A short literature review on topic

Titled

Sustained Competitive advantage through ERP Systems based knowledge and process
innovation

For
Research Methodology

Submitted to
Professor
Anders Tallberg

Prepared by
Sharad Adhikari
S063640

Date
02.04.2007

HANKEN
Helsinki
CONTENTS

1. INTRODUCTION.………………………………………………………………..1-2

2. LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE & SUSTAINED COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE

2.1.1 Resource based Theory of Competitive Advantage. ……………...... 4

2.1.2 Institutional Perspective of Competitive Advantage of Firm……. ... 4-6

2.2 CURRENT LITERATURE ON ERP AND COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE…….6-9

2.3 ERP, KNOWLEDGE AND INNOVATION

2.3.1 ERP and Knowledge management mechanism…………………….. 9-10

2.3.2 ERP and Business Process Innovation……………………………… 10-11

2.3.3 Relating ERP, Knowledge & Innovation…………………………… 11-13

3. CONCLUSIONS AND DISCUSSIONS……………………………………….. 14-15

REFERENCES
1. INTRODUCTION

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems have been popular in modern business
operations. A recent survey by Fortune magazine revealed that seven out of ten global
pharmaceutical and petroleum companies, nine out of ten global computer companies,
and all the top ten global chemical companies are using SAP’s R/3. Meanwhile, another
study found more than 60 percent of Fortune 500 companies had adopted of ERP system.
(G.Stewart et. al 2000)

ERP was designed as a platform for greater innovation, mainly in the area of planning,
forecasting and customer management tools, enabling companies to adopt best of breed
software, knowing that it could be tightly integrated and operate at full capacity. The
global companies rely heavily on the ERP systems having an opportunity to integrate
information, not only within corporate headquarters, but also across global locations.

Competitive advantage arises from the differentials among firms along any dimension of
attributes and characteristics that allows one firm to better create customer value and also
do something comparable better than the competitors. Meanwhile, generic sources of
competitive advantage include ownership of assets or position; access to distribution and
supply, as well as proficiency knowledge competence and capability-in business
operations. (Cynthia et. al 2006)

More generally, a firm is said to have a competitive advantage when it is implementing a

strategy not simultaneously implemented by many competing firms and where these
other firms face significant disadvantages in acquiring the same level of operations.
Meanwhile, previous literature on IT suggest some five attributes i.e. access to the
capital, proprietary technology, technical skills and managerial IT skills and customer
switching costs etc could enhance firms possibilities of gaining competitive advantage.

Relating to the topic of the research study, it highlights the fact that ERP facilitated
knowledge and business process innovation are thought to ensure competitive advantage
of any firm. Additionally, ERP systems vendors always embark that their product would

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subsequently provide the implementing firm with competitive advantage and even ensure
sustainable advantages. This study would in a way attempt to uncover the extent of using
ERP systems to attain sustained competitive considering distinctive uses and implications
for business process innovation.

It is quite truth that despite the alluring promises from information technology specialists
and ERP vendors, realities embarks that the use alone of ERP systems is far from
sufficient to guarantee a strong competitive position in the fluid knowledge economy
(Somers & Nelson, 2003). Hence, an insight into the viability of gaining sustained
competitive advantage through ERP being enabler of business process innovation would
provide us the real scenario.

ERP systems, in a way ensure firms ability to generate and share information, knowledge
and thereby creating opportunities for numerous innovations. Such innovations and
knowledge based resources would subsequently provide the foundation of competitive
advantage. (Nahapiet & Ghoshal, 1998).

The research would focus primarily on the agenda of sustained competitive advantage
that firms manage to attain from ERP utilization. The research would attempt to study
various factors that facilitate or inhibit the process and outline necessary requirements to
ensure the attainment of sustained competitive advantage.

The literature review would thus explore the nature of the issues related to the research
proposal and find out the scenario about the knowledge being inked on the relevant field
of study.

2. LITERATURE REVIEW

2. COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE AND SUSTAINED COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE

Barney has contributed significantly than any other authors in the field of sustainable
competitive advantage. Barney (1991) defines a firm to have a competitive advantage

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when it is implementing a value creating strategy not simultaneously being implemented
by any current or potential competitiors. Similarly, a firm is said to have a sustained
competitive advantage when it is implementing a value creating strategy not
simultaneously being implemented by any current or potential competitors and when
these firms are unable to duplicate the benefits of this strategy.

