Erp for Walmart

RO

TLE D U

GE

Journal of Information Technology (2000) 15, 281–288

An ERP implementation case study from a knowledge transfer perspective
Z OONKY L EE AND JINYOUL LE E
Department of Management, College of Business Administration, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, NE 68588–0491, USA

r

& Fr ci s G an

An enterprise resource planning (ERP) application is an enterprise-wide package that tightly integrates all necessary business functions into a single system with a shared database. An ERP implementation often entails transferring the business knowledge incorporated in the basic architecture of the software package into the adopting organization. This article proposes a new approach to analysing ERP implementations from a knowledge transfer perspective. It also contributes to a better understanding of competitive advantage based on process knowledge when standardized business processes are implemented by an organization. The article begins by identifying the types of knowledge transferred during an ERP implementation and the factors affecting this transfer. It then investigates how con icts between the business knowledge transferred from the ERP package and the existing organizational knowledge are resolved. During our investigation, we used in-depth interviews, process analysis and documentation analysis in order to analyse an early implementation stage of ERP. The results indicated that the business processes which are incorporated in an ERP package are transferred into an organization along with the business rules inherent in the processes due to process automation, the limited exibility of such packages and the cross-functional nature of an ERP package. The results also suggested that an organization’s adaptive capability concerning role and responsibility redistribution, the development of new types of required knowledge and the introduction of a different knowledge structure in uence an organization’s ability to internalize these

References: Argote, L. (1999) Organizational Learning Creating, Retaining and Transferring Knowledge (Kluwer Academic Publishers, Boston). Badaracco Jr J.L. (1991) The Knowledge Link: How Firms Compete through Strategic Alliance (Harvard Business School Press, Boston). Barley, S. (1990) The alignment of technology and structure through roles and networks. Administrative Science Quarterly, 35(1), 61–103. Baskerville, R. (1999) Enterprise resource planning and knowledge management: convergence or divergence? Georgia State University working paper 99–6. Berger, L., Sikora, M. and Berger, D. (1994) The Change Management Handbook: A Road Map to Corporate (Irwin, Burr Ridge, IL). Brown, J.S. and Duguid, P. (1991) Organizational learning and communities of practice: toward a uni ed view of working, learning, and innovation. Organization Science, 2(1), 40–57. 288 Cooper, R. and Zmud, R. (1990) Information technology implementation research: a technological diffusion approach. Management Science, 36(2), 123–39. Darr, E., Argote, L. and Epple, D. (1995) The acquisition, transfer and depreciation of knowledge in service organizations: productivity in franchises. Management Science, 41(11), 1750–62. Davenport, T. (1998) Putting the enterprise into the enterprise system. Harvard Business Review, 76(4), 121–31. Davis, J. (1998) Scooping up vanilla ERP: off-the-shelf versus customized software. InfoWorld, 20(47), 1–4. Gattiker, T. and Goodhue, D. (2000) Understanding the plant level costs and bene ts of ERP: will the ugly duckling always turn into a swan? In Proceedings of the 33rd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, Hawaii. Ghoshal, S. and Nohria, N. (1989) Internal differentiation within multinational corporations. Strategic Management Journal, 10(4), 323–37. Gupta, A.-K. and Govindarajan, V. (1991) Knowledge ows and the structure of control within multinational corporations. Academy of Management Review, 16(4), 768–92. Hanseth, O. and Braa, K. (1998) Technology as traitor: emergent SAP infrastructure in a global organization. In International Conference on Information Systems, Finland. Kogut, B. and Zander, U. (1993) Knowledge of the rm and the evolutionary theory of the multinational corporation. Journal of International Business, 24(4), 625–45. Kostova, T. (1999) Transnational transfer of strategic organizational practices: a contextual perspective. Academy of Management Review, 24(2), 308–24. Lam, A. (1997) Embedded rms, embedded knowledge: problems of collaboration and knowledge transfer in global cooperative ventures. Organization Studies, 18(6), 973–96. Nonaka, I. and Takeuchi, H. (1995) The Knowledge-creating Company: How Japanese Companies Create the Dynamics of Innovation (Oxford University Press, New York). Nonaka, I. and Konno, N. (1998) The concept of ‘Ba’: building a foundation of knowledge creation. California Management Review, 40, 40–54. Lee and Lee Orlikowski, W. (1993) CASE tools as organizational change: investigating incremental and radical changes in systems development. MIS Quarterly, 17(3), 309–39. Parr, A. and Shanks, G. (2000) A taxonomy of ERP implementation approaches. In Proceedings of the 33rd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, Hawaii. Polanyi, M. (1962) Personal Knowledge: Towards a Post Critical Philosophy (Harper Torchbooks, New York). Polanyi, M. (1966) The Tacit Dimension (Anchor Day Books, New York). Powell, W., Koput, K. and Smith-Doerr, L. (1996) Interorganizational collaboration and the locus of innovation: networks of learning in biotechnology. Administrative Science Quarterly, 41(1), 116–45. Sachs, P. (1995) Transforming work: collaboration, learning and design. Communications of the ACM, 38(9), 36–45. Sieber, T., Siau, K., Nah, F. and Sieber, M. (2000) SAP implementation at the University of Nebraska: teaching case article. Journal of Information Technology Cases and Applications, 2(1), 41–66. Slater, D. (1998) A CIS and a prayer. CIO, 11(9), 24. Spender, J.C. and Kijine, H.J. (1996) Scienti c management: Frederic Winslow Taylor: gift to the world?, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Boston. Szulanski, G. (1996) Exploring internal stickiness: impediments to the transfer of best practice within the rm. Strategic Management Journal, 17 27–43. Uzzi, B. (1996) Sources and consequences of embeddedness for the economic performance of organizations. American Sociological Review, 61, 674–98. Zander, U. and Kogut, B. (1995) Knowledge and speed of the transfer and imitation of organizational capabilities: an empirical test. Organization Science, 6(1), 76–92. Address for correspondence: Zoonky Lee, College of Business, Administration, University of NebraskaLincoln, Lincoln, NE 68588 0491, USA Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.