Implementing enterprise resource planning packages in different corporate and national cultures

ERP (enterprise resource planning) packages provide generic off-the-shelf b usiness and software solutions for customers. However, these packages are i mplemented in companies with different corporate and national cultures and there is growing evidence that failure to adapt ERP packages to fit these c ultures leads to projects which are expensive and overdue. This paper descr ibes research which synthesizes social science theories of culture in order to be able to model and predict the impact of culture on ERP package imple mentation. It describes a knowledge meta-schema for modelling the surface a nd deeper manifestations of culture and predictions of ERP implementation p roblems based on national culture differences. It reports on an empirical s tudy into the implementation of ERP packages in a large pharmaceuticals org anization in Scandinavia and the UK. The results provide evidence for an as sociation between corporate culture and ERP implementation problems but no direct evidence for an association between national culture and implementat ion problems. Furthermore, the results demonstrate that these diverse imple mentation problems can be caused by a mismatch between a small set of core values which are indicative of a customer's corporate culture. The paper co ncludes with revisions to the design of our extended method for ERP package implementation to the design of the meta-model and to rules that codify cu lture constraints that are applied in order to analyse instances of the met a-model.