CONTENT

Introduction ………………………………………………………………….…….3

Introduction

The adoption of packaged integrated software solutions, sometimes known as "Enterprise Systems" (ES), has grown over the past few decades at the expense of bespoke systems. Commercial software programs known as enterprise systems allow the integration of transaction-oriented data and business processes across an organization (Davenport, 1998).

Enterprise systems are problematic due to their "one size fits all" logic, which does not always meet the specific needs of organizations Strong & Volkoff, 2010; Berente, Lyytinen, Yoo, & Maurer, 2019). This incompatibility cannot be fixed by user-friendly screen design.

Effective implementation of enterprise systems is essential for success, but mismatches between system features and business environment can lead to issues. (Kohli & Kettinger, 2004; Boonstra, 2006; Strong & Volkoff, 2010; Berente et al., 2019).

The culture of the adopting enterprise systems is a key factor in ES implementations (Soh et al., 2000), as it will affect the logics embedded in an Enterprise System. This culture will either fit or misfit with the logics.

The idea of culture is contentious, temporal, multifaceted, dynamic, and complicated (Myers & Tan, 2002). It has been described as a social collective, such as a nation, a region, a vocation, or an organization, that shares certain symbols, conventions, and ideals.

Since it is believed that culture and information technology are intimately related, problems in information systems (IS) are frequently attributed to cultural factors in businesses (Berente et al., 2019; Kohli & Kettinger, 2004; Leidner & Kayworth, 2006; Colicchio, Cimino, & Del Fiol, 2019). Information has cultural connotations and is symbolic, determining who should have access to it and what is considered valid.

Literature Review

References

1. Shao, Z., 2019. Interaction effect of strategic leadership behaviors and organizational culture on IS-Business strategic alignment and Enterprise Systems assimilation. International journal of information management, 44, pp.96-108.

2. Skoumpopoulou, D. & Moss, C., 2018. The Importance of Culture in ERP Adoption – A Case Study Analysis. Athens Journal of Business & Economics – Volume 4, Issue 3 – Pages 259-278.

3. Vos, J.F. and Boonstra, A., 2022. The influence of cultural values on Enterprise System adoption, towards a culture–Enterprise System alignment theory.  International Journal of Information Management,  63, p.102453.

4. Sannarnes, M.K., 2010. A study of emerging multi-cultural and multi-national issues in enterprise system adoption processes.

Appendix1

Paper one: Interaction effect of strategic leadership behaviors and organizational

culture on IS-Business strategic alignment and Enterprise Systems

assimilation.

This study creates a theoretical model based on strategic leadership theory to investigate how senior executives' leadership behaviors affect IS-Business strategy alignment in the context of Enterprise Systems (ES) assimilation. The findings of the empirical study point to idealized influence and inspiring motivation as key drivers of IS-Business strategy alignment, which has a favorable impact on enterprise systems absorption. Control-oriented culture negatively moderates the path linkages, while flexibility-oriented culture positively moderates the association between strategic leadership behaviors and IS-Business strategic alignment. This research adds to the body of knowledge already available on leadership and the strategic alignment of IS and business.

More and more businesses are implementing enterprise systems (ES), such as enterprise resource planning (ERP), to increase business efficiency and support business strategy as e-commerce becomes more globalized and external market environments become more uncertain (Markus & Tanis, 2000; Rezvani, Dong, & Khosravi, 2017; Tarafdar & Vaidya, 2006).

The majority of the research on organizational effectiveness focuses on top management involvement, participation, and strategic knowledge (Kearns & Sabherwal, 2007; Luftman & Brier, 1999; Preston & Karahanna, 2009). Few research, to our knowledge, have outlined the precise leadership behaviors and methods by which top management influences the strategic alignment of IS-business. Regarding the impact of senior leadership on strategy alignment throughout the assimilation phase of Enterprise Systems, there is still a theoretical vacuum in the body of existing literature.

