Stiff competition in the Airline sector mandates airlines to innovate ways to gain a competitive advantage over their rivals; however, without a strong IT the mission to attain this would be arduous. Large airlines do their best to maximise the use of enterprise systems to stream their business processes. Nonetheless, some airlines are not up to date with technology and are left with few choices when attempting to secure their existence in today’s harsh market. One option is to implement bleeding edge systems concurrently (which is our focus in this paper) due to the fact that very scant research exists regarding this phenomenon, let alone the airline sector itself. The aim of this study is explore and investigate the phenomenon of deploying multi enterprise systems concurrently due to its uniqueness and owing to the fact that this approach is not the common practice most airline undertake. We argue here that having multi Airline Solution Providers (ASP) working together concurrently to constitute a homogeneous solution generates many aspects that necessitate a deep understanding in such matters as competitor ASPs and technology leakage. In addition, the study explored various themes that unleash the phenomenon of the concurrent Multi- collaborative Enterprise Systems (MES). The role of cohesion factors that groups the rivals to work under the umbrella of an organisation was also embarked upon in this study. Various aspects contributing to the success of the MES phenomenon have been exposed with regarding ASP’s interplay, organisation, and other contextual surrounding MES. Finally, this study drew a strategic frame work for airlines that unleash the MES phenomenon. A large airline and its collaborative airline solutions provider were taken as the scope of study; the airline had over twenty six thousand employees. Five reputable world class ASPs in the airline industry in various fields were also included. The twenty five participants in this study were professionals in IT and the airline business besides being involved heavily in the phenomenon of deploying concurrent multi enterprise systems. Grounded Theory techniques were used to analyse the large volume of data gathered underpinning this by using state of art software package such as nVivo. This research has explored the phenomenon under study using grounded theory methodology to build a theoretical model that best presents the MES initiative. In addition, it has offered a well-founded framework that explains the MES phenomenon in details, which is relevant to both practitioners and researchers. This research has clearly explored and demonstrated the inhibitors and enablers in the undertaking of MES. In particular, it has focused on enablers of the organisation that received the MES. Furthermore, it has explored the interrelationship between ASPs and exposed some of the aspects that need more focus between rivals working on the same project.

Enterprise systems (ES) are important cross-business software that can be difficult to implement. A key factor impacting ES implementation lies with the influence of organisational cultures and subcultures which may enable or hinder such implementations. Existing research has focused on culture as being a stable, homogenous variable and little consideration has been given to the dynamics of cultural and organisational change during ES implementations. This study uses eight cultural dimensions (Detert et al, 2000) to examine instances of dialectic conflict between opposing cultural values and how these can impact ES implementations. This study uses data drawn from four case studies of large organisations that had implemented ES. The results identified five cultural dimensions where there was evidence of a cultural conflict between each organisation and the ES implementation. The results also found evidence that different subcultures within the organisation operated in different ways to facilitate or impede the adoption of the system. The evidence showed that the implementations resulted in cultural changes within each organisation to reflect the values embedded in the ES. This research therefore provides valuable insights into the cultural effects of large-scale implementations at an organisational level and shows that such effects are not necessarily homogenous and may vary due to the cultural values of subgroups involved.

This research aimed at developing a research framework for the emerging field of enterprise systems engineering (ESE). The framework consists of an ESE definition, an ESE classification scheme, and an ESE process. This study views an enterprise as a system that creates value for its customers. Thus, developing the framework made use of system theory and IDEF methodologies. This study defined ESE as an engineering discipline that develops and applies systems theory and engineering techniques to specification, analysis, design, and implementation of an enterprise for its life cycle. The proposed ESE classification scheme breaks down an enterprise system into four elements. They are work, resources, decision, and information. Each enterprise element is specified with four system facets: strategy, competency, capacity, and structure. Each element-facet combination is subject to the engineering process of specification, analysis, design, and implementation, to achieve its pre-specified performance with respect to cost, time, quality, and benefit to the enterprise. This framework is intended for identifying research voids in the ESE discipline. It also helps to apply engineering and systems tools to this emerging field. It harnesses the relationships among various enterprise aspects and bridges the gap between engineering and management practices in an enterprise. The proposed ESE process is generic. It consists of a hierarchy of engineering activities presented in an IDEF0 model. Each activity is defined with its input, output, constraints, and mechanisms. The output of an ESE effort can be a partial or whole enterprise system design for its physical, managerial, and/or informational layers. The proposed ESE process is applicable to a new enterprise system design or an engineering change in an existing system. The long-term goal of this study aims at development of a scientific foundation for ESE research and development.

