Enterprise Systems and Organizational Agility: A Review of the Literature and Conceptual Framework <s> Enterprise Systems Facilitate Organizational Agility <s> The agility of enterprises is analyzed in this article from two perspectives: business and organizational agility, and operational and logistics agility. Because of the powerful support of information technologies, mainly AI and networking, companies can seek collaborators to accomplish complex customers’ requirements without investing to expand their own capacity. The emerging alliances of enterprises are virtually formed for various customers’ and markets’ needs. This concept sustains business and organizational agility. In terms of operational and logistics agility, this article suggests that the connection between the autonomy functions and agility requires further study. Our research has proposed that error detection and recovery, and conflict resolution are two significant functions of operational and logistics agility, and determine the expected benefits from the business and organizational agility. The link between a given enterprise flexibility and agility is also analyzed. <s> BIB001 </s> Enterprise Systems and Organizational Agility: A Review of the Literature and Conceptual Framework <s> Enterprise Systems Facilitate Organizational Agility <s> Abstract Enterprise resource planning (ERP) software merges a firm's data, information flows and business processes into a single package. Vendors argue that ERP provides an extremely useful strategic resource to enhance competitiveness and make it possible for a firm to leverage its other resources more effectively and efficiently. In addition, they allege that ERP encourages a system-wide perspective that is a basis for collaboration and a systems orientation. However, an examination of ERP systems using criteria established in research on resource-based views of the firm and chaos/complexity theory indicates that these claims are overstated. Observation suggests that even if ERP is necessary to coordinate complicated, multifaceted operations, it is far from sufficient to promote a strong competitive position over the long term. Moreover, ERP systems fit best within mechanistic, clockwork organizations dominated by routine, highly programmed technologies and operations, yet it is the non-routine learning and change processes found in complex, self-organizing systems that enable firms to create distinctive competitive advantages from ERP outputs. ERP makes possible deep changes in relationships, culture, and behaviors that can be crucial sources of advantage in the knowledge economy, but the structures and cultures most able to achieve this level of change are a poor fit with ERP requirements. To reconcile this paradox, we propose a dual-core, loosely coupled organization that views ERP as an enabling technology to build and augment social and intellectual capital, rather than as an information technology (IT) solution for organizational inefficiencies. Propositions for using ERP as a foundation for social and intellectual capital formation are introduced. Implications for research and practice are discussed. <s> BIB002 </s> Enterprise Systems and Organizational Agility: A Review of the Literature and Conceptual Framework <s> Enterprise Systems Facilitate Organizational Agility <s> Being both facile and efficient are essential in contemporary enterprise systems that rely on distributed information across inter-firm boundaries. The need to achieve operational efficiency, while accommodating a continuous morphing of alliances and network arrangements, is a key challenge in the modern enterprise and market. Inter-firm interdependence and unpredictable market shifts heighten the need to establish an architecture and governance arrangement that permits needed adaptation. Fully integrated firms have increasingly morphed into networks of collaborators. The demand for efficient and effective inter-firm coordination is no longer a desired condition, but essential for competitive position. Historically, the cost of this efficiency has been loss of flexibility, yet volatile markets reward efficiency and flexibility. Market trends demand an ability to improvise in the marketplace ­ converge execution with planning ­ while being simultaneously efficient. In this paper, we explore this improvisation-efficiency challenge. The architecture and governance issues that are considered seek the strengths of both effects. Efficiency need not come at a high cost in attaining the ability to be adaptive and spontaneous. We explore the key considerations of both network architecture and governance structures that characterize improvisational networks. Trade communities and trading partners establish a discipline of processes and decision rights that serve the community of collaborators. <s> BIB003 </s> Enterprise Systems and Organizational Agility: A Review of the Literature and Conceptual Framework <s> Enterprise Systems Facilitate Organizational Agility <s> The full potential of the expected role of Information Technology (IT) in facilitating organizational adaptation has not yet been realized because most of the existing systems do not lend themselves to the levels of flexibility required to support changes in business processes. This problem is accentuated with increase of inter-organizational linkages involving disparate IT systems. Web services have emerged as a disruptive technology, with a real potential of enabling flexible business processes. This paper examines the influence of Web services on business process flexibility and analyses its impact on organizational adaptation. <s> BIB004 </s> Enterprise Systems and Organizational Agility: A Review of the Literature and Conceptual Framework <s> Enterprise Systems Facilitate