Tài liệu Phát triển mô hình sử dụng thành công hệ thống hoạch định nguồn lực doanh nghiệp cho các chuyên gia kế toán

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY ----- Phan, Thi Bao Quyen A DEVELOPMENT OF ENTERPRISE RESOURCE PLANNING SUCCESS MODEL FOR ACCOUNTING PROFESSIONALS A DOCTORAL THESIS Ho Chi Minh City, 2020 MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY ----- Phan, Thi Bao Quyen A DEVELOPMENT OF ENTERPRISE RESOURCE PLANNING SUCCESS MODEL FOR ACCOUNTING PROFESSIONALS Major: Accounting Code: 9340301 A DOCTORAL THESIS Supervisors: 1. Associate Professor, Dr. Vo, Van Nhi 2. Dr. Nguyen, Thi Kim Cuc Ho Chi Minh City, 2020 i STATEMENT OF AUTHENTICATION I certify that any content in this thesis has not previously been submitted for a degree at this or any other institution. I also certify that the dissertation is prepared by me. Any help that I have received in my research work has been acknowledged. In addition, I certify that all sources and literature used are adequately indicated in the reference. Phan Thi Bao Quyen ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The effort to complete this thesis would not have been possible without the contribution of a number of persons and organizations. First and foremost, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my two supervisors, Associate Professor, Dr. Vo Van Nhi and Dr. Nguyen Thi Kim Cuc for their support and guidance. Especially Associate Professor, Dr. Vo Van Nhi, my principal supervisor, his encouragement keeps me going even through the most difficult moments of this study. I would like to offer my gratitude to University of Economics Ho Chi Minh City, and acknowledge the supports I have received from the School of Accounting at University of Economics Ho Chi Minh City. I would like to thank Associate Professor, Dr. Nguyen Xuan Hung and Dao Tat Thang for facilitating me completing the PhD thesis on time. I would like to thank my colleagues in Accounting Information System Division for their encouragement during my PhD journey. I would like to give a special thank to Dr. Nguyen Phuoc Bao An for providing me constructive feedback and making me trust myself that I am capable to finish this stressful research project. I also would like to thank Dr. Nguyen Bich Lien for her comments on system-use concept of the ERP success model for accounting professionals, which is a motivation for discovering a more appropriate system-use concept in the ERP ongoing context. In my daily work, I would like to thank Dr. Luong Duc Thuan, Dr. Pham Tra Lam, Nguyen Quoc Trung and Nguyen Huu Binh for supporting me to perform lecturing-tasks in order to facilitate my researching. I am so grateful to Dr. Nguyen Thi Thu for her enthusiasm for my research-method-relatedqueries. I would like to acknowledge the advices and the comments on how to effectively adopt the Smart-PLS software to analyze the collected data from Dr. Nguyen Phong Nguyen. I really appreciate his experience of such a useful tool. I would like to thank the help of Dr. Trinh Hiep Thien for his assistance in distinguishing between reflective and formative constructs. I also would like to thank Nguyen Thao Nguyen for her counseling on confirmation factor analysis. iii My thanks also go to academics from UEH and informants from participant organizations that have assisted me to complete the pre-testing, pilot testing and main survey, whose names cannot be disclosed owning to confidentiality agreements. I would like to thank my brothers and sisters, as well as my friends, in particular, Phan Quoc Hieu, Dr. Pham Thanh Ha, Phan Quoc Lan, and Nguyen Thi Thu Nguyet. Their help, support, and friendship keep me balance every up and down moment and make the completion of this thesis more interesting and enjoyable instead of pressure only or sometimes boringness. I give special thanks to my parents, especially my wonderful mom, who have always stayed by me, encouraged me to pursue my academic career, as well as assisting me to take care my children. Without their support and sacrifice, this work would have been stalled. For this reason, this thesis is dedicated to both of you. Last but not least, I would like to thank my husband and my little daughters. Your love, support and continual understanding have made this adventure possible. Therefore, this thesis is also dedicated to all of you. