ERP Success Factors: The Impact of Knowledge, Organizational Context and Institutional Forces

Organizational learning could be considered both a general and specific theory of interest to the research of ERP implementations. This article explores how organizational learning can be used to study ERP change. We study two ERP projects in two European MNC’s, including ten embedded cases and 196 interviews. Findings support that managing organizational and institutional forces as well as structuring the division of labour beyond mere implementation and education is very much required yet often overseen in theory. Such change efforts may include consultants’ tool-box type solutions but it also requires character, decisiveness, organisational changes, incentives, corporate involvement, endurance over long time-periods and an ability to execute potentially stressful decisions such as making staff redundant. We argue that fundamental matters, such as the will, the structure and the ability to change, are important to focus on in order to successfully implement ERP systems