Organizational Culture, Supply Chain Management Practices and Organization’s Decision upon Erp Systems

In recent years, more and more Chinese organizations have tried to adopt enterprise resources planning (ERP) systems to improve their supply chain management (SCM) practices and efficiencies and subsequently to increase their competiveness in the marketplace. However, compared with their Western counterparts, the failure rate of ERP implementation for the Chinese organizations is much higher. Many of them find it very difficult to select an ERP system that fits their management practices. We believe that cultural differences could be the important reason contributing to the phenomenon that existing Western-based ERP systems cannot be directly adopted in Chinese companies. In this study, we propose a theoretical model that stipulates how organizational culture affects ERP decisions through influencing supply chain management practices. The object of this study is not only to provide insights for Western ERP vendors to modify/localize their existing systems to better fit local Chinese practices; but also to provide guidance for Chinese companies to select ERP systems or to develop their own systems. Empirical data will be collected to validate the proposed model. In order to develop measurement constructs for the survey instrument, company visits and interviews are conducted. In this paper, we shall reveal the initial findings from the interviews and discuss the steps forward.