ERP implementation methodologies and frameworks: a literature review

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) implementation is a complex and vibrant process, one that involves a combination of technological and organizational interactions. Often an ERP implementation project is the single largest IT project that an organization has ever launched and requires a mutual fit of system and organization. Also the concept of an ERP implementation supporting business processes across many different departments is not a generic, rigid and uniform concept and depends on variety of factors. As a result, the issues addressing the ERP implementation process have been one of the major concerns in industry. Therefore ERP implementation receives attention from practitioners and scholars and both, business as well as academic literature is abundant and not always very conclusive or coherent. However, research on ERP systems so far has been mainly focused on diffusion, use and impact issues. Less attention has been given to the methods used during the configuration and the implementation of ERP systems, even though they are commonly used in practice, they still remain largely unexplored and undocumented in Information Systems research. So, the academic relevance of this research is the contribution to the existing body of scientific knowledge. An annotated brief literature review is done in order to evaluate the current state of the existing academic literature. The purpose is to present a systematic overview of relevant ERP implementation methodologies and frameworks as a desire for achieving a better taxonomy of ERP implementation methodologies. This paper is useful to researchers who are interested in ERP implementation methodologies and frameworks. Results will serve as an input for a classification of the existing ERP implementation methodologies and frameworks. Also, this paper aims also at the professional ERP community involved in the process of ERP implementation by promoting a better understanding of ERP implementation methodologies and frameworks, its variety and history

Governance factors affecting internal auditors' ethical decision making: an exploratory study

Purpose This paper explores the ethical decision making of internal auditors and the impact of corporate governance mechanisms thereon. It also explores whether ethical decision making is influenced by years of experience in internal auditing. Design/methodology/approach Sixty-six internal auditors were presented with five ethical dilemmas. For each scenario, a key element of corporate governance was manipulated to assess its impact on ethical decision making. These were audit committee support; management integrity regarding accounting policies; management integrity regarding pressure on internal audit; external auditor characteristics; and organisational code of conduct. Findings Participants were generally sensitive to ethical dilemmas but were not always confident that their peers would act ethically. A higher quality external audit function was positively associated with internal auditors’ ethical decision making. However, the strength of other governance mechanisms did not appear to influence ethical decision making. Finally, more experienced internal auditors adopted a more ethical stance in some cases. Research limitations/implications Our sample was self-selected and may not be representative of internal auditors in general. Our lack of significant results may be due to insufficient variability in our manipulations and/or an oversimplification of reality in our scenarios. Practical implications The study has implications for the internal audit profession with respect to training and the provision of support mechanisms to strengthen the ability of internal auditors to withstand pressure when dealing with ethical dilemmas. Originality/value This paper is the first to study whether the strength of other governance mechanisms influence internal auditors’ ethical decision making

A PROPOSITION OF CRITICAL SUCCESS FACTORS INFLUENCING SOA IMPLEMENTATION IN HEALTHCARE

Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) has been proved to be a significant integration paradigm in many sectors including healthcare. The importance of the development of integrated Information Technology (IT) services and infrastructures in healthcare is enormous as medical errors that occur due the non integrated nature of healthcare systems result in the loss of human lives. The normative literature demonstrates that organizations have difficulties in getting full benefits from SOA adoption for various reasons. Thus, we suggest that the investigation of Critical Success Factors (CSFs) related to SOA implementations in healthcare is important as the understanding of these factors may help organizations to increase the benefits they get from SOA and improve SOA acceptance rate. As a result we review the literature to identify SOA CSFs in healthcare and we classify them. Then we test them through a case study in a public healthcare organization. The results stress the crucial importance of governance and culture and proposed that a new CSF called ?Communications? should be considered. In doing so, we extend the body of literature and we suggest that further research is required to better understand SOA CSFs in healthcare

Towards an understanding of business design within enterprise architecture management: a cautionary tale

