Cultural universality versus particularity within e-CRM systems: a special case of information systems

Cultural factors are often identified as a crucial influence on the success or failure of Information Systems in general and Electronic Customer Relationship Management Systems (eCRM) in particular. Several researchers have suggested ways in which management can accommodate these factors or solve the problem they pose. This paper attempts to go one step beyond management measures and ask whether there is a theoretical foundation on which one can base the mutual influence of culture on eCRM. There is a lack of pervious literature on the impact of culture differences on eCRM systems. A normative literature review on the impact of culture on different types of Information Systems has been done to explore different cultural factors that might influence eCRM systems as an application of Information Systems. The authors highlight the cultures factors in macro and micro level that have been investigated in the literature of Information systems. At the macro level, it is necessary to consider the differences at a national level. The differentiating characteristics will include: organizational structures, function and process oriented views, supervisory control mechanisms etc. Micro level considerations will be at the individual level and will include human responses to organizational change, cultural acceptability of different organizational structures etc. The authors propose a framework of cultural concerns for management of eCRM systems within multinational environment organizations. This framework will be tested in future research and will be modified according to the results

A cultural approach to study customer relationship management (CRM) systems

As this paper takes new approach to defining and studying CRM, it defines CRM as a business strategy that seamlessly integrates every aspect of business that touches customer. Going through CRM literature, the authors notice that, there are different objectives for CRM systems i.e. retains customers for long, increase sales to existing customers and candidate customers, and others. Over the last decade there has been a dramatic growth in the acquisition of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Systems. However more recently, there has been an increase in reported CRM failures, suggesting that the implementation issues are not just technical, but encompass wider behavior and cultural factors. Multinational organization is faced by that problem, how they build a relationship with different customer in different culture contexts. The literature on culture provides a set of general concepts and ideas as a way of looking at the world. However, the typologies of culture have inherent weaknesses e.g. they do not reflect the variety of values and attitude that may exist in a country, nor do they explain how cultures have developed over time. These limitations will need to be borne in mind, as we consider potential culture impact on the use of information systems, particularly customer relationship management systems. The authors try to highlight the interaction between cultures in macro and micro level in the context of CRM systems. The authors conclude that social and cultural issues of the main area related to studying of CR

Adoption of CRM: cross-cultural impact, a literature review

In a competitive world there is a need for companies to maximise all their resources. One of the resources that is often overlooked is that of existing customer base. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is an area that is becoming increasingly popular as it provides a method of maximising existing customer resource as well as adding value from the customers’ perception. CRM systems are used in many multinational organizations mainly to achieve customer loyalty and retention, increase cross selling and to improve customer satisfaction. A normative review of researches done to evaluate CRM systems shows that between 25 to 75 percent of CRM systems have failed (to various degrees) because of neglecting cultural awareness. Implementing CRM systems is a time consuming and expensive business, and the impact of failure can have a dramatic effect on the organization IT investment. Multinational organizations face the situation of how to adopt CRM implementation process according to differences in culture factors from country to country. Although there are studies that investigate the relation of cultural issues to general IT implementations, there is a noticeable lack of literature on the impact of cross-cultural on CRM implementation. This paper focuses on the impact of cross-cultural on CRM systems, and tries to summarize work done to explore the cultural awareness’ issues that influence CRM system

Developing a Structurational Approach to Electronic Customer Relationship Management (ECRM)

The literature on culture provides a set of general concepts and ideas as a way of looking at the world (Hofstede 1980). However, the typologies of culture have inherent weaknesses, e.g., they do not reflect the variety of values and attitude that may exist in a country, nor do they explain how cultures have developed over time (Skok and Doringer 2001). These limitations lead our research to investigate the potential impact of cultural differences on eCRM using concepts from Structuration Theory by ,. In this paper the authors highlight the dimensions of culture and its potential impact on eCRM systems, using a Structurational analysis based on . The authors use the practice lens for studying technology in organizations based on , to develop a framework of studying different agencies and their structures within eCRM systems context. The authors conclude by a framework of Structurational analysis of eCRM systems displaying different agencies and their structures. This framework of analysis will be used to conduct a comparative case study in future research

