Educating Using an Information System as a Cognitive Tool

This paper discusses the effective education of internal and external students, concerning business processes and principles, using an enterprise resource planning application as a cognitive tool. The teachings explain a number of core business principles and develop students understanding of how the processes might vary between organisations in differing industries and environmental settings. The students establish the processes in an enterprise resource planning application, which reinforces the understanding of both operational activities and business management requirements. A cohort of students has been surveyed; the findings demonstrate that education using an enterprise resource planning application as an interactive learning system is both practical and beneficial. The following explains the teaching environment and discusses the survey results

Enterprise Integration in Business Education: Design and Outcomes of a Capstone ERP-based Undergraduate e-Business Management Course

This article describes the design, delivery, and outcomes of a course on enterprise integration at the senior undergraduate level in the e-business concentration in the University of New Brunswick\u27s Faculty of Business. The course aims to provide education to the young business manager regarding the process of adoption and exploitation of an ERP or enterprise-wide software system. The course is deliberately business-centric rather than technology-oriented. It contains two streams: a management component based on readings and discussion, and a hands-on laboratory component in which students individually configure a firm. We evaluated students\u27 performance in three areas: completion of a learning log containing literature summaries and reflections on individual learning, completion of configuration exercises on SAP R/3, and completion of a take-home business case. We offer several suggestions to potential providers of enterprise integration education to business students. First, do not underestimate the considerable operational requirements of a lab-based ERP course. Second, because no business-oriented curriculum for enterprise integration business education is presently available on the market, teachers must be prepared to develop one. Third, students have very different learning needs with respect to ERP. The combination of hands-on lab learning and management learning via reading, discussions, and cases is very powerful but it is a challenge to balance the two streams and to relate the lab learnings with the management learnings

Strategies for Dealing with Drift during Implementation of ERP Systems

Research on the relationship between Information Technology (IT) and organizations emphasizes the complexity of adaptation processes and the potential of drifting. Drifting means that an organization encounters unexpected circumstances that show the incompleteness and possible failure of an initial technological design without organizations having yet feasible alternatives. This conceptual and empirical paper investigates the origins and nature of drifting, and strategies for dealing with drift. Three strategies have been proposed to deal with drifting: control, incremental, and drift containment. We explore the third option that seems most realistic and relevant from an organizational point of view. We empirically investigated how drift containment could be accomplished in practice in a multi-site ERP implementation project. Our results suggest three phases of dealing with drift. Organizations must first recognize when drifting occurs. Next, they must develop a dual focus. On one hand, they must differentiate between a project’s overarching objectives (which remain relatively stable). On the other hand, they attend to and resolve their operational drifting experience. The dual focus thus means that while organizations stay focused on their objectives, they address the causes of drifting. During the final phase, lessons learnt during drifting resolution must be shared and applied to accelerate accomplishment of project objectives. Implications for research and practice are elaborated

The interaction dynamics between an ERP system and organizational knowledge in the post - implementation: an interpretative case study

Enterprise Resource Planning- ERP systems constitute a phenomenon of relevant dimension in the current business world. Due to their own construction and operation characteristics, ERPs can substantially influence relevant aspects related to organizational knowledge. The central interest of this article is to understand the interaction dynamics of these technologies with organizational knowledge in a post-implementation phase of an ERP system within a service oriented organization. For this, a case study was performed using an interpretative approach of analysis in a regional telecommunication service organization installed in Brazil. The interpretations of the results of the study indicate that the ERP system was playing a technocratic role, influencing and being influenced by dominant rationality. Substantial limitations were observed with regards to the space for learning, local innovation and concerning the contestation on the knowledge embedded in the ERP system itself.Os sistemas integrados de gestão (ERP) constituem um fenômeno de dimensão relevante no mundo dos negócios atual. Pelas próprias características de sua construção e funcionamento, os ERPs podem influenciar substancialmente aspectos relevantes, relacionados ao conhecimento organizacional. O interesse central deste trabalho é a busca da compreensão da dinâmica das interações destas tecnologias com o conhecimento organizacional na fase de pós-implementação, em uma organização de serviços. Desse modo, foi realizado um estudo de caso com utilização de abordagem interpretativa em uma das regionais de uma empresa de serviços de telecomunicações instalada no Brasil. As interpretações dos resultados indicaram que o ERP foi visto como desempenhando o papel de tecnocrata, influenciando e sendo influenciado pela racionalidade dominante. Também foram observadas muitas limitações no espaço para aprendizado, inovação local e contestação dos conhecimentos inscritos no ERP

An Updated ERP Systems Annotated Bibliography: 2001-2005

The goal of this study is to provide an updated annotated bibliography of ERP publications published in the main IS conferences and journals during the period 2001-2005, categorizing them through an ERP lifecycle based framework that is structured in phases. The first version of this bibliography was published in 2001 (Esteves and Pastor, 2001c). However, so far, we have extended the bibliography with a significant number of new publications in all the categories used in this paper. We also reviewed the categories and some incongruities were eliminated. Furthermore, we present topics for further research in each phase

An Updated ERP Systems Annotated Bibliography: 2001-2005

This study provides an updated annotated bibliography of ERP publications published in the main IS conferences and journals during the period 2001-2005, categorizing them through an ERP lifecycle-based framework that is structured in phases. The first version of this bibliography was published in 2001 (Esteves and Pastor, 2001c). However, so far, we have extended the bibliography with a significant number of new publications in all the categories used in this paper. We also reviewed the categories and some incongruities were eliminated.ERP

