An Assessment of Organizational Capabilities for ERP Implementation in SMEs: A Governance Model for IT Success using a Resource-based Approach

Abstract

One of the most coveted technological innovations is the increasing use of Integrated Management Software (ERP) since the early 1990s. ERP is considered a powerful reengineering tool that profoundly transforms a company's business processes and changes the way to conduct reengineering projects and implement new software. The significant number of failures as reported in the literature on ERP emphasizes the fact that some companies may not realize the expected benefits. This result becomes particularly significant in the case of SMEs which have their own contingencies in addition to the scarcity of resources which may, in turn, lead to the failure of ERP implementation. This leads initially to ask, in one hand, about the variables of success of this innovation i.e. the determinants of the techno-organizational innovation; and on the other hand, about the existence of a model of dependences analysis between these determinants and their success as perceived by the management. The current empirical research is carried out in 92 companies having adopted a whole or a part of their IS with an ERP system. Having analyzed the data collected via a questionnaire, and applying the method of structural equation (MSE), results prove the existence of one general fit between the data and the supposed relations of causality.