Adapting American ERP systems for China: Cross-cultural issues and a case study

Every business or government agency needs to track information regarding their finances, their employees, and the items or assets they own and manage. Software applications that track this type of information are called enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. Managing these assets in an integrated application allows an organization to have a consistent view across the entire enterprise. This enterprise-wide view allows ERP systems to go beyond the traditional transaction-based accounting systems maintained at the organization level and deliver fully integrated financial and human capital management based on industry-derived best practices across organizations. In response to the pressures of global competition, enterprises today are forging ahead with the mission of integrating information systems across corporate boundaries to unite customers, suppliers and any other business partners with which they interact. And in the mean time, with the development of the society, more and more people have to go many places because the job makes them and working at home also becomes more and more popular. Those people who are not at the place of their company also want to continue their work in other places even at home. The old style ERP system is in C/S model and cannot satisfy with the needs. So it is very necessary to upgrade the ERP system. This paper will go to figure out the application of the Web service in the upgrading of ERP system. In this paper, we focus on that how to upgrade or renew a C/S ERP system to an ERP system with B/S model and the application of Web service. We use the J2EE architecture and XML technology to provide Web service and upgrade/renew the former ERP system. UML tools play a very important role in the upgrading procedure. We use UML to analysis and design the B/S ERP system, which based on the C/S version. We use JSP to act as the view of the system because of its flexibility. In the Web service, the XML is necessary. So the XML technology is also used. In the end of the paper, we will figure out how these technologies to be used through a concrete example.

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems have emerged as essential tools in streamlining financial reporting and improving management efficiency across various industries, including large-scale energy operations. This theoretical review explores how ERP systems enhance financial reporting by integrating real-time data, automating financial processes, and fostering transparency. In energy operations, where financial activities are complex and data-intensive, ERP systems centralize financial data, reducing errors, improving compliance, and supporting decision-making through enhanced visibility and accuracy. By automating tasks such as budgeting, forecasting, and financial statement generation, ERP systems enable energy companies to efficiently manage their financial resources, thus optimizing cost control and profitability. Additionally, ERP systems provide significant benefits for management efficiency, particularly in large-scale operations. The integration of financial, operational, and managerial processes within a single platform allows for better resource allocation, improved communication across departments, and faster response times to market fluctuations. These capabilities are crucial in the energy sector, where companies face volatile market conditions, regulatory pressures, and high operational risks. ERP systems enhance managerial decision-making by providing real-time insights into key performance indicators (KPIs), enabling executives to make data-driven decisions that support long-term strategic goals. However, implementing ERP systems in large-scale energy operations presents challenges, including high costs, lengthy implementation periods, and the need for employee training. This review also examines these barriers and suggests strategies for successful ERP adoption, including phased implementation, stakeholder engagement, and customization to industry-specific needs. In conclusion, ERP systems hold the potential to revolutionize financial reporting and management efficiency in large-scale energy operations. By leveraging ERP's real-time data integration and process automation, energy companies can significantly improve their financial management, enhance decision-making, and adapt more quickly to market changes. Keywords: ERP Systems, Financial Reporting, Management Efficiency, Large-Scale Energy Operations, Process Automation, Real-Time Data Integration, Decision-Making, Cost Control, Market Fluctuations, Energy Sector.

Global and Malaysian Perspective Ahmad Saleh Shatat, Faculty of Business, Sohar University Sohar, Oman, and Zulkifli Mohamed Udin College of Business, Universiti Utara Malaysia, Kedah Darul Aman , Malaysia Abstract: Business management has entered the era of networking competition. This has moved the competition from a local to that of global business environments and from company against company to that of a supply chain against supply chain. Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system has become one of the main pre-requisites for many companies enabling them to compete in the local and global market, a price of entry to gain a competitive advantage in the global economy, and a backbone for e-business as well as for the whole supply chain. Many companies are still reluctant to implement ERP system and therefore they will not be able to connect their supply chain with several global and local companies where ERP system has become a prerequisite and a price of entry for the global economy. This study has investigated the main issues, challenges and the benefits of ERP system. ERP systems will be the price of entry and a prerequisite for many companies enabling them to run their business smoothly and effectively, and to be able to connect with other companies in the current global network economy. 1. ERP Global Change The big five ERP venders in the ERP global market are SAP, Oracle, PeopleSoft, J.D. Edwards, and Baan. In 1999 they acquired 59 percent of ERP revenue and each has specialty in a particular module area, for example, SAP specialized in logistics, Oracle in financials, PeopleSoft in human resources management, and Bann in manufacturing. SAP was the largest ERP vendor among them with revenue of $5 billion, and then Oracle with $2.4 billion in sales, followed by PeopleSoft with $1.3 billion, J.D. Edwards with $979 million, and finally Baan with sales of $743 million. The most three famous ERP venders in ERP market are SAP, Oracle, and PeopleSoft. Figure 1.1 describes the three biggest ERP venders’ competitors in the global market (McAdam & Galloway, 2005; Holland & Light, 1999)

