IT department's service climate, top management support and organizational impact of enterprise resource planning systems

Abstract

The implementation of enterprise resources planning (ERP) systems helps organizations achieve both transactional and transformational benefits, such as increased operation efficiency and higher performance enabled by business process innovation. However, the outcome of ERP implementation could be very dynamic, hindering the assimilation of ERP by organization system in the post-implementation period. Drawing from research on service climate and top management support and following the general framework of information technology (IT) assimilation, this thesis examined the roles of IT department and top management in influencing organizational impact of ERP. In particular, IT department's service climate and top management support are theorized to enhance the contribution of ERP system to overall business performance. The hypotheses are tested using survey data from 62 organizations that have already implemented ERP system in China. Results of Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) show that IT director's service leadership positively affects IT department service climate, which in turn positively affects organizational impact of ERP. Results also indicate that top management support not only directly influences IT department service climate and organizational impact of ERP, but also significantly moderates the relationship between IT director's service leadership and IT department's service climate. This thesis aims to contribute to information systems literature on ERP by highlighting the roles of IT department and top management support. It also contributes to organizational behavior literature by adapting the service climate theory to a new context the post-implementation phase of ERP systems inside organizations. Implications of the study for research and practice are discussed.