The Impact of ERP Competency and Motivationon Knowledge Sharing and ERP Success A Study on Key User Role

Abstract

The quest for the success factors of ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) software implementation exists from the birth of the ERP. Being a different breed of IS (Information Systems) application, the frequent failures of ERP ignited the research community to look forpossible causes and remedies. Many factors were identified by the research community andby the practitioners and such factors were collated as Critical Success Factors (CSF), one of them is key-user . A Key-user is assigned to the ERP implementation project and belong to the business users group from different functional area of business. Being called alternatively as power-user or super-user , or process champion , the key-user remain as the fulcrum of the system transformation and serve as a knowledge source during the implementation of the new IS system. Though the role of key-users were identified as one of the critical success factors by the practitioners, the body of knowledge lacked deeper studies on the role of key-user s competencies, motivation and knowledge sharing behavior on ERP success. Deriving motivation from that fact, our study empirically analyzed the role of key user as knowledge source during the ERP usage phase. Our study identified enterprise system management knowledge of the key-user, one of the ERP competencies, along with intrinsic andextrinsic motivation, play a significant role in the knowledge sharing behavior of the key- user. Key-user s tacit knowledge sharing behavior is found have a significant role in the success of the ERP. The novelty of the study exists in the establishment of the positive relationship between the ERP competency of the Key user on the success of the ERP system through their knowledge sharing behavior. newline