This research project has established a new measurement model for User Empowerment as an enabler to Enterprise Systems 1 success. This study was inspired by the reported relationship between Empowerment and improved work outcomes. From this, it was hypothesised that empowering the users of Enterprise Systems during the implementation process would improve the reports of post implementation system success. A new related concept of system oriented User Empowerment was conceived. The outcomes of empowering users (increased worker effectiveness; (increased work satisfaction) conceptually resonates very closely to the outcomes of individual performance, quality of system outputs, goodness of system functionality and, on a broader level, effective use of the system to yield successful business outcomes. These latter outcomes represent the measures of Enterprise Systems success. Thus Empowerment as an independent variable, and Enterprise Systems success as a dependent variable, provided a launching platform for the study. The research model was built upon the existing research into Empowerment as articulated by Spreitzer (Spreitzer, 1996) and Thomas and Velthouse (Thomas & Velthouse, 1990) and its derived systems related construct of User Empowerment, first explored by Doll, Deng and Metts (Doll, Deng, & Metts, 2003). It used a current and validated measure of Enterprise Systems Success as developed by Gable, Sedera and Chan (Gable, Sedera, & Chan, 2003); this measure is a refinement of the Information Systems Success Model of DeLone and McLean (DeLone & McLean, 2002). 2 In order to test the relationships of Empowerment to (Enterprise) System success, the following research sub-problems were explored: * What types of Empowerment are relevant in the Enterprise System context? * Is User Empowerment different from Psychological Empowerment and if so, how? * What is the relationship between Psychological Empowerment and User Empowerment? * How can User Empowerment be measured? * What is the effect of Psychological Empowerment on Enterprise Systems success? * What is the effect of User Empowerment on Enterprise Systems success? This research project was a PhD study funded by the Australian Research Council through an industry linkage program. The industry partner in this project was SAP - the most successful vendor of Enterprise Systems. Although limited in analysis the study spanned across two industry sectors, with two Enterprise Systems (Oracle and SAP). This research was a multimethod study and involved both qualitative and quantitative phases. The multimethod included content analysis, survey, and case study. This research was led by an explorative research strategy and paid considerable attention to analysing each research method in relation to other research methods, and also in relation to the demands of the research problem. A comprehensive literature review established extant definitions and constructs for Psychological Empowerment, User Empowerment and, Enterprise Systems success. The literature review employed a formal qualitative research method, using open coding supported through the use of Nvivo, a Qualitative software package, in order to identify and derive key themes in the referent disciplines. The responses from the email survey of Information Systems researchers, and Enterprise Systems consultants were triangulated with the findings from the categorised literature review on Empowerment. This sub-study utilised WordStat software and the findings were presented at the QualIT conference (Sehgal & Stewart, 2006). Drawing from the existing perspectives on Empowerment a contextbased perspective on Empowerment was proposed by the researcher. From this work, a new working definition of (User) Empowerment was derived. This construct proposed that User Empowerment involved Computer Self-efficacy, Perceived Usefulness, Intrinsic Motivation, User Autonomy, and Problem-solving and Decision support. Psychological Empowerment involves Meaning, Self-determination, Competence, and Impact. The research project then empirically tested the relationship of both Psychological Empowerment and User Empowerment to Enterprise Systems success using a quantitative enquiry. The new User Empowerment construct was statistically tested for validity and reliability. This quantitative study found no statistical evidence for a relationship between Psychological Empowerment and Enterprise Systems success. The study findings suggest significant statistical evidence for a relationship between User Empowerment and Enterprise Systems success. Statistical analysis showed that the construct for User Empowerment was different from the construct of Enterprise Systems success. These relationships held regardless of the level of the user: senior management, operational, end users or technical. This phase of the study was presented at the Americas Conference of Information Systems (Sehgal & Stewart, 2004). This exploratory survey was followed by another industry based case study, which confirmed the results for a different industry sector and different Enterprise System. This latter study was used in an independent confirmatory factor analysis of the Enterprise Systems success measurement which was presented at the Americas Conference on Information Systems (Sehgal & Stewart, 2004) and International Conference on Information Systems (Sedera, Gable, & Chan, 2004) by fellow researchers. This research has demonstrated that User Empowerment, rather than Psychological Empowerment was significantly related to Enterprise Systems Success. The study findings identified potentially significant benefits to the Enterprise System implementing organisations as well as the Enterprise System vendor from empowering Enterprise System users. Of the reported benefits one of the relevant one was improved and positive reports about the implemented Enterprise System. Further, the study highlights the importance of context when measuring a construct such as Empowerment. There are clear practical implications for the research outcomes. These include a recommendation that training programs should ensure that users have a high degree of computer self-efficacy when using the enterprise system. The validated User Empowerment instrument will be utilised as a diagnostic tool for organisational readiness prior to an ES implementation. This would assist in benchmarking the level of empowerment and predicted Enterprise Systems success. Future research will explore the effects of an Enterprise System on the components of User Empowerment as it is conjectured that there is a reciprocal relationship between the system and user attributes of Computer Self-efficacy, Problem-solving Decision Support, and understanding of business logic.

