Implementation Of Enterprise Resource Planning On Public Universities Performance

Abstract

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems occupy one of the largest and most important areas of information systems implementation in organizations in the world of today. These systems are becoming the keys that have the potential to significantly unlock organizational competitive advantage. This is so because these systems have the capacity to enhance the integration of all business processes and hence aid in managing and optimizing the resources available. This study entailed an assessment of the role of ERP implementation on a firm’s user performance. This study determined the relationship between; enterprise resource planning system technology utilization and user performance, system quality and user performance, information quality and user performance. This study focused on the user performance as compared to most studies that look into performance at organizational level. The study made use of ICT models of adoption as its guidance. The sample size for participants was determined by Cochran’s sample size formula modified for finite population and from which a population of 397 yielded a sample size of 80. The sample size was purposively distributed so as to capture the proper users of the system. The implementation aspect was viewed from three perspectives which include firstly as the system technology utilization, and secondly as the information quality, and finally the system quality of the ERP system. Each aspect was analyzed and its effect on ERP system user established in part and discussed. In the study, data collection involved the use of questionnaires regarding the user performance of the enterprise resource planning system with the participants being purposively selected as the heavy users of the system. Pearson’s correlation analysis was the statistical tool used for the purpose of analyzing the quantitative data. Data at first was captured into Microsoft Excel and transferred later into SPSS for detailed analysis. Descriptive statistics is another statistical tool that was used in helping to understand the characteristics of the study population. Computations from quantitative analysis pointed out respectively that Pearson’s correlation coefficient of technology utilization = 0.686, system quality = 0.682, information quality = 0.757 and user performance (P-Value = 0.000) under the mediation of technology acceptance. This affirmed that for an ERP system, technology utilization, system quality, information quality respectively and user performance have a statistically significant linear relationship (p < .05). Results also indicated that the magnitude, or strength of the association is a strong one for each one of them since each of the aspects had its results within the range (.5 < | r | <.9). Characteristics of adopted technology, if well integrated together with the user tasks and abilities, and then coupled with appropriate system quality and information quality, resulted in enhanced user performance of a firm and hence such should form the backbone of an ERP system as entails its design and implementation.