The Relationship Between Organisational Culture and ERP Implementation CSFs

Abstract: Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems have become a fundamental part of business infrastructure. However, the high failure rate of ERP implementations points out that there are still many issues that need to be addressed. In an effort to minimize the risk associated to the ERP implementation process, a number of critical success factors (CSFs) have been introduced. However, CSFs are presented as independent from the context, under the false pretense that all ERP implementations are created equal. In this study, we challenged this approach by focusing on the relationship between organisational culture and CSFs associated to the ERP implementation process. We selected a set of highly representative CSFs, which we matched to Hofstede's cultural dimensions through the development of relationship propositions. We conducted an empirical study, contrasting our suggested relationship propositions to the empirical data gathered. We found evidence that organisational culture alters the relevance of several CSFs associated to the ERP implementation process. We believe our findings provide an advantage over a generic conception of CSFs, by improving the cultural fit of the implementation.