Following the Barneys assumption, the research will use the concept of sustained
competitive advantage as not to refer to the particular period of calendar time that a firm
enjoys a competitive advantage.

Thomas c. Powell and Anne Dent-Micallef (1997) bring interesting results from an
empirical study of retail industry through building a resource based theoretical
framework. They tried to investigate the linkages between information technology and
firm performance.

The authors suggest that IT alone cannot produce sustainable performance however;
firms could attain advantages by using IT to leverage intangible, complementary human
and business resources.

For testing the hypothesis, the researchers sought a relatively low technology industry
that had undergone significant change as a result of identifiable IT. Thus, an initial Likert
type measurement scales were then developed for the Human, Business, and Technology
resources, the latter consisting of the instore and beyond store ITs. These scales were then
pre-tested and refined by administering the initial survey to small groups of retail
executives and store managers, and by follow up interviews concerning the scope,
relevance, clarity and form of the survey items.

Of the 250 surveys mailed, 67 were returned, whereas 65 of which were complete, for a
usable response rate of 26.0 percent. They run regression analysis and used descriptive
statistics for hypothesis deduction.

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The findings of the study based on the resource-based approach; help to explain why
some firms outperform others using the same ITs, and why successful IT users often fail
to sustain IT-based competitive advantages.

This paper in a way succeed to provide a overview of factors that impact the firms
capability in producing competitive advantage as well as lag and struggles especially in
the retail industry.

2.1.1 Resource based Theory of Competitive advantage

A resource based view of strategic management examines the resource capabilities of the
firms that enable them to generate above normal rates of return and a sustainable
competitive advantage. (Amit and Schoemaker, 1993 Barney 1991).

Resource capital can be defined as the value enhancing assets and competencies of the
firm. Examples of resource capital include superior distribution channels, lean cost
structures, patented core competencies, non appropriate talent, and customer loyalty.
Amit and Shoemaker, 1993)

According to Barney, a planning system may conceivably produce advantages, but only if
it ‘enables a firm to recognize resources, and some of these resources and some of these
resources might be sources of sustained competitive advantage’ (1991: 113)

2.1.2 Institutional Perspective of competitive advantage of Firm

The institutional capital can be defined as the firm’s capability to support value
enhancing assets and competencies. Examples or measures of institutional capital might
include training programs that accelerate the adoption of new capabilities within the
firm’s operations, information technology systems that accelerate the diffusion and use of
resource capital, management development programs that promote continuous resource

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improvement, decision support systems that encourage resource innovations, and
interfirm alliances across different industries that facilitate new resource learning and
knowledge sharing.( Oliver 1997).

The institutional view suggests that the motives of human behavior extend beyond
economic optimization to social justification and social obligation (Zukin and DiMaggio,
1990). The institutional based view of strategic management views firms operate within a
social framework of norms, values and taken for granted assumptions about what
constitutes appropriate for acceptable economic behavior.

The article argues that a firm’s sustainable advantage depends on the firms’ ability to
manage the institutional context of the resources decisions. It proposes a process model
of firm heterogeneity that combines the insights of a resource based view with
institutional perspective from organization theory. The key success factor as per resource
capital is the protection and procurement of rare inimitable assets and competencies. In
contrast to that, the key success factor is the effective management of the firm’s resource
decision context. Oliver (1997) comes up with the combined research approach to look
on the matter combining both resource base and institutional theory of firm.

Fig 1.1 Sustainable advantage: Determinants of the Process

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The research would follow the definition and perspective provided as in the above
diagram for competitive and sustainable competitive advantage.

2.2 CURRENT LITERATURE ON ERP AND COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE

Thomas and Kalling (2003) highlights the fact that relation between ERP and competitive
advantage as well as different managerial and organizational process enhancing the
competitive position has not been well covered by the ERP literature. The proposed
framework highlights the overall process of attaining resources from the factor market
through the processes of the firm, and materializing it through the offering on the product
market.

Fig 1.2 Conceptual Framework for Systems Resource Management Processes adapted
from Kalling (2003).

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It appears that ERP systems are increasingly a requirement for organizations just to stay
competitive. Additionally, the research suggests that an ERP system can yield at most a
temporary competitive advantage as others are also installing these enterprise-wide
systems.

Lengnick-Hall et al. (2004) propose to consider ERP as an enabling technology to build

and augment social and intellectual capital, rather than as an information technology
solution for organizational inefficiencies, and to use ERP as a foundation for social and
intellectual capital formation. While, Yen and Sheu (2004) investigate the relationship
between ERP implementation practices and a firm’s competitive strategy, and confirm
that ERP implementation should be aligned with competitive strategy, proposing specific
guidelines.

