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14 - An ERP Implementation Case Study from a Knowledge Transfer Perspective

from Part III - From Learning to Knowledge

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2012

By
Zoonky Lee  and
Jinyoul Lee
Edited by
Graeme Shanks ,
Peter B. Seddon  and
Leslie P. Willcocks
Zoonky Lee
Affiliation:
Assistant Professor of Information Systems, University of Nebraska, Lincoln
Jinyoul Lee
Affiliation:
Assistant Professor of Management Information Systems, State University of New York at Binghamton
Graeme Shanks
Affiliation:
University of Melbourne
Peter B. Seddon
Affiliation:
University of Melbourne
Leslie P. Willcocks
Affiliation:
University of Warwick
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Summary

Introduction

Knowledge transfer is an important topic in management literature. Some studies have focused on the transfer of best business practices in multinational corporations as they transfer accumulated knowledge from their headquarters to new foreign affiliates (Ghoshal and Nohria, 1989; Gupta and Govindarajan, 1991; Kogut and Zander, 1993). Other studies have focused on the transfer of technology, business processes, and best practices inside a firm (for example, Argote, 1999). However, current studies have not focused on the unique knowledge transfer practices involved in an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) implementation.

ERP is an enterprise-wide application software package. In ERP, all necessary business functions, such as financial, manufacturing, human resources, distribution, and order management, are tightly integrated into a single system with a shared database. While customization is not impossible, the broad scope and close connectivity of all related functions make customization very costly (Davenport, 1998; Davis, 1998). The high cost and long implementation process of customization result in most organizations needing to align their business processes with the functionality provided by the ERP program rather than customizing the ERP package to match their current processes. According to Forrester Research, only 5% of organizations, among Fortune 1000 companies that had purchased an ERP application, customized it to match their business processes (Davis, 1998). Therefore, the implementation of ERP entails using the business models included in the package (Slater, 1998). In other words, business knowledge incorporated in the basic architecture of the software is transferred into the adopting organization.

Type
Chapter
Information
Second-Wave Enterprise Resource Planning Systems
Implementing for Effectiveness
 , pp. 335 - 350
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2003

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References

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