Enterprise Systems (ESs) are more than a collection of people, technology, processes, and capabilities. The responsibilities of post implementation management of ES lie in the unit called the Competency Center (CC). The CC has a bidirectional relationship with ESs wherein the CC influences the shaping of ESs, and the CC is affected by the dynamic interaction between people, technology, process, and capabilities within the ES. These dynamic interactions keep the CC, fluid and always in-process. The general-use definition of the term “process” as used in the Enterprise Systems literature treats the notion as “repeatable processes” or "replicable processes". However, arising from comparative case studies in four large organizations, I found that decision making, managing, and governing in the ES are not “replicable processes”, not reifications of structural variations over time when examined through the lens of the Assemblage Theory. Assemblage Theory incorporates the dynamic interplay of two continua: the first, territorialization, deterritorialization, and reterritorialization, and the second, material vs. expression. Although the notion of the terms formation, deformation, and reformation are suitable for understanding the processes these CCs encounter in a broad and general manner, they do not sufficiently describe the not-so-solid, never-quite-finished, always in-process or structuring referred to by Hopper (1996) as "emergent regularities". In contrast to the notion of stable structures, this dissertation research adopts the language of Deleuzian assemblage of Territorialization, deterritorialization, and Reterritorialization. Although the four study organizations planned and intended to develop clearly defined competency centers, which would create formalized processes and procedures to manage the post implementation phase, none of the study organizations ever achieved the anticipated stability. Instead, the CCs exhibited the signs of being ‘in-process’ and ‘structuring’. The contribution of this research to the IS field is an understanding of the CCs as processes as opposed to structures and how CCs structuring impact the ESs in organizations.

The 1990's saw a rapid growth in the use of Enterprise Systems by organisations to undertake quick and strategic decisions. Significant to the use of Enterprise systems, is their implementation in the organisation. The increased use of paper documents in government organisations and the augmented implementation rate of Electronic Document Management Systems within government organisations in New Zealand, is what triggered this research and subsequently the framing of the research objectives and thereby the research question. This research encompasses the factors which affect the implementation process of an Enterprise Document Management System and thereby render it a success or a failure. The study used an ethnographic approach in order to introduce rigour in the research. The data was collected by conducting eight semi-structured interviews at the client organisation. The interviews were transcribed and later coded using an open - coding methodology. A thematic analysis based schema was developed to later analyse the coded data.The research found that, factors such as change management, behaviour management / emotions, communication, implementation process approach and system functionality had profound effects on the implementation success of the Electronic Document Management System in the research organisation. The thesis has been mostly written in the first person to represent the author's interpretation of the implementation process and its related factors.

The three essays that comprise my dissertation are drawn from a longitudinal field study of the work process innovation of sourcing professionals at a large multinational paper products and related chemicals manufacturing firm. The focus of this study is an examination of how characteristics of the work process innovation context impact enterprise system (ES) acceptance, rich ES use behavior and the resulting individual-level job outcomes realized by knowledge workers in a strategic business process. The ES, an enterprise sourcing application, was introduced to innovate the work processes of employees who perform the sourcing business process. Over a period of 12 months, we collected survey data at four points in time (pre-implementation, immediately following training on the new system; following six months of use; and, following 12 months of use) to trace the innovation process as it unfolded. The three essays that comprise my dissertation focus on three key gaps in understanding and make three corresponding key contributions. The first research essay focuses on the transition from an emphasis on behavioral intention to mental acceptance in mandatory use environments. This essay contributes to the technology acceptance literature by finding that work process characteristics and implementation characteristics are exogenous to beliefs about the technology and that these beliefs are important to understanding mental acceptance as well in mandatory use contexts. The second and third research essays emphasize the transition from lean use concepts to conceptualizing, defining and measuring rich use behaviors and show that use must be captured and elaborated on in context. This is pursued through the development of two rich use constructs reflective of the sourcing work context and the complementary finding of countervailing factors in the work process that may impede the positive impact of rich use behaviors on job benefits.

