Paradigmatic approaches used in enterprise resource planning systems research: A systematic literature review <s> INTRODUCTION <s> Theories of resistance to management information systems (MIS) are important because they guide the implementation strategies and tactics chosen by implementors. Three basic theories of the causes of resistance underlie many prescriptions and rules for MIS implementation. Simply stated, people resist MIS because of their own internal factors, because of poor system design, and because of the interaction of specific system design features with aspects of the organizational context of system use. These theories differ in their basic assumptions about systems, organizations, and resistance; they also differ in predictions that can be derived from them and in their implications for the implementation process. These differences are described and the task of evaluating the theories on the bases of the differences is begun. Data from a case study are used to illustrate the theories and to demonstrate the superiority, for implementors, of the interaction theory. <s> BIB001 </s> Paradigmatic approaches used in enterprise resource planning systems research: A systematic literature review <s> INTRODUCTION <s> The terms 'modem' and 'postmodern' have become common currency in intel lectual debates within organization studies. The postmodern is variously inter preted as an 'epoch', a 'perspective', or a new 'paradigm' of thought. In this paper the author argues that what distinguishes the postmodern from the modem is a 'style of thinking' which eschews the uncritical use of common organizational terms such as 'organizations', 'individuals', 'environment', 'structure', and 'culture', etc. These terms refer to the existence of social entit ies and attributes within a modernist problematic. This is because a modernist thought style relies on a 'strong' ontology (the study of the nature and essence of things) of being which privileges thinking in terms of discrete phenomenal 'states', static 'attributes' and sequential 'events'. Postmodern thinking, on the other hand, privileges a 'weak' ontology of becoming which emphasizes a transient, ephemeral and emergent reality. From this thought style, reality is deemed to be... <s> BIB002 </s> Paradigmatic approaches used in enterprise resource planning systems research: A systematic literature review <s> INTRODUCTION <s> As both technologies and organizations undergo dramatic changes in form and function, organizational researchers are increasingly turning to concepts of innovation, emergence, and improvisation to help explain the new ways of organizing and using technology evident in practice. With a similar intent, I propose an extension to the structurational perspective on technology that develops a practice lens to examine how people, as they interact with a technology in their ongoing practices, enact structures which shape their emergent and situated use of that technology. Viewing the use of technology as a process of enactment enables a deeper understanding of the constitutive role of social practices in the ongoing use and change of technologies in the workplace. After developing this lens, I offer an example of its use in research, and then suggest some implications for the study of technology in organizations. <s> BIB003 </s> Paradigmatic approaches used in enterprise resource planning systems research: A systematic literature review <s> INTRODUCTION <s> In this journal, Chen and Hirschheim have provided a historical analysis of positivist and interpretivist research paradigms and methodologies in the 10 years following the much cited work of Orlikowski and Baroudi. In this paper, we investigate the mysterious case of the missing paradigm – that of the critical approach to information systems (IS) research. We take Chen and Hirschheim’s survey as our starting point and aim to fill the gap left by the absence of the critical paradigm in their analysis and make some criticisms of their method. Recent years have seen the growth of IS research that consciously adopts a critical perspective. This paper charts the development of critical IS research over the period of 1991–2001, adding some comments on more recent developments. We conclude by critically reflecting on the current development of critical research in the field of IS. <s> BIB004 </s> Paradigmatic approaches used in enterprise resource planning systems research: A systematic literature review <s> INTRODUCTION <s> Purpose – Enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems are increasingly being adopted by organisations in developing countries. As in industrialised countries, this adoption seems beset by significant rates of failure, leading to a large waste of investment and other resources. This paper seeks to understand why such ERP failure occurs.Design/methodology/approach – The paper moves beyond factor lists to make use of an overall “design‐reality gap” model. The model is applied to a case study of ERP failure in a Jordanian manufacturing firm, analysing the situation both before and during ERP implementation through a mix of interviews, observation and document analysis.Findings – The research finds sizeable gaps between the assumptions and requirements built into ERP system design, and the actual realities of the client organisation. It is these gaps – and the failure to close them during implementation – that underlie ERP project failure.Research limitations/implications – This study shows the relevance and ap... <s> BIB005
For over 20 years, information systems (IS) researchers (e.g.  Goles and Hirschheim, 2000;  ;  BIB004 have engaged in a debate as to the importance of knowing what research paradigms were used when researching IS issues. In addition, researchers such as  and  consider this debate to be important as it helps the discipline better understand the implications of paradigm selection in respect to theory development. In this paper, we explore the question 'Where does enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems research sit in relation to the paradigms used by IS researchers in general?' The rationale for seeking to answer this overall research question is based on a view that ERP systems are sufficiently 6 distinctive to warrant being treated as a separate discipline in its own right rather than a subset of IS. If this suggestion is correct then it follows that ERP research may also differ in the usage rate of research paradigms employed compared to the rate found in the main IS literature. We took the view that it was important to determine if any differences existed, for the following reasons: i) The selection of research paradigms has a profound impact on how a body of knowledge in a particular field will develop. ii) If significant differences were found, these would provide secondary evidence to support the view that ERP systems do represent a distinct discipline, sufficient to warrant developing a separate body of knowledge rather than treating it as subset of the wider IS body of knowledge. Factors which differentiate ERP from normal IS literature include a typical ERP implementation being not only the most costly information and communication technology (ICT) investment for an organisation, but also the most demanding in terms of the organisation-wide change management requirements it creates. Every individual who is connected to the ERP will, to varying degrees, have to be involved in workplace changes during implementation. These changes can vary from having to learn how to use the new system through to fundamentally changing work processes and practices in order to align with