Potential Impact of Cultural Differences on Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Projects

Abstract

Over the last ten years, there has been a dramatic growth in the acquisition of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems, where the market leader is the German company, SAP AG. However, more recently, there has been an increase in reported ERP failures, suggesting that the implementation issues are not just technical, but encompass wider behavioural factors. This conceptual paper examines the role of culture in the implementation of process-oriented ERP systems, and reports on the formulation of a research project to examine the relevance of macro and micro-level cultural issues in the successful operation of such systems. The paper suggests that some of the reported ERP problems may be attributed to the difficulties that staff operating in an Anglo-Saxon culture may experience with a process rather than function-oriented working environment.