Cultural Aspects in the Adoption of ERP Systems: A Holistic View

Abstract

Over the past years, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems have become an essential business driver with its main features such as modularity, real-time data accessibility and sharing an integrated database on the way to Industry 4.0 Many companies have utilized the advantages of integrated solutions of ERP systems offered by multinational corporations. Nowadays, ERP systems have been widely adopted in specially developed countries as well as developing countries. In developing countries, companies usually use national ERP systems instead of foreign-based ERP systems. However, ERP vendors, consultants have offered different global ERP templates containing their multi-language and high qualified customization options, but also have some cultural adoption problems which may exist during the implementation of ERP systems. Thus, ERP systems face many challenges in, especially developing countries including cultural issues. This study focuses on cultural issues in ERP adoption which might be different across cultural contexts. It is aimed to assess the impact of cultural aspects in the implementation of ERP systems via holistic view by using Hofstede’s cultural dimensions (power distance, individualist/collectivist, uncertainty avoidance, etc.). Studying such aspects may provide guidelines for the success of ERP system adoption in a global perspective.