Cultural universality versus particularity within e-CRM systems: a special case of information systems

Cultural factors are often identified as a crucial influence on the success or failure ofInformation Systems in general and Electronic Customer Relationship ManagementSystems (eCRM) in particular. Several researchers have suggested ways in whichmanagement can accommodate these factors or solve the problem they pose. This paperattempts to go one step beyond management measures and ask whether there is atheoretical foundation on which one can base the mutual influence of culture on eCRM.There is a lack of pervious literature on the impact of culture differences on eCRMsystems. A normative literature review on the impact of culture on different types ofInformation Systems has been done to explore different cultural factors that mightinfluence eCRM systems as an application of Information Systems. The authors highlightthe cultures factors in macro and micro level that have been investigated in the literature ofInformation systems. At the macro level, it is necessary to consider the differences at anational level. The differentiating characteristics will include: organizational structures,function and process oriented views, supervisory control mechanisms etc. Micro levelconsiderations will be at the individual level and will include human responses toorganizational change, cultural acceptability of different organizational structures etc. Theauthors propose a framework of cultural concerns for management of eCRM systemswithin multinational environment organizations. This framework will be tested in futureresearch and will be modified according to the results.