the new system's requirements. The scale of change generated by ERPs, would therefore suggest that this particular strand of IS research would be better disposed to the application of social science methodologies involving qualitative research paradigms There is a body of opinion in the ERP literature which claims that ERPs are distinctly different from traditional IS in many dimensions, and particularly with respect to implementation issues ; . These issues include business reengineering; dependence on external consultants; high cost and disruption caused by widely reported failure rates; having to manage greater complexity as ERPs have been describes as "typically the largest, most complex and most demanding information systems implemented by firms" (Grabski, Leech and Schmidt, 2011, p.37); and very high costs. It is claimed that implementations can often represent the single largest item of organizational IS expenditure BIB005 where it is estimated between three and seven times more money is spent on ERP implementation and associated services compared to the initial purchase of the software license . Critically these issues, as reported, are clearly tied to a body of knowledge which in turn is influenced by the research paradigm used. Because a research paradigm carries with it several assumptions (e.g. about social structures) which in turn shape the knowledge used and the issues reported in the ERP literature, it is of great importance that ERP researchers fully understand the implications of their paradigm selection. There is also a growing body of ERP literature that has highlighted the need to pay greater attention to social factors when considering research into ERPs (Nandhakumar, Rossi and Talvinen, 2005; Wood  and Caldas, 2001 ; BIB001 BIB003 . We speculated, in our research questions, that if the differences between ERP and IS were sufficiently distinctive to warrant separating the two into different research categories, then this might also reflect the differences in extant research paradigm usage rates. Such differences, if proven to exist, would in turn reflect in the kinds of knowledge derived from research which, in turn, is used to inform practical concerns about ERP systems. We were also eager to examine areas of similarity in the choice and usage rates of research paradigms. Most of the studies conducted in the generalised IS literature to determine the range of research paradigms employed have concluded that there is a strong bias toward positivism   overestimated positivism and that a more exact figure was just below 50%. This decline in positivism has been attributed to a recognition within IS to expand the research paradigms used in order to better understand critical social issues such as the role played by people  BIB004 . Because ERP literature had suggested a need to pay more attention to social factors, we assumed that investigating social factors would involve greater use of social science research paradigms which sit outside the positivist tradition. As the social sciences often employ a diverse range of research paradigms  which also tend to change within short time periods (Baum and Rowley, 2002) then we speculated that the ERP literature would also be accompanied by an increase in diversity of the research paradigms used. For all the aforementioned reasons, we were eager to conduct a basic comparison of research paradigm usage rates between ERP and IS, as suggested by our research question. Furthermore, given the raft of social issues associated with ERP implementations, we were curious to explore if ERP research tended to favour paradigms that were more aligned with the social rather than the natural sciences. In order to examine these matters in greater depth we conducted research designed to answer the following two questions Chua's (1986) classification framework consisted of three possible research paradigms A paradigm was defined by Chua as a community of scientists who share 'a constellation of beliefs, values, and techniques' and these beliefs 'circumscribe definitions of' worthwhile problems and acceptable scientific evidence'  , p.602) The three distinct research paradigms are positivist, interpretivist and critical studies. Positivist studies are premised on the existence of a priori fixed relationships within phenomena which are typically investigated with structured instrumentation. Interpretive studies, by contrast, assume that people create and associate their own subjective and inter-subjective meanings as they interact with the world around them. Finally, critical studies seek to expose deep-seated structural contradictions within social systems and the use and abuse of power  ). In the Orlikowski and Baroudi (1991) study, their classification of positivism was in accordance with Chua's framework; however, they also classified certain descriptive studies as positivist. Orlikowski and Baroudi (1991, p.5) defended this categorisation by stating that 'In "descriptive" work, researchers attempted no theoretical grounding or interpretation of the phenomena; rather, they presented what they believed to be straightforward "objective", "factual", accounts of events to illustrate some issue of interest to the information systems community'. The criteria adopted by Second, they challenged the selection method used, claiming it resulted in an inflated figure. Their reasoning here was that the conclusion reached by Chen and Hirschheim (that 81% of the research was positivist) was based on a sample of 1131 (60%), while the original population was 1893. Richardson and Robins claim that it is not entirely clear why the other 40% were excluded but it is assumed that it was because they consisted of 'materials such as conceptual studies and other forms of research carried out without a guiding methodological framework' (Richardson and Robins, 2007, p.252). When Richardson and Robins adjusted Chen and Hirschheim's results relative to the total population (1893), the proportion of positivist categories dropped from 81% to 48.3%. The analysis undertaken by BIB004 appears to be that if 40% were excluded on the grounds that they could not be classified, then they assumed they could be classified as non-positivist. As they did not explain how they determined that a sample which could not initially be classified under any heading could then be conclusively classified as non-positivist, it is difficult to comprehend the reasoning used to justify their conclusion about overestimation. The third challenge was around interpretation of classifications. BIB004 argued that Chen and Hirschheim's exclusion of the critical research paradigm was unjustified because of the claim that the number of studies using critical research had been increasing. To demonstrate the basis for this challenge, they examined 'a similar set of publications over the same time period (1991-2001) for papers which fall in the critical paradigm' (Richardson and Robins, 2007, p.254). Nine sources were used, including seven of the eight sources used in the Chen and (Deetz, 1996;  Willmott, 1993) . A common criticism is "reification" -the tendency to mistake research abstractions for reality and producing biased and simplistic representations BIB002 . Another is the tendency to change over time as 'The criteria for paradigm comparison and evaluation are essentially judgmental, open to change and grounded in social and historical practices' (Chua, 1986, p.606) . Given the aforementioned limitations of classification schema the 'question is not: Are these the right categories or who fits in each? But: Are these differences that make a difference?' (Deetz, 1996, p.192).