One organisation, three outcomes: Exploring the influence of power relations and IT context on multi-site ERP implementation in China

Since 2000, enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems have been widely adopted by large, state-owned companies in China. While there is a rich body of literature on ERP implementation in western companies, studies of Chinese companies are scarce. A recent exception is a study of seventy seven mostly manufacturing companies in China by Liang et al. (2007). They found that high coercive institutional pressures positively affect top management participation, which, in turn, positively affect ERP diffusion and the degree of its usage across the organisation. However, how the institutional pressures are exercised and what are the roles of top management in ERP implementation in complex Chinese companies remained open questions, worthy of further examination. The lack of understanding of specific conditions and especially dynamics of power relations in ERP implementation motivated our in-depth case study of a multi-site ERP system implementation in a large Chinese manufacturing company. The data collected from three divisions/subsidiaries shows that their implementation of ERP system turned out to have different outcomes. The key issues that emerged from the data indicate that the dynamics of power relations between the parent company and divisions/subsidiaries, and IT context have had a significant influence on the ERP implementation and different outcomes in divisions/subsidiaries.