Adoção e difusão de aplicações das tecnologias da informação: iniciativas lançadas no âmbito de processos de implantação de aplicações em organizações – estudo de práticas profissionais e proposta de ferramenta de suporte

Tese de Doutoramento Tecnologias e Sistemas de InformaçãoA adoção e difusão de aplicações informáticas nas organizações é um fenómeno extensivamente estudado na área científica de sistemas de informação. Como resultado destes estudos diversas teorias têm sido propostas permitindo compreender e explicar este fenómeno. Destacam-se a teoria da difusão de tecnologia, os estudos focados na resistência à mudança e diversas teorias que se focam na adoção e uso de tecnologias da informação. Essas teorias têm sido objeto de particular atenção no que respeita a tecnologias por vezes designadas por complexas, i.e., tecnologias que, pela diversidade de funcionalidades que exibem, da gama de atividades organizacionais que suportam e dos diferentes tipos de agentes organizacionais que a usam, colocam maiores desafios à sua difusão, adoção e uso. No entanto, a literatura científica da área é escassa no que diz respeito às iniciativas/ações/políticas lançadas por profissionais de sistemas de informação (SI), no âmbito de projetos de implantação de aplicações de tecnologias da informação (ATI) que visam promover a difusão, adoção e uso das aplicações em causa, procurando deste modo contribuir para o seu sucesso. Este trabalho teve como principal objetivo identificar e classificar aquelas iniciativas, relacionando-as com as teorias existentes sobre o fenómeno da difusão e adoção de aplicações informáticas nas organizações. O resultado deste estudo assume a forma de um modelo empírico que procura estruturar as iniciativas/ações/políticas identificadas. Esse modelo contempla as características dessas iniciativas, os fatores condicionantes da difusão, adoção e uso a que essas iniciativas são dirigidas e associa uma medida do efeito que essas iniciativas têm vindo a mostrar em casos concretos. Esta primeira parte foi concretizada através da análise de um conjunto de casos secundários e com a realização de quatro estudos de caso. A sistematização de conhecimento obtido no estudo atrás referido levou ao emergir de um conceito subjacente a uma ferramenta de suporte ao trabalho de profissionais de SI envolvidos em projetos de implantação de ATI. Trata-se do conceito de um repositório de casos. O repositório permitirá relacionar os vários elementos explorados nesta tese, nomeadamente: fatores que condicionam a difusão, a adoção, e o uso de tecnologias; tipos de ATI; tipos de iniciativas/ações/políticas lançadas por profissionais de SI, no âmbito de projetos de implantação de ATI; e resultado (efeito) dessas iniciativas. Este repositório permitirá aos profissionais de SI, envolvidos em projetos de implantação de ATI, ter acesso aquela informação, facilitando a tomada de decisões sobre o que fazer, por forma a promover a difusão, a adoção e uso das aplicações em causa, procurando deste modo contribuir para o seu sucesso. Relativamente a esta ferramenta é proposto um modelo da sua estrutura e do seu interface. Este modelo foi usado em sessões de grupos de foco para avaliar a perceção da sua utilidade por parte de profissionais de SI. Nesta segunda parte, com a construção do modelo da ferramenta e o procedimento da avaliação da sua utilidade, foram concretizadas as etapas subjacentes à metodologia adotada, que foi a do Design Science Research (DSR). O resultado da tese será, assim, um contributo para os profissionais de SI, no sentido de promover uma abordagem sistemática, na preparação de projetos que envolvem o processo de implantação de ATI.The diffusion and adoption of information technology applications (ITA) in organizations is a phenomenon extensively studied in the scientific area of information systems (IS). As a result of these studies several theories have been proposed that enable to understand and explain this phenomenon. Such studies and theories include the theory of diffusion of technology, studies focused on resistance to change and various theories that focus on the adoption and use of information technologies. These theories have been object of particular attention in relation to complex technologies, i.e., technologies that because of the diversity of features they exhibit, the range of organizational activities they support and the different types of organizational agents that use it, put greatest challenges to its diffusion, adoption, and use. The scientific literature in this area is however scarce in regard to initiatives / actions / policies launched by IS professionals, when carrying out ITA implementation projects, aimed at promoting the diffusion, adoption and use of these applications, thus trying to contribute to their success. The main objective of this doctoral work is to identify and classify those initiatives, relating them to the existing theories on the phenomenon of adoption and diffusion of computer applications in organizations. The result of this study takes the form of an empirical model that seeks to structure the initiatives / actions / policies identified. This model encompasses the characteristics of these initiatives, the conditioning factors of adoption, use and diffusion that these initiatives are directed and associates a measure of the effect that these initiatives have been showing in concrete cases. This was accomplished by analyzing a set of already published cases (secondary data) and though four case studies. The knowledge systematization obtained in the above study led to the emergence of a concept for a support tool for the IS professionals involved in ITA implementation projects: a repository of cases. This repository will enable to relate the various elements explored in this thesis, namely: factors that influence the diffusion, adoption and use of technology; ITA types; types of initiatives / actions / policies launched by IS professionals, in ITA implantation projects; results (effect) of these initiatives. This repository will enable IS professionals involved in ITA implantation projects, to access that information, facilitating decision making about what to do in order to promote the adoption, use and dissemination of these applications. For this tool it is proposed a model of its structure and its interface. This model was tested in a focus group sessions to assess the perception of their usefulness by IS professionals. In this second part of the thesis, involving the conception of the tool and the evaluation of its usefulness, the Design Science Research (DSR) process has been followed. The result of the thesis constitutes a contribution to the work of IS professionals, supporting the promotion of a systematic approach in the preparation of projects involving ITA implantation process