Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Systems and the Manufacturing-Marketing Interface: An Information Processing Theory View

The manufacturing-marketing (MM) interface has received substantial consideration in the operations management literature; however, relatively little attention has been paid to the role of information systems in facilitating MM integration. As integrated cross-functional systems, enterprise resource planning systems (ERP) are well-suited to provide MM integration. Based on information processing theory, the central proposition of this paper is the greater the interdependence between manufacturing and marketing, the greater the benefit of ERP. Specifically, H1 states that the greater ERP-enabled coordination between manufacturing and marketing, the greater the benefit of ERP to the plant. H2 states that the degree to which ERP-enabled manufacturing-marketing coordination improvements are realized, depends on the amount of interdependence between manufacturing and marketing. Using multiple regression, the model is tested on survey data from 107 manufacturing plants running ERP. The data support H1 and H2. These findings support the general proposition that interdependence between functions is one factor that influences the degree to which organizations reap benefits from their ERP investments. Based on the ERP literature, the model controls for the amount of time that ERP has been running in the plant; This factor was found to be insignificant in the model. However, exploratory analysis finds that time is associated with other ERP benefits.