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS STATEMENT OF AUTHENTICATION I ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS II TABLE OF CONTENTS IV ABBREVIATIONS VIII LIST OF TABLES IX LIST OF FIGURES XI ABSTRACT XII CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1 1.1 Chapter introduction 1.2 Background of research 1.3 Motivations for research 1.3.1 Motivation 1 - ERP research 1.3.2 Motivation 2 – Behavioral Accounting Research (BAR) 1.3.3 Combination of ERP research and Behavioral Accounting research (BAR) 1.4 Research objective 1.5 Research questions 1.6 Justification 1.7 Methodology 1.8 Research scope 1.9 Thesis structure 1.10 Chapter summary 1 1 2 2 5 9 11 12 14 15 15 16 18 CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW 19 2.1 Chapter introduction 2.2 Enterprise Resource Planning 2.2.1 Defining ERP 2.2.2 Evolution of ERP 2.2.3 Advantages and disadvantages of ERP 2.2.4 The ERP lifecycle 2.3 ERP Success Models 2.3.1 Challenges of measuring ERP success 2.3.2 A summary of ERP Success Models from 1990 up to present 2.3.3 Issues with the existing ERP success studies 2.3.4 Differences between the current study and the eleven previous ESMs 2.3.5 Review of ERP success studies in Vietnam 2.4 Review of ‘rich construct(s)’ enabling to overcome unanswered validity-setting-related issues 2.5 Chapter summary 19 20 20 22 23 25 25 25 27 43 46 47 45 47 CHAPTER 3 CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK, CONSTRUCT CONCEPTUALIZATION AND HYPOTHESES 49 3.1 Chapter introduction 49 v 3.2 Theories used in the ESMAP 3.2.1 D&M IS success model (DeLone & McLean, 1992) 3.2.2 IS-continuance theory (Bhattacherjee, 2001) 3.2.3 Principle “fitness for use” (J. M. Juran, 1988) 3.2.4 How to combine three theories to form the ESMAP 3.3 Conceptual ESMAP, construct conceptualization and hypotheses 3.3.1 Conceptual ESMAP 3.3.2 Relationships among constructs of organizational-level impacts 3.3.3 Perceived qualities and benefits; and organizational-level impacts 3.4 Chapter summary 49 49 50 52 54 54 54 55 61 62 CHAPTER 4 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 63 4.1 Chapter introduction 4.2 Research approach 4.2.1 The nature of the phenomenon being studied 4.2.2 Research approach selection 4.3 Philosophical worldview 4.4 Research design 4.4.1 Selecting the type of research method 4.4.2 Time horizons 4.5 Research method 4.5.1 Instrument design 4.5.2 Sample design 4.5.3 Data collection 4.6 Ethical considerations 4.7 Chapter summary 63 64 64 65 65 65 65 66 66 67 75 80 81 82 CHAPTER 5 DATA ANALYSIS 83 5.1 Chapter introduction 5.2 Step 1: Data preparation 5.2.1 Data screening and cleaning 5.2.2 Straight lining check 5.2.3 Testing for outliers 5.2.4 Bias Tests 5.2.5 Section summary 5.3 Step 2: Instrument preparation 5.3.1 Instrument reliability assessment 5.3.2 Instrument validity assessment 5.4 Step 3: Testing the ESMAP 5.4.1 Analysis technique selection 5.4.2 Measurement model assessment 5.4.3 Structural model assessment 5.5 Chapter summary 83 84 86 86 86 87 88 88 89 89 97 97 99 104 122 CHAPTER 6 DISCUSSION OF FINDINGS 124 6.1 Chapter introduction 6.2 Descriptive findings 6.3 An overview of the relationship between accountant performance and organizational performance 6.3.1 Discussion on organizations’ perceptions of organizational performance 124 124 128 128 vi 6.3.2 Discussion on organizations’ perceptions of accountant performance 6.3.3 Discussion on direct impact of accountant performance on organizational performance 6.4 Use and its outcomes 6.4.1 Discussion on organizations’ perceptions of use 6.4.2 Discussion on appropriateness of effective use in the ERP context 6.4.3 Discussion on direct impact of effective use on accountant performance 6.4.4 Additional discussion on indirect impact of effective use on organizational performance 6.5 Satisfaction and its outcomes 6.5.1 Discussion on organizations’ perceptions of satisfaction 6.5.2 Discussion on direct impact of satisfaction on accountant performance 6.5.3 Additional discussion on direct and indirect impact of satisfaction on organizational performance 6.6 System quality and its direct impacts on use and satisfaction 6.6.1 Discussion on organizations’ perceptions of system quality 6.6.2 Discussion on direct impact of system quality on use 6.6.3 Discussion on direct impact of system quality on satisfaction 6.7 Information quality and its direct impacts on use and satisfaction 6.7.1 Discussion on organizations’ perceptions of information quality 6.7.2 Discussion on direct impact of information quality on use 6.7.3 Discussion on direct impact of information quality on satisfaction 6.7.4 Discussion on the role of information quality in D&M IS success model (1992) 6.7.5 Discussion on the role of information quality in the ESMAP 6.8 Perceived accounting benefit and its outcomes 6.8.1 Discussion on organizations’ perceptions of perceived accounting benefit 6.8.2 Discussion on operationalization of perceived accounting benefit 6.8.3 Discussion on direct impact of perceived accounting benefit on use 6.8.4 Discussion on direct impact of perceived accounting benefit on satisfaction 6.8.5 Additional discussion on direct and indirect impacts of perceived accounting benefit on accountant performance and organizational performance 6.9 Other advanced discussions on the ESMAP 6.9.1 Differences of the ESMAP by the length of ERP system 6.9.2 Differences of the ESMAP by organizational size 6.9.3 Differences of the ESMAP by ERP vendors 6.10 Chapter summary 130 131 131 131 132 133 133 134 134 135 CHAPTER 7 CONCLUSION 149 7.1 Chapter introduction 7.2 Research questions revisited 7.2.1 How is the ERP success model for accounting professionals formed in order to improve accountant performance, which in turn enhances organizational performance? 