The Evaluation of Business Performance in ERP Environments

Background

ERP systems are now the prevailing business information systems platform in most enterprises worldwide. However, and despite the fact that ERP research has been conducted extensively during the last twenty years, a number of ERP systems failures has been reported in the last years. These failures have a negative or even a severe consequence on the adopting organizations. But what is the outcome in situations where there is no obvious failure of the ERP system? Does it provide the solid informational foundation needed for a sustainable competitive advantage and excellence in business performance? The delivery of benefits following an ERP system implementation is not straightforward. This is a well-known fact in IS research, described by the general term “IT productivity paradox”. It has been argued that data and methodological problems are to be blamed as the source for the contradictory results (Brynjolfsson, 2003). Other managerial and organizational factors related to IT/IS seem to play a crucial role for achieving company’s goals. It has been argued for, example, that human factors have a decisive role in explaining why and how enactments of information technologies change over time (Boudreau and Robey, 2005).