Does Steering Committee Information Processing Capacity Influence Project Success in Enterprise-Wide System Implementations - A Field Study

摘要

Organizations make significant investments in enterprise-wide system development - also known as enterprise resource planning (ERP). Yet success in such endeavors remains elusive. To improve success rates, companies have deployed executive steering committees to govern these initiatives. Still, scholars and practitioners have an incomplete understanding of what makes these committees successful. This study contributes to limited research on the topic by examining steering committee impact in three ways. First, based on information processing theory, it extends how steering committees grapple with ERP implementation uncertainty by stacking up absorptive capacity. Second, we find that committee process quality contributes to project success as committee time is allocated to pivotal tasks. Third, uncertainty negatively effects implementation success, and the level of uncertainty moderates negatively the positive impact of absorptive capacity. Several implications for practice and theory of system implementation governance are suggested.