7.2.2 How is the ERP success model for accounting professionals (ESMAP) validated? 7.3 Contributions of the study 7.3.1 Theoretical contributions 7.3.2 Practical contributions 7.4 Limitations of the study and area for further research 7.5 Delineations and further research 7.6 Final concluding remarks 149 149 LIST OF PAPERS 159 REFERENCE 160 135 136 136 137 137 138 138 138 139 139 139 140 140 141 143 144 144 146 146 147 147 148 150 150 151 151 155 155 156 157 vii APPENDICES 183 Appendix 2.1 Eleven previous ERP success models 183 Appendix 4.1 Advantages of using survey method in the current study 190 Appendix 4.2 Identifying formative and reflective constructs 191 Appendix 4.3 Evidence in relation to the expert panel’s feedback on the preliminary questionnaire 193 Appendix 4.4 The original Part A of the preliminary questionnaire 195 Appendix 4.5 A summary of changes in Part B of the preliminary questionnaire after analyzing feedbacks from the expert panel 195 Appendix 4.6 The questionnaire after pre-testing 196 Appendix 4.7 Questionnaire translation process in the current study 200 Appendix 4.8 List of interviewees and demographic information 201 Appendix 4.9 Pilot study responses from three target informants 202 Appendix 4.10 The Vietnamese questionnaire after pilot testing 203 Appendix 4.11 Bias issues consideration and how to minimize them 207 Appendix 4.12 Sample size Calculator v2.0 for Cronbach’s Alpha Test 210 Appendix 4.13 The result of calculating the minimize sample size by G*Power software 211 Appendix 4.14 Sample size recommendation in PLS-SEM for a Statistical Power 80% (Hair Jr et al., 2014) 211 Appendix 4.15 A covering letter 212 Appendix 5.1 Summary of Deleted Cases 213 Appendix 5.2 Result of Outlier Testing 214 Appendix 5.3 Independent Sample T-test for Non-response Bias 219 Appendix 5.4 Total Variance Explained for Common Method Bias Test 224 Appendix 5.5 Development of the final sample 226 Appendix 5.6 Instrument reliability assessment 227 Appendix 5.7 Sample characteristics consideration 229 Appendix 5.8 Process of interpreting the factors 234 Appendix 5.9 EFA Test Results - Scales without modifications 235 Appendix 5.10 Summary after Factor Analysis 236 Appendix 5.11.1 Results of fit consideration of higher-factor instruments – PAB 237 Appendix 5.11.2 Results of fit consideration of higher-factor instruments - USE 238 Appendix 5.12 Cross-factor loadings 239 Appendix 5.13 Internal consistency and convergent validity results of the first order factor “PAB_operational” after eliminating indicator PAB18 240 Appendix 5.14 Decision-making process for keeping or deleting formative indicators basing on outer weight and outer loading Hair Jr et al. (2014) 241 Appendix 5.15 Results of alternative models analysis 242 Appendix 6.1 Demographic characteristics of surveyed companies 245 Appendix 6.2 Demography characteristics of ERP system 246 Appendix 6.3 Demographic characteristics of informants 247 Appendix 6.4 Comparing sample means 248 Appendix 6.5 Testing the D&M IS Success model (1992) without PAB 251 Appendix 7.1 Practical implications for ERP adoption organizatons’ stakeholders 252 viii ABBREVIATIONS AP AVE B2B B2C BAR CB-SEM CFA CFM CFOs CR CSF/ CSFs D&M EFA ERP ES ESM/ ESMs ESMAP Ex_U Extended _U FMCG HTMT IQ IS IT KMO MRP OP PAB PCA PLS-MGA PLS-SEM SAT SQ UEH VAF VIF Accountant Performance Average Variance Extracted Business To Business Business To Customer Behavioral Accounting Research Covariance-Based Structural Equation Modeling Confirmatory Factor Analysis Common Factor Model Chief Finance Officer(s) Composite Reliability Critical Success Factor(s) Delone And Mclean Exploratory Factor Analysis Enterprise Resource Planning Enterprise Systems ERP Success Model(s) ERP Success Model For Accounting Professionals Extent Of Use Extended Use Fast Moving Consumer Goods Heterotrait-Monotrait Ratio Information Qualilty Information System Information Technology Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin Test Manufacturing Resource Planning Ogrnizational Performance Perceived Accounting Benefit Principal Component Analysis Partial Least Squares – Multi-group Analysis Partial Least Squares - Structural Equation Modeling Satisfaction System Quality University Of Economics Ho Chi Minh City Variance Accounted For Variance Inflation Factor ix LIST OF TABLES Table 1.1: Rankings of the most mentioned ERP-related topics (Huang & Yasuda, 2016) ...................................... 