ERP based business learning environment as a boundary infrastructure in business learning

Abstract

Business education has been criticized for being theoretical and distant from the dynamisms of the business life. To answer to this criticism, different types of experiential learning environments, such as manual role-plays, computer simulations, and enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, have been used. In this paper, we study how a holistic learning environment, combining a practice enterprise model, an ERP system and a simulation, improves learning results and why. We present a full-year long case study to compare the learning outcomes of the holistic learning environment with a manually-oriented practice enterprise model. Our findings indicate improvements on different domains of Bloom’s taxonomy. We suggest that the improvements are due to the holistic learning environment acting as a boundary infrastructure where the practice enterprise model, the simulation and the ERP system are all different kinds of boundary objects. This boundary infrastructure functions as a point of interaction and communication, and enables the students and teachers to cross social, cultural and conceptual boundaries between different communities of practice, and importantly, between theory and practice.