How Culture Might Impact on the Implementation of Enterprise Resource Planning Packages

ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) packages provide generic off-the-shelf business and software solutions to customers. However, these are implemented in companies with different corporate and national cultures, and there is growing evidence that failure to adapt ERP packages to fit these cultures leads to projects which are expensive and overdue. This paper describes research which synthesises social science theories of culture to be able to model and predict the impact of culture on ERP package implementation. It describes a knowledge meta-schema for modelling the surface and the deeper manifestations of culture, and for integrating these models with more common business concepts such as processes, events and information flows. It reports data from an analysis of a recent ERP implementation in a higher education institution to validate the knowledge meta-schema. It concludes with an outline of a method for ERP implementation to ensure a fit with the customer's corporate and national culture.