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level of use of the system (Wu & Wang, 2006;
Hsieh & Wang, 2007).
All respondents agreed that the level of com-
plexity decreases over time as users get more and
more accustomed to the system. Also, according
to several respondents in companies B and C,
early post- implementation output quality issues
such as data accuracy, timeliness, integrity, and
reliability negatively impacted the level of users'
involvement and deployment of the system and,
in many cases, encouraged the use of parallel
systems. In spite of the frequent interventions of
the IT/ERP experts, many of these issues persisted.
The causes were attributed not to the system, as
several respondents asserted, but rather to the
human factor such as employees' resistance and
managers' lack of commitment.
if their organization's culture assigned a higher
value to IT innovations, the IT department, and
IT objectives and strategies.
top Management support
Top management support refers to the extent that
top management supports, directly and indirectly,
and commits to the continuous use of the ERP. Top
management involvement and their sustained sup-
port throughout all the phases of the project help
ensuring a smooth change management and mobi-
lizing commitment of other stakeholders (Somers
& Nelson, 2004). Their commitment is crucial for
the post-implementation stage especially when
it comes to providing the essential resources for
maintenance and upgrades and implementation in
other units and departments. Likewise, top man-
agement's perceptions of and attitudes towards
the system could shape the norms and values of
the organization to facilitate (or impede) system
assimilation (Chatterjee et al., 2002).
All the companies reported that they were
receiving adequate financial support for upgrades
and system requirements from senior management.
However, the financial support does not neces-
sarily reflect the real perceptions of top manage-
ment about the system's value. In Company A,
for instance, the CEO was consistently involved
in the ERP steering committee, and the system
was always among the firm's top priorities. On
the other hand, top management at Company C
lacked interest and trust in the system due to the
frequent delays and problems experienced after
the implementation of each module. Further-
more, priority was always given to projects with
quicker and more tangible returns than those of
the ERP system. As a respondent at Company B
put it, “
Culturally speaking, priority is given to
investments in products and not in IT
.” Indeed,
respondents at companies B, and C stressed the
importance of the role of top management in sup-
porting the prevalence of an ERP culture, “
a culture
of openness, information sharing, doing work on
it/erp expertise
Once the implementation process is over, the IT
department would be responsible for debugging
and trouble shooting the system, continuously
refining and adjusting it to the evolving business
needs and retraining users (Stratman & Roth,
2002 ; Kumar et al., 2003).All the companies we
studied, except for Company D, had an internal
ERP team. The major problem which was identi-
fied by respondents in companies B and C was
the high turnover rate of ERP experts. This issue
was justified by the high demand for ERP experts,
the heavy workload and the external competitive
wages of such experts. Evening and night shifts
represented a different type of problem for Com-
pany A. Most of the evening and night workers
received less support and training than their day
colleagues. Efforts were made to provide appro-
priate support for evening and night shifts, but it
was insufficient. Another critical point that can
hinder ERP assimilation, as noted by respondents
at companies B and C, is an organizational culture
that values product innovations over IT innova-
tions. They argued that the system's acceptance
and assimilation would have been much easier
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