3 Table 2.1: Evolution of ERP ..................................................................................................................................... 22 Table 2.2: Advantages of ERP (Mohammad A. Rashid et al., 2002) ....................................................................... 24 Table 2.3: Disadvantages of ERP (Mohammad A. Rashid et al., 2002) .................................................................. 24 Table 2.4: ERP lifecycle models .............................................................................................................................. 25 Table 2.5: Summary of ERP success models from 1990 to present ....................................................................... 31 Table 2.6: A summary of studies involving measuring ERP success in Vietnam .................................................... 43 Table 2.7: Summary of definitions and how to develop the conceptualization of PAB in ERP context ................ 46 Table 2.8: Advantages of the ESMAP ..................................................................................................................... 48 Table 3.1: Differences among the training, adoption and ongoing use contexts (adapted from Deng et al. (2004)) ........................................................................................................................................................... 56 Table 4.1: Conceptualization of the constructs ...................................................................................................... 67 Table 4.2: Indicators of System Quality .................................................................................................................. 68 Table 4.3: Indicators of Information Quality .......................................................................................................... 68 Table 4.4: Indicators of Perceived Accounting Benefit .......................................................................................... 69 Table 4.5: Indicators of Use .................................................................................................................................... 69 Table 4.6: Indicators of Satisfaction ....................................................................................................................... 70 Table 4.7: Indicators of Accountant Performance ................................................................................................. 71 Table 4.8: Indicators of Organizational Performance ............................................................................................ 71 Table 4.9: The minimize sample size of the current study ..................................................................................... 79 Table 5.1: Summary of The Factor Analysis Appropriateness Criteria ................................................................... 91 Table 5.2: EFA Test Results - Refined scales ........................................................................................................... 92 Table 5.3: New conceptualization and operationalization of new factors extracted from EFA ............................ 94 Table 5.6: Internal consistency, indicator reliability and convergent validity analyses of the first-order measurement model................................................................................................................................... 100 Table 5.7: Discriminant validity (Fornell and Lacker criterion)............................................................................. 102 Table 5.8: Discriminant validity (HTMT) ............................................................................................................... 102 Table 5.9: Internal consistency, and convergent validity of the second-order measurement model ................. 103 Table 5.10: Validity of formative second-order constructs .................................................................................. 104 Table 5.11: Collinearity assessment of the ESMAP .............................................................................................. 105 Table 5.12: Direct relationships for hypothesis testing ........................................................................................ 108 Table 5.13: Summary of results in terms of path coefficients, f 2 and q2 value .................................................... 110 Table 5.14: Results of total and specific indirect effects ...................................................................................... 111 Table 5.15: Direct effects including mediators in the ESMAP .............................................................................. 