Includes bibliographical references.Business Design represents a set of concepts that are described in the literature as providing a sound foundation for sustainable competitive advantage into the future. The particular values underpinning Business design are based on the enablement of a design thinking approach to solving the imponderable problems that organisations regularly encounter. In particular, the application of a design thinking approach to Business Design requires that resultant system designs are economically viable and technologically feasible. Enterprise Architecture Management plays a vital role in supporting these latter two requirements. Yet the definition of Enterprise Architecture Management as the 'normative restriction of design freedom' (Deitz, 2011) implies constraints that could impose limits on such business design. Consequently, the qualitative inductive research described in this document was undertaken to explore the perceived paradoxical relationship between Business Design and Enterprise Architecture Management. This dissertation recounts the process and results of this research initiative based on data recorded during interviews with a number of management level staff at a leading South African Insurance organisation. The participants were intimately involved in a programme to, amongst other objectives, establish a platform to support enterprise-wide Business Design within Enterprise Architecture Management, a programme that was experiencing a number of challenges and that was still underway at the time of completion of this research. Findings arising from this research were that the varying perceptions and levels of commitment of business and IT stakeholders associated with the programme and its requirements, contributed significantly to these challenges. In addition to providing a rich description of the case organisation's journey towards the establishment of a Business Design platform, a sensitising framework – 'The 6 Cs Framework in Support of the Successful Enablement of Business Design within Enterprise Architecture Management' – is proposed as a useful tool to assist organisations that might be considering a similar programme in the future

From IT Silos to Integrated Solutions. A Study in E-Health Complexity

In this paper we investigate the IT systems silo problem in e-health infrastructures. After three decades of user oriented systems development the health sector is characterized by system diversity and fragmentation. In response to this situation health authorities in the EU countries have called for a strategy of standardisation and integration; aiming to reduce complexity. It is assumed that this strategy will lead to less costly (through better co-ordination) and better health services (through more reliable data). Our research question is, how can we understand and manage the socio-technical complexity of large-scale integration in e-health? \ \ Our empirical evidence is a large e-health programme taken by the Southeast Regional Health Authorities in Norway, in order to reduce the number of systems and user environments. In particular we investigated the implementation and integration of an electronic patient journal system for 12.000 users. Considering our findings, and building on infrastructure and complexity theory, we find that the current approaches to resolve silo integration are relatively effective in reducing organisational complexity, but they may increase overall complexity over time.

A FRAMEWORK FOR ORGANIZATIONAL ARCHITECTURE OF ELECTRONIC CITY AND ELECTRONIC MUNICIPALITY

This study provides a framework for enterprise architecture in electronic city is electronic municipality. Nowadays, information technology as an emerging phenomenon has a special place in the world. Development of information and communication technology causes many changes in various fields, including emerging e-cities, municipalities and citizens. However, e-city and e-municipality need essential enterprise architecture. In order to develop enterprise architecture of e-city and e-municipality, enterprise architecture maturity method should be applied. Therefore, one of the most important needs of organizations is to choose important activities according to limitations. The studies show that there is a close relationship between IT, enterprise architecture, e- city and e-municipality. This study aimed to clarify the concept of IT, enterprise architecture, electronic city and e- municipality and how they are related to each other. Is the existence of each of IT, enterprise architecture, electronic and electronic municipal requires each other

An Identification of Non-Technical Issues in SOEA Implementation

Today’s business environment pushes organizations to be adaptive and collaborative. This push drives the development of service-oriented enterprise architecture (SOEA) in support of the organization. To realise the advantages offered by SOEA, research on avoiding SOEA implementation failure is of considerable merit. In the review of literature on SOEA implementation failure, two research problems were identified: first, there is a paucity of research on non-technical issues (NTIs) in SOEA implementation; and second, the definition of an NTI in the Information Systems (IS) field remains implicit, incomplete, and incongruent. Addressing these two research problems therefore becomes the research objective of this paper. The overarching research design framework is qualitative, mixed-method research. Under the guidance of this framework, literature reviews, semi-structured interviews, and an online survey were conducted. The key findings are a clarified scope for NTIs in the field of IS and the identification of the critical NTIs in SOEA implementation