Genoulaz, Millet and Grabot (2005) contribute significantly undertaking a survey on the
recent research literature of ERP systems. They embark that nearly all literature on ERP
is focused on ERP project and ERP implementation. Though identified, only little
attention had been paid on the post implementation phase of ERP projects. They suggest
that information technologies cannot by itself influence the productivity of a company.
The main efficiency factor lies in the way people use these technologies.

Focusing on the achievement of competitive advantage through ERP, they highlight the
fact that ERP as one of the major motives of firms attaining a competitive advantage.
However, the examination of existing research suggests that it is not the case. According
to Beard and Sumner (2005), it is due to the ‘‘common systems’’ approach used for the
implementation of most ERP systems. They argue that the goal can be achieve with a
careful planning and successful management of ERP projects, refinement of the
reengineering of the organization, and the post-implementation alignment of the ERP
system with the organization’s strategic direction.

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It seems that those organizations who can fine tune their ERP systems with the ideas of
both causal ambiguity and social complexity. Organizations that can fine tune their ERP
systems through selected, small-scale customization to match their own specific strategic
and decision-making needs will be more difficult to imitate. In addition, ERP systems
may support a further improvement and understanding of the extended value chain of the
organization, allowing the organization to link and share data with its suppliers and
customers to improve business operations. This enhances the so called business process
innovation.

As such, the source of competitive advantage may lie in the actual management of ERP
projects and their subsequent operations. This echoes the conclusion of Mata et al. (1995)
that the management of IT, not the IT itself, may be the only consistent source of
competitive advantage.

The researcher, thus, considers exploring further articles with focus on the optimization
of ERP systems. J.Hermosillo et. al (2005) suggests to better adapt business process to
human actors by explicitly taking into account concepts like the role, competence and
knowledge of human resources. It is shown with a practical case—the implementation of
PeopleSoft in a university—how the following concepts may optimize ERP
implementations by better identifying the requirements and possibilities of the workforce,
with the final goal of increasing the efficiency and acceptability of the system to be
implemented.

Competence: Competence results from a combined implementation of knowledge, know-

how, abilities, attitude and behavior. It impacts the ability of an individual to perform an
activity in a job-relevant area as well as what is required from this individual to realize
effective performance.

Roles: Roles includes a group of functions to achieve a purpose, based on the application
of competencies.

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Knowledge: Knowledge is a fluid mix of framed experience, values, contextual
information and expert insight that provides a framework for evaluating and
incorporating new experiences and information. In organizations, it often becomes
embedded not only in documents or repositories but also in organizational routines,
processes, practices and norms.

The above included literature provided an ample knowledge relating competitiveness of

ERP, simultaneously, exhibit various fields of research gap relating the innovation and
knowledge sharing specific agendas that could enhance the firm’s chances of building
competitive advantage as well as sustaining them.

2.3 ERP, KNOWLEDGE & INNOVATION

2.3.1 ERP and Knowledge management mechanism

Daniel E O’Leary (2002), attempts to investigate the knowledge management mechanism

in supporting the enterprise resource planning systems across the entire life cycle. He
urges that at one level, ERP systems provide transaction processing capabilities that help
to integrate all of a firm’s transaction processing.

At another level, using that transaction processing information, the firm can plan their
activities, such as production. This suggests that knowledge management can be used for
a range of activities, e.g., transaction processing support.

Using a SAP R/3 example, the author points out the ‘‘Knowledge Warehouse’’ is aimed
at managing unstructured knowledge and delivering it to those who want or need that
knowledge. That knowledge includes much of the information available from SAP’s web
site, such as business knowledge (data, processes, and models), product knowledge (R/3
functionality), training materials, and documentation.

This paper in a way, discusses some emerging issues focusing on knowledge

management with particular interest in a case based knowledge management. It is thought

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that virtual communities centered around the Internet or company intranets can provide a
vehicle to generate knowledge across the entire ERP life cycle. Virtual communities
provide informal settings where participants would ask questions of other participants in
the community. It is not unusual for such communities to share knowledge related to all
of the major ERP packages, with questions about packages occurring about the package
across the entire life cycle.

