ERP in the minds of supervisors : Joint roles of task interdependence and cultural norms

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to test the existence of direct and moderating effects of task interdependence and culture on supervisory views of enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. Design/methodology/approach – To analyze these effects, an experiment was conducted in the USA and The People's Republic of China. A total of 304 management supervisors participated. Participants were exposed to an interdependence manipulation and then rated the importance of ERP in the case contexts described by experimental treatments. Findings – Results support the moderating effects of culture on the extent to which task interdependence impacts managerial views of the communicative capabilities of ERP systems. Task interdependence effects are much less severe among the views of Chinese managers. Research limitations/implications – Main limitations potentially stem from our specific operationalizations of the factors studied as well as selectivity of the subject pool. As with many empirical comparisons of culture, these limitations may confine the application of the findings to the two national contexts studied. Practical implications – If managers in China (as compared to their US counterparts) are more enthusiastic of the communication capabilities provided by ERP systems regardless of the extent to which internal processes are interdependent, then the business cases that support ERP adoption and extension should be expected to emphasize the benefits of such capabilities. This may foster a strategic distinction in the use of these architectures in the two settings. Originality/value – This study specifically examines the interactive effects of task interdependency and culture on managerial perceptions regarding ERP communicative capabilities.