Article Preview
TopIntroduction
Many firms around the world are purchasing different commercial software packages, such as enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, to improve processes and decrease costs. ERP systems are integrated, enterprise-wide systems that provide automated support for standard business processes within organizations (Esteves & Pastor, 2001; Haines & Goodhue, 2003; Shih, 2006). ERP systems can benefit organizations in many ways, including providing support for all variations of best business practices, enabling the implementation of these practices with the aim of improving productivity, and enabling organizations to modify the implemented business processes to fit their requirements (Chang et al., 2008; Holland & Light, 1999; Rao, 2000).
Yet, ERP systems are considered very costly and often require disruptive organizational changes to implement (Osei-Bryson et al., 2008; Soh et al., 2000; Sun et al., 2009; Wu & Wang, 2006). Moreover, ERP systems implementation is complex, involving technology improvement and change management. While some researchers have anticipated that about three quarters of the implemented ERP systems are unsuccessful, others suggest that ERP implementation failure rates exceed 50% (Barker & Frolick, 2003; Holsapple & Sena, 2005; Yeh et al., 2007).
In short, research has revealed that ERP implementation can achieve many benefits for organizations or it can lead to catastrophic results for organizations that fail to manage the implementation process (Kang et al., 2008). Therefore, a better understanding of ERP implementation success is one of the key issues which many studies have investigated. One of the best known methods used to define and measure ERP implementation success has been the critical success factors method. Many researchers have applied the critical success factors (CSFs) method to analyze ERP systems implementation (Holland & Light, 1999; Muscatello & Chen, 2008; Nah et al., 2001; Somers & Nelson, 2001; Willcocks & Stykes, 2000). These researchers have applied different labels to the categories they have proposed for their list of CSFs, but few have focused on identifying CSFs from the perspectives of key stakeholders (Chetcuti, 2008). Organizations can be considered social structures consisting of different stakeholders whose interests can converge or diverge based on their roles and values (Cameron, 1986). Few researchers have acknowledged the importance of stakeholders in CSFs. Nah et al. (2001) have pointed out the importance of studying the CSFs from stakeholder perspectives. Similarly, Bajwa et al. (2004) and Skok and Legge (2002) have suggested that future research should examine the role of external stakeholders in ERP implementations. Moreover, after conducting a review of the literature of the different identifications of CSFs for EPR systems implementation, Finney and Corbett (2007) have concluded that the most significant finding is the lack of research focusing on the identification of CSFs from the perspectives of key stakeholders.
In summary, our extensive review of previous literature on CSFs for ERP systems implementation indicates that studies on ERP systems success from the perspectives of key stakeholders have been very limited. Thus, this study is designed to fill this gap in research. We propose a new classification framework of CSFs for ERP systems implementation based on three major dimensions. First, six fundamental stakeholders with divergent perspectives on EPR implementation success have been identified. Second, the ERP project lifecycle has been divided into three macro phases, and five different roles which each stakeholder may play during each phase are identified. The CSFs are then categorized according to each stakeholder and mapped to the three phases of the ERP systems project lifecycle.