Kogut and Zander (2003) in their decade wining article tilted “Knowledge of the firm and
the evolutionary theory of the multinational corporation” attempted to put forth a theory
that is compatible with an evolutionary perspective on the growth of the firm. It embarks
that firms generally compete on the basis of the superiority of their information and
know-how, and their abilities to develop new knowledge by experiential learning. The
limiting factor on their growth is not only the competitiveness of other firms and the
demand of the market, but also the extent to which their advantage can be replicated more
quickly by themselves than through imitation by competitors.

Competition among firms is based upon their differential capabilities, and their abilities
to expand by the creation and replication of new knowledge faster than the imitative and
innovative efforts of competitors. (Kogut and Zander 2003)

2.3.2 ERP and Business Process Innovation

Davenport (1993) initiated the research on ERP related process innovation in an

implementing firm. In his words, Process Innovation combines the adoption of a process
view of the business with the application of innovation to key processes. It should have
enormous potential to assist any organization achieve major reductions in process cost or
time, or major improvements in quality, flexibility, service levels or other business
objectives.

It is quite fascinating that the objective of innovation might be process time reduction to
the extent that it reduces the period of uncertainty for home buyers and sellers, constitutes

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a competitive advantage. Even a poor IT infrastructure can be opportunity for process
innovation, may firms today need to rebuild major systems, but they should not construct
them to support inadequate or inferior processes.

The figure below would clarify the focus of the study. Process Innovation that consists of
reengineering, business process redesign is sort of radical innovation and falls under the
one time project contexts.

Fig 1.3 Approaches to Business Improvement adapted from Davenport (1993)

2.3.3 Relating ERP, Knowledge & Innovation

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) is seen as one of the most recently emerging process
orientation tools that can enable such a transformation. Its development has presented
both researchers and practitioners with new challenges and opportunities. (Al Mashari
2001). This paper reviews available studies, explores future research avenues and
presents detailed discussions of some critical process and knowledge management issues
in the ERP context.

Mashari (2001) brings some interesting numbers from surveys as competitive positioning
as ranked least among the benefits expected while process standardization ranked among

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the highest related with the motives of firm for implementing ERP systems. It is clear
those ERP systems, facilitates information integration between the individual information
systems, reduces information cost, and enhances its value (O sterle et al., 2000). It helps
focus on core competencies and works as a vehicle for transferring best practices and
developments in both business processes and IT (Keller and Teufel, 1998).

Mashari further suggest that ERP tools can be considered as knowledge management
(KM) systems, in that they serve as a vehicle for transferring the best practices that are
embedded in their generic processes and system components (Bancroft et al., 1998).
Though written specific about the implementation phase, provides us the scenarios of
process changes and standardization issues that would be initiated by the ERP utilization
in any particular firm.

Palaniswamy Rajagopal (2002) conducted a case type analysis of six manufacturing firms
identified the various contextual factors that would influence the firms to implement the
technology. The authors highlight the fact that able to achieve high levels of performance
during the recent turbulent decades because of the application and usage of various IT
tools that automated many of their routine organizational activities. Implementation and
wide usage of IT tools have helped organizations to function in an organized fashion,
thus, alleviating many redundancies that were ubiquitous across the entire organization.
The contribution of the research as illustrated below exhibit various interesting issues. It
was obvious that all of these companies, which differ widely in many of the
organizational characteristics, benefited more than they anticipated through implementing
these ERP systems and that without such an integrated system in place they could not
gain competitive advantages in the current and coming years.

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Fig 1.4 Kwon and Zmud’s IT implementation model as applied to ERP implementation
along with the contributions by Rajagopal (2002)

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3. CONCLUSIONS & DISCUSSIONS

It is quite clear that previous literature does provide some idea regarding the attainability
of competitive advantage through IT systems. Interestingly, not much of convincing
results has been attained . Most of them suggest the fact that information technologies
cannot itself influence the productivity of a company. Meanwhile, other suggest that the
factors might lie somewhere else, or even the way people use these technologies. In
addition to that, most of these studies are based on content analysis and literature review,
which need to be tested and further analyzed.

In a similar fashion, Thongchai Srivardhana, Suzanne D. Pawlowski (2007) comes up

with the latest knowledge on the specific agenda of the research interest. They develop a
framework to specify relationships between ERP-related knowledge impacts and
potential/realized absorptive capacity for business process innovation. The research in
this paper challenges conventional beliefs about the relationship between enterprise
resource planning (ERP) systems and business process innovation. ERP systems have the
potential to significantly enhance the capabilities of a firm for sustained innovation of its
business processes. The implication of their analysis is that ERP systems present
dialectical contradictions, both enabling and constraining business process innovation.