This study examines the effects of two prominent strategic leadership characteristics, inspiring motivation and idealized influence, on IS-business strategy alignment. It also investigates the moderating impact of two organizational culture typologies on the association between strategic leadership behaviors and IS-business strategic alignment. Finally, it aims to determine if business strategies and information systems alignment may help integrate enterprise systems. The study employs a theory-driven approach to develop the theoretical model and a survey-based empirical study to test the relationships between strategic leadership, organizational culture, IS-business strategic alignment, and Enterprise Systems assimilation. The literature on leadership theory, IS-business strategy alignment, organizational culture, and Enterprise Systems assimilation is reviewed, followed by a research model is created and seven hypotheses are put forth. The technique for data collecting and analysis is described, followed by a discussion of the empirical findings.

Research Model

This study develops a theoretical model to investigate the interaction effect of organizational cultures (flexibility-oriented culture vs. control-oriented culture) and strategic leadership behaviors (idealized influence vs. inspirational motivation) on IS-Business strategic alignment and Enterprise Systems assimilation.

Appendix 2

Paper two: The Importance of Culture in ERP Adoption – A Case Study Analysis

This study investigates the importance of culture in ERP adoption and why initiatives often fail. The Handy model of culture is used as a self-diagnosis tool to facilitate culture and ERP adoption success. A culture transformation program improved leadership, coherence, and communication, leading to an effective ERP implementation. Projects involving people are at risk, and it appears that research disentangling human behavior from ERP has shown that cultural factors more than technical ones are to blame for failure (Soh et al. 2000, Davison 2002, Rabaai 2009). ERP systems require organizational transformation to modify firm objectives, structure, and practices. ERP implementation has potential to fail due to resistance and cultural conflicts.

Theoretical Model

Handy's model of the four types of culture allows managers to self-diagnose their organizations' identities and leverage a positive culture for organizational change.

· The "Role Culture" is a rigid management system that benefits those looking for consistency, but is slow-moving and difficult to reform.

· The "Task Culture" promotes flexibility, change, and individual independence, but can collapse in resource-constrained situations, lowering team morale.

· The "Power Culture" is a company where a single, powerful person has total control, which can lead to successful outcomes, but can alienate employees.

· The “People Culture” encourages innovation and empowerment, but lacks coherence and control due to its focus on serving members and employees.

Methodology

Culture can be seen differently depending on the individual's viewpoint. To maximize the potential of the research methodology, workers must share their assessment of how they view the culture inside Company. Qualitative data is important for understanding change, culture, and ERP adoption. Researchers used semi-structured interviews to gather primary data, capturing enthusiasm and relevance for the subject among 266 interviewees. This allowed them to obtain detailed information on the interviewee's attitudes and emotional experiences.

The ERP project chose a diverse group of participants to maximize the validity of each participant's view, allowing for the documentation of key themes, research values, and uniqueness in the results.

A choice within the same function or duty inside the project, on the other hand, runs the danger of bias, undermining the validity of conclusions when applied to the entire company. The specifics of the 10 people we spoke with are shown in table 1 below. In order to offer a rich raw dataset for theme analysis, all interviews were audio-recorded. All recorded interviews were transcribed in order to get hard copies of the data as well as to help interpreters see the thoughts that were expressed during the interview.

Findings and Discussion

Old Culture

Company A was a "siloed" organization prior to the implementation of the cultural transformation project in 2012. Stakeholder diversity can prevent groupthink during ERP adoption, but it still exposes Company A to communication failure risks.

“There were different cultures in different sites but tensions between sites because they were all competitive”

New Culture and ERP Impact

Company A's choice of topic was influenced by their cultural transformation program, which ran concurrently with their ERP journey. This topic will help define Company A's new form of identity, what changes have been visualized, and whether the reengineering to change culture was a good step prior to ERP implementation. It also marks a suggestion within the literature and identifies a need for additional study.

