An Empirical Study Of Erp Implementation Critical Success Factors

The primary purpose of this study is to empirically identify and test the Critical Success Factors (CSFs) of ERP implementation in China. Based on extensive literature review, five CSFs are indentified and defined, namely: Top management support, Business Process Reengineering, Project Management, Change Management, and External Expertise Support. The other purpose of this study is to explore the moderated effects of some context factors on ERP implementation, such as Organizational Size, Ownership, Numbers of Modules implemented, and ERP Venders. An ERP success model based on DeLong & McLean's IS Success Model is proposed to be the guide of ERP success measurement.A survey instrument is developed to measure CSFs, ERP success and context factors. Data are collected from 97 firms that have implemented ERP systems in China. Some statistical methods such as multiple regression analyzs are used to analysis the data in order to test the hypotheses. The main conclusions and works of this paper are as follows:1. The conclusions for CSFs:(1) Change Menengement, BPR and Top management support are tested to be the CSFs for ERP implementation in enterprises in China. Change Mamagement has the most significant positive effect on ERP success. The Chinese organizational culture is discussed to be the reason of the outstanding effect of Change Management.(2) Consulting Support, one sub-factors of External Expertise Support, is tested not CSFs. Some possible reasons of this result from the both sides of consulting and ERP applying enterprises are discussed.(3) Project Management and Vender Support are not completely tested to be the CSFs due to the inter-correlation between independent variables. But these two factors still have positive effect on ERP success.(4) Reengineering the business process before ERP implementation is found to be the better way for ERP success than the way doing BPR during ERP implementation.2. The conclusions for context factors(1) The non-state-owned enterprises do better for some CSFs and have higher success rate than their state-owned peers. The CSFs have different significance for different ownership enterprises. While our CSFs model is found to be more appropriate for non-state-owned enterprises.(2) In our research framework, the organizational size has no effect on ERP implementation.(3) More modules implemented, the worse performance of Change management, Project management, Vender support, and therefor the ERP Success.(4) There are no significant differences on ERP success and Vender support between enterprises that have different type of ERP venders.3. ERP success modelBased on DeLone and McLean's (1992) IS Success model and Markus' (2000) "ERP optimal success" framework, an ERP success model is developed to define and measure ERP success.Finally, some managerial implications of our findings are proposed in order to improve the ERP implementation practice in China enterprises.