It also highlights the fact that knowledge capabilities (generation, combination-

recombination and exploitation of knowledge) can provide a source of competitive
advantage ( Grant, 1996; Kogut and Zander, 1996).The article is worthy to define several
potential ideas relating the ERP uses for attaining sustained advantages like business
process innovations. Their analysis suggests that organizational integration can
simultaneously improve organizational efficiency and flexibility. Leaving the
propositions for analysis, these papers contribute an initial understanding of the
relationship between ERP systems and business process innovation.

The framework as presented in the figure below brings various contributions to the field
of business process innovation and the ERP systems.

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Fig 1.5 Research Framework – ERP systems and the business process absorptive capacity
adapted from Srivardhana (2007)

All of the above discussions and literature review opens up the various research gap
areas. When concerned particular about the article by Srisvardhana et. al (2007), the
propositions need to be tested and further analyzed. This provides researcher with ample
opportunities to carry out research on such field and contribute one step ahead of the
research. The further research could be testing these propositions as well as looking out
the potentiality of such factors in attaining sustained competitive advantage.

It also brings some light on the maturity state of literature on ERP systems. However, as
discussed in various articles, ERP seems to exist for long and might assist implementing
firms for increasing performance and attaining sustained competitive advantage. The
researcher feels necessary to use a combined approach and explore the real scenario
regarding ERP as enabler of attaining sustained competitive advantage.

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REFERENCES

Amit, R. and P. J.H Schoemaker (1993), Strategic assets and organizational rent,
Strategic Management Journal, 14(1), pp. 33-46
B Kogut and U Zander (2003), Knowledge of the firm and the evolutionary theory of the
multinational corporation, Journal of International Business Studies 34, 516–529
Bancroft N, Seip H, Sprengel A. 1998. Implementing SAP R/3: How to introduce a
large system into a large Organization. Manning Publications Co: Greenwich, CT.
C.A. Lengnick-Hall, M.L. Lengnick-Hall, S. Abdinnour- Helm (2004), The role of
social and intellectual capital in achieving Competitive advantage through
enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, Journal of Engineering and Technology
Management,21 pp.307–330.
Christine Oliver (1997) Sustainable Competitive Advantage: Combining Institutional and
Resource-Based Views, Strategic Management Journal, Vol. 18, No. 9. pp. 697-713.
Daniel E. O’Leary(2002) Knowledge management across the enterprise resource
planning systems life cycle, International Journal of Accounting Systems 3, pp. 99-110
Enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems and development of a research model,
Information & Management 40, pp. 87–114
H.R. Yen, C. Sheu (2004), Aligning ERP implementation with competitive priorities
of manufacturing firms: an exploratory study, International Journal of Production
Economics 92 (3) 207–220.
J Barney (1991), Firm Resources and Sustained Competitive Advantage, Journal of
Management; Mar 1991; 17, 1; ABI/INFORM Global pg. 99
J. Thermopile Worley , K.A. Chatham, R.H. Weston , O. Aguirre, B. Robot (2005)
Implementation and optimization of ERP systems: A better integration of processes,
roles, knowledge and user competencies, Computers in Industry 56,pp.620–638
J.W. Beard, M. Sumner (2004), Seeking strategic advantage in the post-net era:
viewing ERP systems from the resource-based Perspective, The Journal of Strategic
Information Systems 13, 2, pp. 129–150.

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Jon W. Bearda, Mary Sumner (2004), Seeking strategic advantage in the post-net era:
viewing ERP systems from the resource-based perspective, Journal of Strategic
Information Systems 13 pp.129–150
Keller G, Teufel T. 1998. SAP R/3 Process-Oriented Implementation. Addison-
Wesley: Wokingham.
O¨ sterle H, Fleisch E, Alt R. 2000. Business Networking. Springer: Berlin.
Palaniswamy Rajagopal (2002) An innovation—diffusion view of implementation of
ERP systems and development model, Information & Management 40, pp. 87–114
Thomas C.powell and Anne Den-Micallef(1997), Information technology as competitive
advantage: The role of Human, Business and Technology Resources, Strategic
Management Journal Vol. 18:5, 375-405
Thomas H.Davenport (1992), Process Innovation: Reengineering Work through
Information Technology, Harvard Business School Press
Thomas Kalling (2003), ERP systems and the Strategic Management Processes that Lead
to Competitive advantage, Information Resource Management, Oct-Dec 16, 4, pg.46
Thongchai Srivardhana, Suzanne D. Pawlowski (2007) ERP systems as an enabler of
sustained business process innovation: A knowledge-based view, Journal of Strategic
information systems, doi:10.1016/j.jsis.2007.01.003
V. Botta-Genoulaz a,, P.-A. Millet a, B. Grabot (2005) A survey on the recent research
literature on ERP systems, Computers in Industry 56, pp. 510–522
Zukin, S. and P.J. DiMaggio (1990), ‘Introduction’ In S. Zukin and P.J DiMaggio
eds. Structures of Capital: The Social Organization of the Economy.Cambridge
University Press. Cambridge UK

