| Dissertation |
Thesis (Ph.D.) --NUI, 2009/10 at Department of Accounting, Finance and Information Systems, UCC. |
| Summary |
Organisations require integrating mechanisms to co-ordinate their activities across different sub-units. Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems provide management with such a mechanism by making operational performance and expenditure visible. Many patterns of managerial behaviour, however, derive their credibility from the accumulated experience of the manager, and not from more formal decision making models (Winter, 1985). Although conceived as planning tools, the footprint of ERP systems in managerial decision processes relating to performance control is under researched. Organisational theory has provided a top-down view of co-ordination and control, based on the simple premise of interdependence between sub-units working towards a common goal. Centralisation helps keep the organisation focused on its purpose, standardisation of process helps it to be efficient. Managers are charged with reconciling the objectives of organisational purpose and process efficiency. Decision theory has taken a bottom-up view of the challenges facing the manager in prioritising decisions, modelling the decision parameters and dealing with uncertainty and exceptions. Information systems research has considered managerial requirements for information support, but these requirements have proven difficult to specify and monitor over time. ERP systems impose a robust process driven framework on the administration of operational processes. There is a dearth of research, however, on the relationship between ERP integration and managerial decision making for performance control. A theoretical framework to model this relationship is proposed, and a research protocol is designed to validate this model. Using two manufacturing case studies, this study yielded a wealth of empirical data. The theoretical framework is used to explain that the poor performance of ERP systems in decision support is related to “assumed certainties” (Gorry, 1971) that exist in supply and demand relationships. An integration framework is proposed which has prescriptive value for the debate on the role of ERP integration in supporting performance control. |
| Subject |
Business logistics.
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Strategic planning.
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Industrial management.
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| Collection |
Theses Ph.D.
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Theses Accounting Finance and Information Systems Department
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| Description |
446 p. ; 30 cm. |
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