Interactions between contingency, organizational IT factors, and ERP success

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of some organizational information technology (IT) factors (i.e. IT assets, employees’ IT skills, IT resources, and satisfaction with legacy IT systems) and their interacting effects with two contingency factors (i.e. organization’s size and structure) on enterprise resource planning (ERP) system success. Design/methodology/approach – Surveys were conducted in two European countries. Respondents came from diverse, private, and industrial organizations. Relevant hypotheses were developed and tested using a structural equation modeling technique. Findings – The analysis supported – partially or fully – six of the eight hypotheses formulated. For example, the data indicated strong positive relationships between IT assets and IT resources, on the one hand, and ERP success, on the other. Organization’s size and structure were also found to be moderators in some of the relationships. Also, the analysis revealed that satisfaction with legacy IT systems increased with ERP success, which was an unexpected finding. Originality/value – This study contributes to the literature, being among the few to investigate the effects of organizational IT factors and their interacting effects with relevant contingency factors in the context of ERP system success. Methodologically, the study utilized a “non-deterministic” model to facilitate deeper insights into the effects of variables.