Note: The bold references count to the numerous sighted references in the over-viewed
particular articles reviewed for this assignment.

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Below is the summary of the articles presented in the order of appearance in the literature
review part of the assignment.
Authors Title Research Findings
Methodology
James Barney Firm Resources and ------- Proposes a VRIN
(1991) Sustained model of measuring
Competitive sustainable
Advantage competitive
advantage using
resource based view
of a firm
Thomas C. Powell Information Quantitative: Of the Provide an
and Anne Dent Technology as 250 surveys mailed, overview of factors
Micallef (1997) Competitive 67 were returned, that impact the
Advantage: The role 65 of which were firm’s capability in
of human, business complete and run producing
and Technology regression analysis competitive
for hypothesis advantage as well as
deduction. lag and struggles
especially in the
retail industry.
Christine Sustainable Literature Based Both resource
Oliver(1997) Competitive capital and
Advantage: institutional capital
Combining are indispensable to
Institutional and sustained
Resource-Based competitive
Views advantage

Thomas ERP systems and the Data gathered Proposed a

Kalling(2003) Strategic through interviews, framework for the

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 Management archival research process that firms
Processes that and by observation. could use in
Lead to Competitive enhancing
advantage competitive
advantage through
ERP systems
V. Botta-Genoulaz, A survey on the Survey : 250 Findings based on
P.-A. Millet a, B. recent research contributions have survey and
Grabot(2005) literature on ERP been selected classified in six
systems resulting in 80 different categories.
articles and Research growing
communication on the post
implementation
phase of the
projects, on the
customization of
ERP systems, on the
social aspects of
ERP
implementation
Jon W. Beard, Mary Seeking strategic Content analysis: Findings based on
Sumner(2005) advantage in the methodology content analysis,
post-net era: articles published using VRIO
viewing ERP between 1998 and framework, find out
systems from the March 2002 that current
resource-based literature doesn’t
perspective provide clear
evidence of a
competitive
advantage gained
through ERP based

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 performance.
J. Thermopile Implementation and Uses a practical Propose a general
Worley , K.A. optimization of ERP case study of the process model of
Chatham, R.H. systems: People soft integrating process,
Weston, A better integration implementation at roles, knowledge
O. Aguirre b, B. of processes, roles, the University and user
Grabot (2005) knowledge and user competencies
competencies

Daniel E. Knowledge Case studies Highlights

O’Leary(2002) management across knowledge related
the enterprise issues around the
resource planning various life cycle of
systems life cycle ERP projects
Kogut and Knowledge of the Quantative: Use The less codifiable
Zander(2003) firm and the questionnaire data and the harder to
evolutionary described in Zander teach is the
theory of the (1991a,b) and technology, the
multinational Zander and Kogut more likely the
corporation transfer will be to
wholly owned
operations.

Thomas Process Innovation: Case studies of Even a poor IT

Davenport(1993) Reengineering(1992) multiple firms infrastructure can be
Work through opportunity for
Information process innovation
Technology
Majed Al- Process Orientation surveys current Provides
Mashari(2001) through Enterprise practices, research comprehensive

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 Resource Planning and development, review of state of
(ERP): A Review of research in the ERP
Critical Issues field relating to
process
management
Palaniswamy An innovation— Both qualitative and various contextual
Rajagopal(2002) diffusion view of quantative approach factors that
implementation of influenced these
enterprise resource firms to implement
planning (ERP) this technology
systems were understood
and development of using the six-stage
a research model model proposed by
Kwon and Zmud.

Thongchai ERP systems as an Content analysis A theoretical

Srivardhana enabler of sustained framework is
Suzanne D. business process developed to
Pawlowski(2007) innovation: A highlight the
knowledge-based relationships
view between ERP-
related knowledge
impacts and
potential/realized
absorptive capacity
for business process
innovation

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