112 x Table 5.16: VAF values of each mediator model .................................................................................................. 113 Table 5.17: Results of specific indirect effects ..................................................................................................... 114 Table 5.18: Results of PLS-MGA for ERP implementation and post-implementation organizations .................. 115 Table 5.19: Results of PLS-MGA for large-sized and small-and-medium-sized organizations ............................. 116 Table 5.20: Results of PLS-MGA for popular and non-popular-ERP-packages-adopted organizations ............... 116 Table 5.21: Results comparison among models ................................................................................................... 117 Table 5.22: Results of the adjusted R2 value between the ESMAP and the parsimonious model ...................... 119 Table 5.23: Impacts of omitting information quality to use ................................................................................ 120 Table 5.24: Impacts of omitting information quality to satisfaction ................................................................... 121 Table 5.25: A summary of significant total effects among constructs and significant difference of several paths in the ESMAP............................................................................................................................................... 122 Table 6.1: Comparison of Variance Explained among three models ................................................................... 132 Table 6.2: Summary of PAB's operationalization ................................................................................................. 142 Table 6.3: Summary of the current PAB construct's advantages (in comparison with the original PAB of Kanellou and Spathis (2013)) ..................................................................................................................................... 143 xi LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1.1: Different management software types adopted in organizations in Vietnam ...................................... 2 Figure 1.2: The number of publications on "ERP" in Google Scholar by year .......................................................... 3 Figure 1.3: Accounting value chain (Hunton, 2002) ................................................................................................ 7 Figure 1.4: Research question hierarchy ................................................................................................................ 13 Figure 1.5: A systematic procedure for designing the ESMAP ............................................................................... 18 Figure 2.1: A literature map identifying uniqueness and worth of the research topic .......................................... 20 Figure 2.2: Stand-alone applications' architecture (Loh & Koh, 2004) .................................................................. 21 Figure 2.3: ERP-integrated architecture (Loh & Koh, 2004) ................................................................................... 21 Figure 2.4: ERP applications market shares split by top 10 ERP vendors and others in 2016 ............................... 23 Figure 2.5: Categories of IS success (DeLone & McLean, 1992) ............................................................................. 45 Figure 3.1: D&M IS Success Model (DeLone and McLean, 1992) ........................................................................... 50 Figure 3.2: IS-continuance theory (Bhattacherjee, 2001) ...................................................................................... 51 Figure 3.3: The research model (the ESMAP) ......................................................................................................... 54 Figure 4.1: A research framework of John W. Creswell (2013) .............................................................................. 63 Figure 4.2: Location of VN (green) in ASEAN (dark grey) (Referenced from wiki website) ................................... 76 Figure 4.3: Different management software types adopted in organizations in Vietnam .................................... 80 Figure 5.1: Data analysis process of the study ....................................................................................................... 84 Figure 5.2: Data preparation process of the study ................................................................................................. 85 Figure 5.3: Instrument Preparation Process of the study ...................................................................................... 96 Figure 5.4: Process of testing the ESMAP ............................................................................................................... 