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From transactional user to VIP: how organizational and cognitive factors affect ERP assimilation at individual level

  • Original Article
  • Published:
European Journal of Information Systems

Abstract

This study extends the enterprise resource planning (ERP) assimilation research from organizational level to individual level with the argument that it is the individual users who transform ERP systems’ capabilities into organizational performance. We employed a multi-case study method in this exploratory research with the objectives of defining individual level ERP assimilation and identifying key influential factors. Interviews with ERP users at all levels in five organizations revealed four key drivers: influence of supervisors, performance evaluation schemes, intrinsic motivation, and perceived usefulness, as well as two significant moderators: job specifications and individual absorptive capacity. Moreover, evidence suggests a potential relationship between individual level and organizational level ERP assimilations. Our findings highlight the importance of individual level assimilation within a firm in the post-implementation phase and provide managerial insights on how firms could improve ERP assimilation at the individual level that could impact the organizational level assimilation.

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Acknowledgements

This research was partially funded by a grant from the Chinese National Natural Science Foundation (Contract #71028003). The authors would like to express their gratitude to the executives, managers, and users in the case companies for their time and contribution to this study. We are also indebted to the editor, associate editor, and the anonymous review team for their insightful and constructive comments which helped significantly to improve the quality, rigor, and readability of the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Management Science and Engineering, School of Management, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, China

    Luning Liu & Yuqiang Feng

  2. Supply Chain and Information Systems, College of Business, Iowa State University, Ames, IA, U.S.A.

    Qing Hu

  3. Beijing Seeyon Software Co., Beijing, China

    Xiaojian Huang

Authors
  1. Luning Liu
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  2. Yuqiang Feng
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  3. Qing Hu
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  4. Xiaojian Huang
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Luning Liu.

Appendix

Appendix

Sample Interview Questions.789

Table A1 Sample interview questions for top managers
Full size table
Table A2 Sample interview questions for middle-level managers
Full size table
Table A3 Sample interview questions for end users
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Liu, L., Feng, Y., Hu, Q. et al. From transactional user to VIP: how organizational and cognitive factors affect ERP assimilation at individual level. Eur J Inf Syst 20, 186–200 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1057/ejis.2010.66

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/ejis.2010.66

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