Investigating the impact of cross-cultural on CRM implementation: a comparative study

In a competitive world there is a need for companies to maximise all their resources. One of the resources that are often overlooked is that of existing customer base. Customer relationship management (CRM) is a tool that is becoming increasingly popular as it provides a method of maximising existing customer resource as well as adding value from the customers’ perception. CRM consists of three simultaneous considerations that drive CRM strategy: (1) people, business culture and relationships, (2) processes, and (3) technology. In a globalise economy, cross-cultural is becoming of extreme importance to many researchers and practitioners, but there is a lack of literature on the impact of cross-cultural on CRM implementation. Multinational organizations face the situation of how to adopt CRM implementation process according to differences in culture factors from country to country

E-government process in the public sector and the barriers against its implementation: A case study in Greece

Copyright @ 2013 EMCIS.The study aims to gain insight into the of e-government as it has started taking place within the public sector and access the barriers that are related to its organizational structure and consequently prevent the fully incorporation and implementation of such technological efforts. In order to obtain vital and accurate information, the study adopted quantitative research methodology by using the tool of self-completion questionnaires. More precisely, this study is based on a single case study, the public administration in Greece. Moreover, the sources of data collection were relied upon primary data. Furthermore, this study revealed the organizational barriers against e-government by focusing on the major impediments as the participants captured them. Non-availability of high IT-staff, age of employees and the structure of the political regime as well as the way that the central government operates affect the structure of the public sector and are considered the most important barriers that guide to difficulties as far as e-government adoption is concerned. Indeed, Greek Public sector is facing many organizational problems and should eliminate the majority of them by undertaking radical changes and effective measures

Cultural Dimensions And CRM Systems: A Cross-Cultural Case Study’

Cultural dimensions are often identified as a crucial influence on the success or failure of Information Systems in general and Customer Relationship Management Systems (CRM) in particular. Several researchers have suggested ways in which management can accommodate these dimensions or solve the problems they may pose. Ali& Alshawi (2005) have proposed a cultural concerns framework for the management of CRM systems implementation in the multinational environment. In this paper the authors test that framework by conducting a qualitative comparative case study in a large multinational organization in two countries. The authors have investigated the implementation of CRM systems within the same organization in both Egypt and the UK. Using observation, document analysis and interviews, qualitative data has been elicited and used a Soft Systems Methodology (SSM) analysis to determine themes for each case study. The result is a framework of cultural dimensions for management of CRM systems, within multinational environment organizations

Cultural dimensions and CRM systems: a structurational analysis

Cultural dimensions are often identified as a crucial influence on the success or failure of Information Systems in general and Customer Relationship Management Systems (CRM) in particular. Several researchers have suggested ways in which management can accommodate these dimensions or solve the problems they may pose. Ali& Alshawi (2005) have proposed a cultural concerns framework for the management of CRM systems implementation in the multinational environment. In this paper the authors test that framework by conducting a qualitative comparative case study in a large multinational organization in two countries. The authors have investigated the implementation of CRM systems within the same organization in Egypt and UK. Using observation, document analysis and interviews, qualitative data has been extracted and has been used by the authors to develop a Structurational analysis Walsham (2002) which based on the concepts of Structuration Theory Giddens (1979,1984 ). The authors propose a Structurational analysis of their comparative case study to drive from that the cultural dimensions which may have impact on CRM systems implementation and operation in multinational environment

Culture and IS: A criticism of predefined cultural archetypes studies

Although there are many different models of national culture, most IS research has tended to rely almost solely on Hofstede’s cultural model (Keil et al., 2000; Straub, 1994; Tan et al., 1995; Watson et al., 1994; Myers and Tan, 2002; Kirkman et al. 2006).). This is perhaps not surprising, given that Hofstede’s typology of culture has been one of the most popular in many different fields of management (Myers and Tan, 2002). Although, this paper focuses on Hofstede’s model of national culture, but many of the criticisms of Hofstede’s model apply equally well to most of the other predefined cultural models. This paper provides a criticism of predefined cultural archetypes and highlight some recommendations for researchers in the filed of culture and IS discipline