyze whether IT resources (such as an ERP system) and organizational capabilities might be associated with competitive advantage ( Barney 1991). RBV also proposes two rent-creation mechanisms—“resource picking” and “capability building”—that could guide us to understand how ERP and other resources can generate business value ( Makadok 2001). The purpose of this study, therefore, is to shed light on the ERP value paradox. In line with the Resource Based View, we propose an integrated model to investigate with what organizational resources and by building what firm-specific capabilities, the investment in ERP systems can generate competitive advantage. In our study based on RBV, it was found that business integration capability—built from ERP, e-Business technologies, and organizational resources—represents an important mechanism explaining how resources are picked, combined, and transformed into a differential competitive advantage. By building the firm-specific business integration capability, ERP systems will not be merely a commodity but will bring firms competitive advantage.

This paper attempts to answer the question, ‘‘With what orga- nizational resources, and by building what firm-specific capabili- ties, can investment in ERP systems bring firms a competitive advantage?’’ In line with the Resource-Based View, we propose that ERP and its complementary resources require the develop- ment of business integration capability before achieving a compet- itive advantage. Our study is unique in its extension of the locus of ERP business value to internal organizational resources. It extends current ERP studies that test only IT (i.e., using a production func-tion approach to examine ERP value) or those that investigate orga- nizational factors alone (i.e., ERP CSFs studies). Our integrated model helps IT scholars and practitioners understand that, under the resource picking and capability building mechanisms that RBV proposes, ERP has to be combined with e-Business technolo- gies and organizational resources to build integration capability in order to receive any possible payoff. Given the right organiza- tional resources (managerial skills and change management), and by building firm-specific e-integration capability, ERP systems will not be merely a commodity but will help to generate a competitive advantage