The Impact of Organizational Slack and Lag Time on Economic Productivity: The Case of ERP Systems

Much like research on the productivity paradox of the 1980s, empirical research has not provided a clear association between investments in enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems and improved productivity, even though these systems were designed, developed, and marketed as productivity improvement tools. This paper explores the relationship between organizational slack and productivity improvements resulting from investments in ERP systems. The authors provide support for the proposition that during the period of time surrounding implementation, firms build organizational slack; and following implementation organizational slack is absorbed and productivity increases. Furthermore, the authors find that even though manufacturing firms drive the decrease in organizational slack during the post-ERP period, the magnitude of the increase in productivity is significantly larger for non-manufacturing firms.