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however, also considerable failures (Larsen &
Myers, 1998; Scott & Vessey, 2000). Benefits of
ERPs are only partly related to technology, most
of these stemming from organizational changes
such as new business processes, organizational
structure, work procedures, integration of ad-
ministrative and operative activities, and global
standardization of work practices, all of which
lead to organizational improvements which the
technology supports (Hedman & Borell, 2003). It
can definitely be said that implementation of ERP
systems is a difficult and costly organizational
experiment (Robey et al., 2002; Santhanam et
al., 2009). Davenport (1996) describes the imple-
mentation of ERP systems as “perhaps the world's
largest experiment in business change” and for
most organizations “the largest change project in
cost and time that they have undertaken in their
history.” The implementation is a necessary but
insufficient prerequisite for benefits and value,
and business value can only be derived from an
efficient and effective utilization of information
technology resources. (Agarwal et al., 2000). The
management of ERP system utilization is thus of
critical importance, and involves development
and implementation, as well as
usage
of resources
(Balakrishnan & Das, 2009; Kalling, 1999).
Although many benefits of ERP systems have
been identified and studied (Shang & Seddon,
2002), past research has focused on defining
success factors (Robey et al., 2002), such as top
management involvement and support, rather
than investigating how
ERP systems utilization
relates to benefits. One possible explanation for
this is that in previous ERP research on benefits
and success, the state of go-alive in the imple-
mentation of ERPs is often equivalent to use,
i.e., that benefits are directly and causally related
to the first day of use. The predominant view of
utilization is “
use
” in different forms e.g., inten-
tion of use, or user satisfaction, etc. (DeLone &
McLean, 1992). DeLone and McLean (2003)
claim that there are deficiencies related to the 'use'
construct, emphasizing that 'use' as a construct
is too simplistic and needs to be developed. A
potential elaboration which this paper takes is
that ERP systems utilization should be explored
from an organizational perspective as well as from
a system perspective. To this end, we introduce
utilization
of ERP systems as a
measure of use
,
and develop a model of
ERP utilization
which
we relate to and describe as internal
diffusion
of ERP systems in organizations. The underly-
ing hypotheses for using diffusion of ERP as a
measure is that it is not until ERP is diffused and
integrated with a large part of an organization that
benefits will be received, i.e., a critical mass is
reached. This also means that internal diffusion
of the ERP is necessary before ERP utilization in
an organization is a fact.
The purpose of this research is to increase
knowledge of the relationship between
utilization
of ERP system and benefits. This will be done
through a theoretical and empirical investigation
of ERP utilization. In addition, the paper provides
input into the complex matter of the dependent
variable “use.” It does so by providing an alter-
native way of investigating the “
use
” concept
which goes beyond use and user satisfaction or
intention to use.
This chapter is structured as follows. In the
next section we present previous research useful
for developing a model for measurement of ERP
utilization, focusing on measuring use of ERPs
in small and medium-sized enterprises (
SME
s).
Thereafter, we introduce our methodological
approach and the survey context. We then pres-
ent and discuss our
measurement
tool of ERP
utilization. Finally, we address the usefulness of
the measurement tool, both from a practical and
a theoretical perspective.
MeAsuring use of erp
sYsteMs in sMes
In order to do research on ERP utilization, there is
a need to define concepts such as: ERPs,
SME
s,
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