98 Figure 5.5: Hypotheses Testing _ Bootstrapping Direct Effect Results ................................................................ 107 Figure 6.1: Effects of the length of ERP adoption ................................................................................................ 126 Figure 6.2: Effects of the organizational size ........................................................................................................ 127 Figure 6.3: Organizations' perceptions of the ESMAP's constructs by the adopted ERP package ...................... 128 Figure 6.4: Descriptive findings of organizational performance .......................................................................... 129 Figure 6.5: Impacts of ERP lifecycle phases on firms' organization performance (Ross & Vitale, 2000) ............. 129 Figure 6.6: Descriptive findings of accountant performance ............................................................................... 130 Figure 6.7: Descriptive findings of use ................................................................................................................. 131 Figure 6.8: Descriptive findings of satisfaction..................................................................................................... 134 Figure 6.9: Descriptive findings of system quality ................................................................................................ 136 Figure 6.10: Descriptive findings of information system ..................................................................................... 138 Figure 6.11: Descriptive findings of perceived accounting benefit ...................................................................... 141 xii ABSTRACT Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system is commercial software that automates and integrates many or most of a firm’s business processes. It allows to access to integrated data cross the entire enterprise according to real-time (Davenport, 1998). Therefore, ERP system is expected to increase productivity via processes standardization, to improve decision-making ability via information integration throughout the whole enterprise, to enhance cooperation between organizational entities by connecting them smoothly, and the most important, to maintain competitive advantage once these benefits are satisfied (Davenport, 1998). These promises are possibly a close explanation of its increasing popularity. Namely, Fortune 500 companies are trusting ERP system1 and it is also a solution that large-sized organizations in Vietnam select and adopt more growingly2. Nevertheless, instead of achieving impressive benefits from their ERP systems, some firms have faced difficulties in gaining the benefits they expected. Therefore, as suggested by Markus and Tanis (2000), for both researcher and executives, one of the initial interestedquestions is whether investments in ERP will pay off. Several organizational-level econometric studies conducted (M. C. Anderson, Banker, & Ravindran, 2003; Hitt, Wu, & Zhou, 2002) give an answer that it is likely yes – on average. However, the impacts vary from enterprise to enterprise, even from module to module (Nicolaou, 2004a) in which accountingrelated modules are in charge of changed-focuses. Kanellou and Spathis (2013) perform the relevant literature and conclude that ERP implementation has a considerable impact on accounting department of the business organizations. Hence, the executives’ next questions are probably to be, how can I maximize the positive impacts on accounting department? Is there some way to predict what the ultimate impacts of ERP systems on accounting professionals will be in order to achieve a goal of enhancing organizational performance? These questions are worth addressing. In attempting to do so, the author draws on D&M IS success model (DeLone & McLean, 1992), IS-continuance theory (Bhattacherjee, 2001) and the principle “fitness for use” (J. M. Juran, 1988) to develop the ERP success model for accounting professionals in order to make them more productive, which in turn improves performance of implemented organizations. The theoretical and empirical results indicate that organizational performance is, indeed, influenced by the extent to which accounting experts effectively utilize ERP systems in the adoption and ongoing context. 