ERP\u27s Best Practices and Change: An Organizational Memory Mismatch Approach

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems implementations undertaken all over the world have resulted and continue to result in significant organizational change. Organizations adopt ERP systems to benefit from the underpinning (allegedly) best practices, the suppliers’ or sometimes consultants’ “recipes” for conducting successful business. Such practices are said to lead to considerable improvements in the way the business performs, emphasizing the functioning and management of business processes. However, the implementation and use of best practices remains highly problematic! Here, we conceptualize ERP’s best practices in terms of organizational routines, which are considered to be “repositories” of organizational memory. Memory mismatches are at the core of our (metaphorical) lens to surface understandings of what goes wrong and how people negotiate solutions, both during the implementation and, more importantly, the in-use phases of ERP systems. Looking from an organizational memory mismatch perspective provides us with interesting insights into the challenges and opportunities for implementing and managing change in this context, giving an appealing structure for reasoning about ERP’s best practices. Illustrations from a case study of a Dutch SME are presented to enrich our account. The overall thrust of the paper is to identify a variety of concerns, intriguing questions and avenues for future research

The organizational memory mismatch approach in the ERP usage stage

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems not only have a broad functional scope promising to support many different business processes. They also embed many different aspects of the company’s organizational memory. Disparities can exist between those memory contents in the ERP system and related contents in other memory media, such as the individuals’ memories, and the organizational structure and culture. Such discrepancies, called memory mismatches here, may cause various instances of ERP under-performance, thus triggering the need for coping behavior in the organization. Coping may take place in the form of organizational change, organizational learning, and software maintenance. This paper provides a theoretical framework for this organizational memory mismatch approach. The approach is applied to the ERP usage stage. It integrates the organizational, technological, and cognitive aspects of ERP systems, while combining and elaborating on the underpinning ERP and IS literature

Moving an eInnovation from a Living Lab to the Real World: Politically Savvy Framing in ITAIDE\u27s Beer Living Lab

Living Labs have been established as real-life pilot settings in which IT innovations are developed and validated. Once these steps have been completed, these innovations are ready to be moved out of the Living Lab environment into the real world. In many cases Living Lab innovations require not only technological but also socio-political and institutional changes to be made in order for them to be adopted. The need of socio-political and institutional changes becomes especially visible in cases where Living Lab participants attempt to propose innovative solutions for domains that are highly regulated. The reason for that is that in such cases, often the existing legal requirement would need to be adjusted first, in order to create grounds for the further adoption of the innovation. The question as to how to achieve such legal changes related to Living Lab innovations in a highly regulated environment has received vey limited attention. In this paper, we specifically focus on understanding of framing processes and how they are used by the Living Lab participants in a politically savvy way to mobilize a multi-level network of actors in their attempts to bring institutional change. We further investigate this framework through a case study involving a variety of framing processes that took place in the Beer Living Lab. The Beer Living Lab is part of the ITAIDE project that aims to develop and test an eCustoms solution for international trade. In addition to our contribution of the conceptual framework and the accompanying empirical case study, we also identify further implications for practitioners who are involved in similar Living Labs in highly regulated environments

Negative aspects of counter-knowledge on absorptive capacity and human capital

People live and work in a world where they do not have complete knowledge and, as a result, they make use of rumours, beliefs and assumptions about relevant areas of concern. The term counter-knowledge has been used to refer to knowledge created from unverified sources. The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between counter-knowledge and human capital (HC) as well as investigating interactions between absorptive capacity (ACAP) and HC.The data of this research were taken from a research programme supported by the Spanish Ministry 
of Education (REF: ECO2011-28,641-C02-02) and the Mobility Project (REF: PRX14/00164)

Minimizing the effects of defensive routines on knowledge hiding though unlearning

Knowledge hiding is an activity that often comes naturally to humans. When we are children, our parents hide certain information to protect us. As we age, we learn to develop defensive routines to protect ourselves and our weaknesses through knowledge hiding. In this study, intentional unlearning are assemblages of knowledge structures that individuals engage in to put aside certain number defensive routines and thus minimize their effects on hiding or misapplication of knowledge. This study analyses the applicability of an unlearning model focused on the effects of defensive routines on knowledge hiding. The empirical research is conducted with 122 airline travelers using two surveys (one in Spanish and the other in English). Since the travelers flew during the pandemic, they would have experienced first-hand the presence of defensive routines in the face of the new sanitary and safety measures. Data is analyzed using SmartPLS 3 for Windows. The results suggest that intentional unlearning is negatively related to defensive routines and furthermore that these routines are positively related to knowledge hiding. The results stand to improve the quality of service within airports and are beneficial for organizations undergoing change initiatives.We are grateful to the anonymous reviewers and editors who participated in the first reviews of this study