Paper three: The influence of cultural values on Enterprise System adoption, towards a culture – Enterprise System alignment theory

The authors discuss practical implications for ES implementation, such as the importance of understanding cultural values and aligning ES with them.

The article highlights the importance of cultural values and proposes a new theoretical perspective on the topic.

Research methods:

The authors argue that this requires rich data collected through case studies that account for the cultural context of such implementations. To achieve this, the authors adopted a case survey approach, which involves reusing published cases as data for a study.

To select the cases, the authors employed multiple search strategies, including computer search via academic databases, peer consultation, manual search, and reference list search, to identify cases that met their inclusion criteria.

The second step is Coding and analysis, the authors employed a pattern-matching approach to analyze each of the 85 cases to identify patterns between cultural values and user adoption based on user adoption antecedents.

Results and Analysis:

The study found that cultural values have a significant impact on the adoption and implementation of Enterprise Systems. The authors developed a framework that illustrates how the alignment between cultural values and Enterprise Systems can affect their success. They identified several cultural dimensions that influence Enterprise System adoption: power distance, uncertainty avoidance, individualism-collectivism, masculinity-femininity, and short-term versus long-term orientation. The analysis also revealed that those dimensions are critical in determining the alignment between cultural values and Enterprise Systems. The study concludes that Enterprise System implementation should consider the cultural values of the adopting organization to ensure successful adoption and alignment.

Argument /theories:

1. Logics embedded in Enterprise Systems: They argued that the logic embedded in Enterprise Systems should be aligned with those inherent in organizations and that the business models embedded in most common Enterprise Systems typically reflect a bias toward Western business practices.

2. User Adoption: argue that the constructs of acceptance/non-acceptance and support/resistance contribute to explaining adoption and that focusing only on either one provides an incomplete understanding of adoption.

3. Cultural Values: The core characteristics of the values are power distance refers to the differences in power distribution, flat organizational structures can characterize low power distance, and the decentralization of power and a high distance reflect a greater hierarchy and centralization of authority.

Appendix 4

Paper four: A Study of Emerging Multi-cultural and Multinational Issues in Enterprise System Adoption Processes

This article presents a case study of a multinational engineering company's implementation of an enterprise system (ES) to improve local and cross-border business processes. The key concept is the complexity of ES implementation due to national, cultural, organizational, and technical differences. The article argues that ES implementation requires a long-term perspective on change management in a global context. The paper explores emergent issues in a multinational corporation that provides high-tech products and services for the oil and gas industry.

Previous studies have adopted a variance approach to ES implementation, describing critical success factors. However, some studies apply a process perspective, describing four phases for ES implementation.

This article combines the variance approach and the process perspective of ES implementation to explore the emerging issues related to phases 2 and 3 in multinational ES implementation projects. It emphasizes the importance of balancing global standards with local adaptation, capability building, communication and coordination processes, cultural diversity, governance of global business processes and ES, and IT governance.

Research methods:

research method of this article is a case study approach using semi-structured and open-ended interviews with 30 informants over a period of 20 months. The data analysis was an iterative process guided by theory and related research.

The empirical evidence presented in the article shows that the implementation of ES in multinational corporations is complex and requires a long-term perspective on change management. The study findings highlight the importance of balancing global standards with local adaptation, capability building, communication and coordination processes, cultural diversity, governance of global business processes and ES, and IT governance in multinational ES implementation projects.

case study of the multinational engineering company in the oil and gas industry illustrates the need for global ES support in the customer services process, the importance of online knowledge networks for efficient collaboration, the impact of cultural diversity on collaboration processes, the critical factors of governance and ownership of global business processes in ES deployment, and the need for a global IT/IS governance model.

The article provides rigorous evidence of the challenges and opportunities of ES implementation in multinational corporations. The findings have implications for practitioners and researchers in the field of information systems, as well as for multinational corporations seeking to improve their local and cross-border business processes. The study identifies several areas for further research, including the mediating role of the MNC in ES deployment.