| Most California Community Colleges have chosen to purchase and implement a Management Information Systems software solution also known as an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system in order to monitor, control, and automate their administrative tasks. ERP implementations are complex, expensive, high profile, and therefore high risk. To reduce the exposure to a failed implementation, administrators and managers should consider identifying and mitigating risk factors and threats that could prevent the project from being successful. This research study solicited information from academic and administrative leaders of California Community Colleges to assess and rank a list of risk factors based on their field experience in selecting, implementing, and using ERP systems. Analysis of the data generated by this study is intended to advance the knowledge and understanding of how successful ERP implementations can be facilitated and poor implementations avoided by identifying, reducing, or eliminating risk factors and threats to the installation and implementation of ERP systems. In addition to producing a ranked list of risk factors, this study also revealed that there were no statistically significant differences between two types of administrators, (a) executive managers, which included chancellors, superintendents/presidents, college presidents, vice chancellors and vice-presidents, and (b) line administrators, comprised of deans and directors, on the assessment and ranking of risk factors and perceived level of success of ERP projects based on their personal experiences. |