Linking social and economic responsibilities with financial performance: The role of innovation

The research conducted in this study focuses on the role of a company's innovation culture in linking economic and social responsibilities with financial performance. Specifically, our study addresses the following two questions: Does innovation trigger the simultaneous development of both economic and social dimensions of corporate social responsibility? Does the simultaneous pursuit of economic and social responsibilities result in a higher financial performance? These questions are examined through an empirical investigation of 133 companies, belonging to the Spanish Social Environmental Agreement, using structural equation modelling validated by factor analysis. The results indicate that, although companies are using innovation outcomes to support both economic and social achievements, they are only taking advantage effectively of economic achievements to obtain a higher financial performance.The data of this research were taken from a research program supported by the Spanish Ministry of Education (REF: PRX14/ 00164) and a research project from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (ECO2014-55674-R)

Organizational unlearning context fostering learning for customer capital through time: lessons from smes in the telecommunications industry

In situations where organizations and their members face changing environments it is necessary that old knowledge represented in processes and routines be challenged prior to the addition of new knowledge. It could be claimed that for learning to occur on an organizational level it must be possible for unlearning to take place. However, there have been few, if any, studies providing direct empirical evidence for this relationship. In the analysis presented in this paper we explicitly include time as a variable in order to model a situation where unlearning at time (t0) in order to learn more efficiently at a moment after occurs prior to time (t1). In addition, we also examine the relationship between organizational learning and customer capital. These relationships are examined through an empirical investigation of 107 Spanish small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) from the Telecommunications industry. The results indicate that the effect of the unlearning at a moment (t0) on customer capital at a moment (t1) is depends on whether the learning taking place at (t1) can be characterized as either exploration or exploitation

Sustained transmission of high-level azithromycin-resistant Neisseria gonorrhoeae in England: an observational study.

BACKGROUND: Between Nov 3, 2014, and Feb 24, 2017, 70 cases of high-level azithromycin-resistant (HL-AziR; minimum inhibitory concentration [MIC] ≥256 mg/L) Neisseria gonorrhoeae were reported from across England. Whole-genome sequencing was done to investigate this outbreak to determine whether the ongoing outbreak represented clonal spread of an HL-AziR N gonorrhoeae strain identified in Leeds. We also wanted to elucidate the molecular mechanisms of azithromycin resistance in N gonorrhoeae in the UK. METHODS: In this observational study, whole-genome sequencing was done on the HL-AziR N gonorrhoeae isolates from England. As comparators, 110 isolates from the UK and Ireland with a range of azithromycin MICs were also sequenced, including eight isolates from Scotland with azithromycin MICs ranging from 0·12 mg/L to 1·00 mg/L that were N gonorrhoeae multi-antigen sequence type 9768 (ST9768), which was the sequence type initially responsible for the outbreak. The presence of mutations or genes associated with azithromycin resistance was also investigated. FINDINGS: 37 of the 60 HL-AziR isolates from England belonged to ST9768, and were genetically similar (mean 4·3 single-nucleotide polymorphisms). A 2059A→G mutation was detected in three or all four alleles of the 23S rRNA gene. Five susceptible ST9768 isolates had one mutated 23S rRNA allele and one low-level resistant ST9768 isolate had two mutated alleles. INTERPRETATION: Sustained transmission of a successful HL-AziR clone was seen across England. Mutation 2059A→G was found in isolates with lower azithromycin MICs. Azithromycin exposure might have provided the selection pressure for one or two mutated copies of the 23S rRNA gene to recombine with wild-type copies, leading to three or four mutated copies and the HL-AziR phenotype. HL-AziR could emerge in isolates with low azithromycin MICs and eliminate the effectiveness of azithromycin as part of dual therapy for the treatment of gonorrhoea. FUNDING: Public Health England