Measuring Utilization of ERP Systems Usage in SMEs - Enterprise Information Systems Design, Implementation and Management: Organizational Applications - page 296

clearly measures benefits. It can also be said that
the model needs to be further developed so that
it better considers the huge complexity that ERP
systems cover, which means that it has to consider
qualitative benefits in the form of non-monetary
benefits to a greater extent. However, our model
and the results presented thus far are definitely a
first attempt at measuring qualitative ERP systems
benefits and exploring how ERP systems are in-
ternally diffused in an organization. It can also be
concluded that the results thus far contribute new
knowledge on ERP systems diffusion, and increase
our understanding of use as a concept, since it
expands the usage of the construct beyond the
level of use as a go-live measurement. However,
more research on post-adoption with respect to
ERP systems usage is necessary in order to fully
understand how benefits gained from ERP systems
can be influenced. Thus, here is an explicit call
for theories that can explain the utilization of ERP
systems and the linkage to benefits.
The four dimensions all showed different re-
sults. We had expected the dimension of volume
to show strong support, but received contradictory
results. The idea with this dimension was to cover
ERP Systems ' ability to support the organiza-
tion and its users, as well as business processes.
Previous research used the quota of users that
could benefit from ERPs, compared to current
users of a specific ERP, as the sole measurement
for diffusion.
The dimension, breadth, did not provide us with
the expected results, that is, the extent to which
the business processes had ERP support, whether
that support crossed the borders of the functional
areas and integrated them, and to what extent it was
valid for integration in the organization. In future
research, these three factors need to be studied in
depth, preferably using a case study technique. The
performance of the breadth dimension indicates
that the factors of organization and functionality
are not significant to the ERP diffusion. It also
shows that ERP diffusion in combination with
these factors has a low impact on benefits.

In comparison with the dimensions of volume
and breadth, the performance of the diversity
dimension was strong. This points to the fact
that organizations need support for many differ-
ent kinds of business processes; hence, there is
a need for versatile ERP. The need for diversity
is, in other words, an important initial character-
istic that, in time, should be substituted with, for
instance, ERP's ability to mirror and support the
processes that can benefit from the ERP.
The performance of the depth dimension
provided us with a result similar to diversity; as
indicated above, this could be due to ERP Systems
needing to be used at different hierarchical levels,
resulting from the fact that ERP systems support
both the operational and managerial level. Further
research related to the depth dimension is needed
to shed light on the relation between ERP systems
depth and benefits distribution in organizations.
The contributions of the paper are the fol-
lowing: First, it provides some support for the
notion of diffusion found in the theory of network
externalities, and shows that a critical mass is
necessary to achieve benefits. This can be used to
better understand failures in ERP projects. Second,
the use of the model and its dimensions (volume,
breadth, diversity and depth) provide insights to
the use construct and point to the need to treat it
more rigorously. Third, the study contributes to
our understanding of the many aspects of use of
IT, and to the potential contribution to value and
firm performance from IT utilization, especially
in relation to utilization of ERP systems usage
in SMEs.

references

Agarwal, R., Raha, A. R., & Ghosh, B. (2000).
Our experience and learning in ERP implemen-
tation. ACM SIGSOFT Software Engineering
Notes, 25 (2).