1 2 This information is quoted from website http://fortune.com/2017/09/13/amazon-microsoft-google-sap-cloud/ This information is quoted from Vietnamese E-commerce Indicator Report in 2018. xiii This study makes an original contribution to both of theory and practice through forming and validating the ERP success model for accounting professionals only. In a little more detail, it provides empirical evidence regarding Hunton’s accounting value chain (2002). In addition, it discovers and proves effective use as the most appropriate system-use concept so far. Moreover, it makes an effort to investigate outcomes of accounting benefits perceived from ERP system, which related-studies are much further under-researched. Last but not least, the research provides valuable implications for organization management on how they can successfully manage accounting department as well as accounting professionals in an attempt to maximize ERP’s impacts on organizational performance, which executives have paid much attention to for recent years but have not yet found out the answer so far. Key words: ERP success model, accounting professionals, perceived accounting benefits, system use, the principle "fitness for use" 1 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 Chapter introduction The purposes of this chapter are to describe a broad overview of the research, generally present methodology, and introduce forthcoming chapters. This chapter begins with research background, and moves on a discussion on two main motivations for research, which focus on explanation what research topic is and why to choose it. Identifying research topic is very important as it allows limiting the scope of reviewing a literature. The research objective and research questions are then addressed in the third and forth part of this chapter. Next, section five of this chapter represents research justification to make clarify the significance of the study. Subsequently, research methodology is outlined to enable to image how to conduct the whole dissertation, and followed by research scope. Finally, the thesis structure will be proposed, providing description of the six forthcoming chapters of this thesis. 1.2 Background of research Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system is one of the most popular forms of IT for businesses at present. Deriving from efforts to rationalize lead times and possession stock costs, the 80’s manufacturing resource planning (MRP II) is developed into ERP system considered as the standard that integrates business processes throughout the organization, which in turn enhances operational efficiency (Akkermans, Bogerd, Yücesan, & Van Wassenhove, 2003; Davenport, 1998). Callaway (1999) states that the ERP system promises to achieve benefits in both tangible (e.g., reduced personnel, inventory, IT and procurement, transportation, and logistic costs; improved cash flow management, revenue and profits) and intangible (e.g., increased visibility of corporate data, speed of decision making, and control over global business operations; improved customer responsiveness and business processes) manner. Such those benefits push business organizations towards adopting the ERP systems (Davenport, 1998; Ifinedo, Udo, & Ifinedo, 2010; Vincent A. Mabert, Soni, & Venkataramanan, 2003). This has been proved by tremendous expansion of the worldwide ERP applications market for the last ten years. Its revenue, about $38 billion in 2008 (Ifinedo, Rapp, Ifinedo, & Sundberg, 2010), has grown more than twice to approach nearly $82.2 2 billion in 2016. This ERP applications market is expected to continuously increase and reach $84.7 billion by 20213. Being consistent with the trend, in Vietnam, E-Commerce Indicator Report in 2017 also indicates that the number of organizations adopting ERP system has been more increased in 2016. Human resource management Accounting/ Financial software SCM CRM ERP Figure 1.1: Different management software types adopted in organizations in Vietnam (Source: Vietnamese E-commerce Indicator Report in 2017) As such, this study is conducted in the context, which the ERP system has already been one of the most popular business-management-applications in organizations all over the world and begins to be increasingly adopted in Vietnam. 1.3 Motivations for research 1.3.1 Motivation 1 - ERP research With respect to a boom in ERP-adopted business organizations, research in the ERP has also increased over the past years. To acquire how the growth of publications about ERP is, the Google Scholar database is scanned for the term “Enterprise Resource Planning” in the period 1990-2016. The results of this searching are summarized in following bibliometric4 graph (see Figure 1.2). This graph reveals the growing interest in ERP over the past 26 years. Accordingly, ERP (although a little decrease) is still a prominent field in the research community, with about 6000 search results on average in the 2009-2016 period (Google 2017). 