<p>Companies are always trying to enhance their functioning to achieve a competitive advantage in a given market. Some of the tools that are used to improve organizational functioning include ERP systems. In fact, ERP systems are becoming very popular among firms, to the point where they are considered by some as an ailing business savior. Nevertheless, despite the attractive functions that an ERP system may display to an interested company, implementing such a system successfully is a task that is far from being easy. Several problems may arise in the implementation phase, and a failure to address them correctly can have terrible consequences on the general functioning of a firm. Two of the main factors that contribute to a failed ERP system implementation are training and resistance to change. A tool that may actually help with the ERP system implementation failure is ERP simulation.</p><p>The main purpose of this thesis is to study the potential effect that ERP simulations can have on a potential ERP system user skills and knowledge, and thereafter find the potential impact that they may have while being used during an ERP implementation to facilitate training and reduce resistance to change.</p><p>The tools that were used to successfully accomplish this research were a personal interview with an ERP simulation expert, a detailed survey with ERP simulation participants, and various information that were collected from books, articles, reports and websites.</p><p>This thesis main results show that ERP simulations can enable ERP users to improve their knowledge of ERP systems effectively, and also have potential to contribute during the implementation phase by reducing the possible problems that may arise from the training and the resistance to    change perspectives.</p>

In recent years, the Information Technology (IT) industry has been overwhelmed by a new class of packaged application software collectively known as Enterprise Systems (ES). Enterprise Systems are comprehensive business operating systems that weave together all the data within an organisation's business processes and associated functional areas. In particular, ES provide organisations with the ability to manage data and information in a real-time environment and to integrate operations between various departments; capacities that had been previously unrealized in traditional information systems. ES have since been established as an integral development in the Information Systems (IS) field and extensively studied by academics. The implementation and operation of ES are known to be complex and costly installations that require knowledge and expertise from various areas and sources. The knowledge necessary for managing ES is diverse and varied; it extends from the application of knowledge in different phases of the ES life cycle to the exchange of knowledge between ES vendors, clients and consultants. The communication of knowledge between the various agents adds another dimension to the complex nature of ES. Thus, ES clients have been motivated to reduce costs and retain ES knowledge within the organisation. Research has been conducted on the critical success factors and issues involved in implementing ES. These studies often address the lack of appropriate in-house ES knowledge and the need to actively manage ES-related knowledge. With motivation from another area of research known as Knowledge Management, academia and industry have strived to provide solutions and strategies for managing ES-related knowledge. However, it is often not clear what this 'knowledge' is, what type(s) of knowledge is relevant, who possesses the type(s) of knowledge and how knowledge can be instituted to facilitate the execution of processes. This research aims to identify the relevant knowledge in the context of Enterprise Systems. The types of knowledge required for ES are derived by studying the knowledge (techne)1 for different ES roles, managers and implementation consultants. This provides a perspective for understanding how ES knowledge can be structured. By applying a process modeling approach, the understanding of the relation of ES knowledge to roles and business processes thus gained will demonstrate how knowledge can be modeled. The understanding of ES knowledge and how it can be managed is first formalized by the development of a conceptual framework based on the existing literature. An exploratory study found that the identification of ES knowledge was necessary before the other activities in the knowledge management dimension could be effected. As an appropriate concept of knowledge could not be derived from the IS literature, the concept of techne emerged from a more comprehensive literature review. Techne ('art' or 'applied science' or 'skill') is defined as the trained ability of rationally producing, i.e. the ability to produce something reliably, under a variety of conditions, on the basis of reasoning. This involves having knowledge, or having what seems to be knowledge (awareness) of whatever principles and patterns one relies on. With this foundation, the main focus of the research is on the content analysis of the most popular implementation tool for Enterprise Systems management, ValueSAP. This tool is studied with respect to the types of knowledge (techne), roles and activities in ES implementation. The analysis of ValueSAP thus contributes to the understanding of the structure and distribution of knowledge in ES projects. Consequently, case studies were conducted to understand how the derived ES knowledge can be instituted in business processes using process modeling techniques. This part of the study demonstrates the modeling perspective of the research. 1. The terms 'knowledge' and 'skills' will be used interchangeably for the context of this thesis; where the term 'knowledge' is mentioned, the author refers to the skills required in the ES context. This section is further elaborated in Chapter 2 on techne and skills.

The 1990's saw a rapid growth in the use of Enterprise Systems by organisations to undertake quick and strategic decisions. Significant to the use of Enterprise systems, is their implementation in the organisation. The increased use of paper documents in government organisations and the augmented implementation rate of Electronic Document Management Systems within government organisations in New Zealand, is what triggered this research and subsequently the framing of the research objectives and thereby the research question. This research encompasses the factors which affect the implementation process of an Enterprise Document Management System and thereby render it a success or a failure. The study used an ethnographic approach in order to introduce rigour in the research. The data was collected by conducting eight semi-structured interviews at the client organisation. The interviews were transcribed and later coded using an open - coding methodology. A thematic analysis based schema was developed to later analyse the coded data.The research found that, factors such as change management, behaviour management / emotions, communication, implementation process approach and system functionality had profound effects on the implementation success of the Electronic Document Management System in the research organisation. The thesis has been mostly written in the first person to represent the author's interpretation of the implementation process and its related factors.