Organizational Agility <s> In many markets it is becoming impossible to remove or ignore sources of turbulence and volatility. Hence, supply chain managers must accept uncertainty, but still need to develop a strategy that enables them to match supply and demand at an acceptable cost. The ability to achieve this has been termed supply chain agility. Information and, importantly, agile information systems have been recognised as being a critical factor in achieving agility in the supply chain. To date studies have suggested that high levels of coordination between organisations, necessary for improved supply chain performance, demand high levels of integration between partners' information systems. However, these high levels of integration reduce the ability to frequently and rapidly make changes to trading relationships, something that is a prerequisite of the agility paradigm. This paper seeks to explore how a number of emergent information systems offer the possibility of both deep integration and increased flexibility. This paper is exploratory in nature. A single case study of an organisation seeking to improve supply chain agility is reported. Existing literature and the insights provided by the case study are combined to identify a number of themes for further study. <s> BIB005 </s> Enterprise Systems and Organizational Agility: A Review of the Literature and Conceptual Framework <s> Enterprise Systems Facilitate Organizational Agility <s> The concept of ES (enterprise system) designed to support the functionality of enterprise has a significant step forward in the long history of technology assisted business process integration. The concepts such as MRP I and MRP II. were elaborated to assist business managers by integrating various business planning processes mainly in the topics of logistics and manufacturing. The first breakthrough in the system development was the Enterprise Resources Planning management concept and application system. ERP which, like other new technologies have evaluated over several the years. It was a gradual and continuous development without considerable changes, except the SCM and APS. The radical transformation of economic environment -at the beginning of the current centaury -forced the business stakeholders to elaborate new business models and tightly aligned information technology. At present we are witnesses to and active participants of a new paradigm shift. On the business side the agility and the flexibility are the key features. On the technology (ICT) side two emerging architecture are on the horizon: the web based SOA -service oriented architecture and the BPMS -business process management suites. Our visions are that the "business and IT gap" will be disappeared in the near future, the business oriented information systems dominate the enterprises, the IT systems are the main enablers of the value chains in-and outside of the companies. <s> BIB006 </s> Enterprise Systems and Organizational Agility: A Review of the Literature and Conceptual Framework <s> Enterprise Systems Facilitate Organizational Agility <s> Collaborative commerce (C-Commerce) is a set of technologies and business practices that allows companies to build stronger relationships with their trading partners through integrating complex and cross-enterprise processes governed by business logic and rules, as well as workflows. Business Process Management (BPM) is a key element of C-Commerce solutions for complex process coordination. It provides a mechanism to support e-businesses in modeling, deploying, and managing business processes that involve various applications with greater flexibility. Traditional BPM solutions often lack the capability to integrate external applications in that they have very limited support for interoperability. In recent years, Web services have emerged as a promising enabling technology for BPM in support of C-Commerce. Web services offer effective and standard-based means to improve interoperability among different software applications over Internet protocols. This paper aims to give an in-depth analysis of BPM and Web services in the context of C-Commerce. We propose an architecture for Web services enabled BPM in C-Commerce and provide technical insights into why Web services can enhance business process coordination. Finally, an implementation of a dynamic e-procurement application based on the proposed architecture is presented. With the advent of Web service standards and business process integration tools that support them, BPM systems enabled by Web services are empowering the development of more flexible and dynamic C-Commerce. <s> BIB007 </s> Enterprise Systems and Organizational Agility: A Review of the Literature and Conceptual Framework <s> Enterprise Systems Facilitate Organizational Agility <s> Agility has become a key competency today as businesses face uncertain and volatile environment. Organizations operating in highly dynamic environments need agile processes. Existing information technology infrastructure and systems including enterprise systems with their ability to achieve organizational integration pose a serious challenge to process agility, even though they have made business processes cost efficient. With enterprise systems in most of the large and medium sized enterprises, this paper analyses the impact of enterprise system on business process agility. Using a case study approach, this study observes that the characteristics integration and standardization have a varying influence on the firm's ability to build agility. <s> BIB008 </s> Enterprise Systems and Organizational Agility: A Review of the Literature and Conceptual Framework <s> Enterprise Systems Facilitate Organizational Agility <s> The increasing importance of information technology (IT) services in the global economy prompts researchers in the field of information systems (IS) to give special attention to the foundations of managerial and technical knowledge in this emerging arena of knowledge. Already we have seen the computer science discipline embrace the challenges of finding new directions in design science toward making services-oriented computing approaches more effective, setting the stage for the development of a new science-service science, management, and engineering (SSME). This paper addresses the issues from the point of view of service science as a fundamental area for IS research. We propose a robust framework for evaluating the research on service science, and the likely outcomes and new directions that we expect to see in the coming decade. We emphasize the multiple roles of producers and consumers of services-oriented technology innovations, as well as value-adding seller intermediaries and systems integrators, and standards organizations, user groups, and regulators as monitors. The analysis is cast in multidisciplinary terms, including computer science and IS, economics and finance, marketing, and operations and supply chain management. Evaluating the accomplishments and opportunities for research related to the SSME perspective through a robust framework enables in-depth assessment in the present, as well as an ongoing evaluation of new knowledge in this area, and the advancement of the related management practice capabilities to improve IT services in organizations. <s> BIB009
A number of researchers suggest a positive relationship between the use of ES and OA. An increase in OA is one of the benefits brought about by ES implementations  ]. First, due to the advancement in ES applications and technologies, enterprise systems can speed up activities, provide intelligent and autonomous decision-making processes, and enable collaborations and distributed operations BIB001 . All three activities lead to agility  BIB001 . Second, ES contain mechanisms such as built-in flexibility, process integration, data integration, and availability of "add-on" software applications to support agility  . BIB008 identify three types of ES integration-vertical, horizontal, and technical integration. Vertical integration refers to integration between different hierarchical levels. Horizontal integration refers to integration between departments or functions within an organization. Technical integration refers to integration between different systems to be compatible to one another. Among the three types of integration, vertical integration, which enhances the visibility, accessibility, control, and decision support capability, enables top management to comprehend better the critical need for changes and supports agility. BIB001 also argue that if the definition of agility is concerned with an enterprise system which consists of multiple, flexible, and cooperative subsystems, the whole system may still provide high agility. A study of fifteen large organizations that have implemented and used enterprise systems  identifies the finding that, when facing changes in their business environment, 39 percent of these organizations, which account for the largest proportion, would seek a response from the prebuilt business process implemented within enterprise systems. Besides, the availability of system add-ons which are developed to serve special functionalities create a wide range of different capabilities that firms can attach to their backbones to meet their unique needs and to respond to agility challenges  . Moreover, through the availability of built-in and add-on functionalities, enterprise systems provide more options for responses to meet agility challenges that do not require changing the backbone of a tightly integrated program code  . Hence, built-in and add-on solutions can be viewed as one source of agility that ES provide to organizations. Flexible enterprises require ERP systems that enable mass customization of business practices so that organizations can develop and maintain operational and strategic distinctiveness BIB002 . Previous enterprise systems were developed based on tight coupling between business process components and business processes. Tight coupling of applications is more economical and faster to execute and relevant to operate in predictable environments BIB004 . However, as the business processes are tightly coupled, it creates difficulty to adapt quickly. This is because any change made to one process would have an effect on many other processes. As the need for agility increases, there is a corresponding need for enterprise systems to become reconfigurable and, hence, the need for loosely coupled architecture. Likewise, the ES ecosystem has been undergoing a paradigm shift BIB009 BIB006 . ES vendors are innovating their software products by providing new versions of ES. For example, SAP's ERP systems have been developed from R3, through ECC6 to business suite 7.0. This is an incremental and continuous development without radical modification of the core enterprise system. Moreover, vendors have developed the Web services (WS), service-oriented architecture (SOA), and business process management suites (BPMS). The introduction of WS, SOA, and BPMs have increased the flexibility of ES infrastructures and changed ES capabilities BIB004 BIB005 . The interface among the information system network is increasingly becoming plug-and-play. This allows better collaboration within an organization internally, as well as between an organization and its partners externally BIB003 . Loose coupling, which is the fundamental characteristics of WS, SOA, and BPMS, is becoming embedded into the development of ES. Such development is making ES agility-enabling applications BIB007 .