3 These figures are quoted from the Allert Pang’s report (December 1st 2017) that is posed on website Apps Run The World. Retrieved September 18th 2018 from https://www.appsruntheworld.com/top-10-erp-softwarevendors-and-market-forecast/ 4 Bibliometrics is statistical analysis of bibliographic data; commonly focusing on citation analysis of research output and publications, i.e. how many times research outputs and publications are being cited (Leeds University Library 2017) 3 Figure 1.2: The number of publications on "ERP" in Google Scholar by year (Source: by author) Huang and Yasuda (2016) conduct a comprehensive review of literature survey articles on the ERP to highlight the current research status of this field. As a result, they summarize the most mentioned ERP-related topics as follows: Table 1.1: Rankings of the most mentioned ERP-related topics (Huang & Yasuda, 2016) No. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 The most mentioned ERP-related topics New emerging ERP technologies Critical success/ failure factors Business process reengineering Real benefits System/ organization performance evaluation User satisfaction ERP selection criteria ERP impacts Change management Implementation strategy Among ten topics above, ERP critical success factors (CSFs) has been the most prolific area in early ERP research (Grabski, Leech, & Schmidt, 2011). The reason of this may be that ERP is very expensive, complex system, impacts the entire organization, and if it fails, it seems likely to contribute to the failure of the firm itself (J. Scott, 1999). Moreover, many adopting enterprises realize that the deployment of such systems is not as effective as expected (E. T. G. Wang, Shih, Jiang, & Klein, 2008). Critical success factors (CSF) have thus constituted few things that must go well to ensure success of an organization (Boynton & Zmud, 1984). CSF is investigated to identify essential areas of concern and provides measures that would aid in managing those areas (Boynton & Zmud, 1984). The CSF researches have typically addressed several different issues. In most cases, typical CSF studies have consistently identified a set of core factors critical to the success of ERP implementations including top management support, the implementation team, organization-wide commitment to the system, 4 and fit between the ERP systems and the firm (Finney & Corbett, 2007; Hong & Kim, 2002; Murray & Coffin, 2001; Ross & Vitale, 2000; J. E. Scott & Vessey, 2000; Somers & Nelson, 2001; Somers & Nelson, 2003; Stefanou, 2000). In other cases, some papers have found that firm size is also an important factor related to ERP implementation success (Bernroider & Koch, 2001; Buonanno et al., 2005; Vincent A. Mabert et al., 2003; Muscatello, 2003; Snider, da Silveira, & Balakrishnan, 2009). Alternatively, rather than focusing on identifying the factors critical for success in implementing ERP system, the few researchers are interested in building ERP success models as untypical CSF studies. For instance, H.-Y. Lin, Hsu, and Ting (2006) develop an ERP success model upon the DeLone and McLean’s (1992, 2003) information system success model. Lin et al.’s (2006) model relates the individual impact to balanced scorecard measures (i.e., financial effectiveness, customer effectiveness, internal business effectiveness, and innovation and learning effectiveness). They demonstrate that the success of any ERP system may be predicted by integration of the information system success model and balance scorecard constructs. Specifically, they suggest that the adoption of balance scorecard criteria will allow firms to more easily assess impacts of the ERP system is either positive or negative as well as to more effectively manage the ERP system implementation. ERP CSFs research is crucial; however, quite mature for a certain period of time; therefore, a question is whether there still have the interesting research opportunities for ERP researchers. Drawing on recent relevant literature, Mukti and Rawani (2016) as well as Grabski et al. (2011) assert that there exists a paucity of ERP success model research. Thus, this study is expected to increase insight regarding such an area. Another reason of choosing ERP success model to study in place of investigating single critical success factors is due to its advantages5. First, the ERP system causes complex and challenging tasks, and there are many integrated factors influencing the level of success, therefore identifying primary factors running organizational performance under a whole model is more appropriate. Second, the model forces researchers to be explicit about the way the problem is perceived. Thus, there is less room for sloppy or confused thinking when modeling. The act of systematically considering the impact of one variable on another forces researchers to make their logic more consistent when thinking about a problem. Third, model is effective and efficient way of organizing researchers’ knowledge about a problem of interest. Hypotheses investigated in model will expand their knowledge about the phenomena. Finally, model provides a safe and 5 The last three reasons are quoted by J. W. Jones, Steffy, and Bray (1991).