Extracting Value from Enterprise Resource Planning: A Closer Look at Integration

This thesis studies the process of extracting business value from Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) through integration. The main premise is that performance differences across firms investing in similar ERP systems can be attributed to differences in the way the technology (ERP) is integrated with the actual IT infrastructure and business processes of the firm. Drawing on the entrepreneurship and integration literature, this thesis focuses on the antecedents of integration and its impact on business process performance. To better understand this phenomenon, this thesis adopts a multi-method and multi-essay approach. The first essay looks at how different degrees of integration are achieved by looking at the effect of managers' alertness and search activity on integration. It also demonstrates the influence of perceived gap as a trigger of search. The second essay develops and proposes a measure of integration in an ERP context at the module level. Finally, the last essay applies the notion of integration to better understand its effect on business process performance by looking at its antecedents and how different degrees of integration influence the performance of the business processes. All essays are empirical; case studies for the first one and survey for the last two essays. These essays can be seen as components of an integrative investigation of the issue of ERP value creation through integration, which is likely to help us understand how and under which circumstances ERP systems can produce value for the firms implementing them.