Paradigmatic Approaches Used in Enterprise Resource Planning Systems Research: A Systematic Literature Review

The purpose of this paper is to determine the range of research paradigms employed in a subset of the Information Systems (IS) literature, namely Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems. A systematic literature review based on papers that mentioned ERPs was drawn from eight of the most highly ranked journals according to their h-index. The findings indicate that the majority (96.6%) of the papers on ERP systems described research that was conducted within a positivist research paradigm, which is a far higher proportion than is suggested by other research in the general IS literature (approximately 81%). Paradigm selection has a profound impact upon the subsequent nature of the body of knowledge that is developed in any area of inquiry. Given the findings of this study demonstrated the dominance of a single paradigm this paper suggests that there is a strong case for ERP researchers to re-examine paradigm selection. In particular, to review how effectively this present paradigm selection helps or hinders to the development of the ERP body of knowledge, especially in respect to the issues of importance to managers within organizations (notably those concerned with social and change management issues). This research also identifies areas where existing paradigm evaluation methods could be enhanced and refined in respect to non-positivist classifications