Empirical Exploration And Verification Of Factors In The Front-end Stage Of ERP Implementation Process

The application of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) is the crucial issue of information systems of Chinese enterprises. This paper explores how the factors associated with the front-end stage of implementation process of ERP (FEIP) affect the final outcome. Based on literature review of ERP/IS implementation process, critical success factors and organizational context, the definition of FEIP is given, and a preliminary framework with six factors and twenty-two sub-factors are developed, and then twelve hypotheses are proposed.Furthermore, this research conducts a three-stage research: 1) Grounded Theory was applied to a single case study to verify the existence of the factors and sub-factors; 2) multiple-case study with 7 steps (open-ended and focused interviews) was designed and subsequent questionnaire were employed, 6 cases were chosen from the 17 samples database; comparison and analysis of intra- and inter-case and inter-factor were carried after the reliability and validity testing. 3) the significance and correlation of all factors are deducted by using SPSS as a tool to analyse a survey result.The conclusions indicate that factors with FEIP have a direct and significant effect on implementation outcome, which involves enterprises, software providers, and consultants, contextual maturity (corporate culture, user characteristics, and organization-process-system maturity) and the degree of project preparation (strategic planning, external expertise engagement/support, and project preparation) are investigated. Among six factors, three factors of project preparation have strong impact on final result, whereas others are less influential. In accordance with contingency theory, preparation factors have mediating effect.Finally, the degree of difference and complementation between case study and survey is discussed; implication is given and limitation indicated at the end.