ERP systems have great influence on the tax auditing in enterprises implemented by the taxation authorities. This paper analyzes the influence caused by ERP on tax auditing and the countermeasures can be taken by the tax auditors. The major influence caused by ERP on tax auditing is as follows. The visible tax auditing clues reduce. The emphases of tax auditing should be changed. And the data collection of tax auditing becomes more difficult. In order to deal with the influence caused by ERP systems, the tax auditors should take the following countermeasures: Strengthen the controls before the establishment and during the operation of ERP Systems. Restrict enterprise's financial activities and tax behaviors according to the law. Choose tax auditing method carefully in ERP Systems. And develop tax auditing software adapted to the ERP environment.

Process mining techniques provide capabilities for discovering the real business process flows from data, and compare expected and actual behaviors. Actual behaviors, in many cases, are obtained from Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems and other enterprise information systems transaction logs. These transaction logs provide valuable insight into the companies' business processes. They traditionally hold a large amount of data in a set of conceptual documents related to each other through one-to-many and many-to-many relations, where information changes occur in transactions. Underlying data model gives rise to complex interactions between multiple data objects without a clear notion of a unique case identifier in an isolated process. However, enterprise process mining techniques can be applied only to event logs containing event data related to one notion of process instances. Within ERP systems, such event logs are not explicitly given and substantial domain knowledge is required to select the right data from multiple tables in relational databases. In order to respond to this need, in this paper we present an abstract syntax of domain specific language (DSL) for facilitating the extraction of an appropriate dataset from ERP systems by domain experts, and its conversion into event log based on XES IEEE standard. It is developed specifically to describe behavior over complex data from ERP systems in terms of multiple interacting artifacts. The goal is to align the data and process perspectives, supporting extraction of complex ambiguous cases, affected by data convergence and data divergence problems. The basic concepts of the language as well as principles are discussed in depth in this paper.

Research Question: What are the accounting benefits perceived by accountants and internal auditors that entail through Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems? Is there an interaction of ERP accounting benefits with the accountants’ and internal auditors’ satisfaction level in using ERP systems? Motivation: Many organizations are implementing ERP systems extensively while sharing a common database and being real-time. Past scholars summon empirical studies on ERP's impact on accounting benefits and user satisfaction. Therefore, this study was conducted from accountants’ and internal auditors’ perspective as recent scholars shed light on the cruciality of these two groups' perceptions as key ERP users. Idea: This study examines the accounting benefits that entail through the adoption of ERP systems by Sri Lankan companies with regard to ERP user satisfaction from the perspective of accountants and internal auditors. Data: The data were collected from 38 accountants and 19 internal auditors across 24 companies that are implementing ERP systems for more than four years. Tools: A quantitative survey methodology is employed to draw empirical evidence. Findings: The findings confirm that organizational, operational (time), and IT accounting benefits derived from ERP systems significantly and positively influence ERP users' satisfaction. In contrast, operational accounting benefits (cost) received the lowest rating and did not significantly influence user satisfaction. Contribution: While these findings are valuable to accountants and internal auditors to better understand the ERP accounting benefits, ERP consultants and system providers also benefit from identifying ERP accounting features to uplift user satisfaction in developing countries.

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems are the most integrated information systems that cut across various organisations and functional areas. It has been observed that the majority of ERP systems proved to be a failure either in the design or its implementation. A number of reasons contribute in the success or failure of ERP systems. ERP systems inherently present unique risks due to tightly linked interdependencies of business processes, relational databases and process reengineering, and so on. Knowledge of such factors is important in the design of system and programme management as they contribute to the overall success of the system. In this paper, an attempt has been made to study the design factors for ERP systems in Indian organisations. To achieve this two public sector companies, namely PCL and PTL located in northern India, have been selected. Based on the study, various findings and recommendations have been put forward.

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems have become a standard for collecting all business areas in one system. For some organizations it is a necessity for doing business, while others use it to outperform competitors. Prior research in the area of ERP systems and competitive advantage is dispersed and insufficient. Based on literature review and in-depth interviews at two Norwegian enterprises we have developed a framework which we believe gives insight into the areas managers should focus on when implementing ERP systems. Our study supports the claim that ERP systems in themselves do not create a competitive advantage. Instead, they form an information basis which managers can utilize to outperform competitors. A good relationship between IT/IS managers and the rest of the management is crucial. The importance of top management support was highlighted and linking ERP and a data warehouse as a “bolt-on” was very beneficial in one of the enterprises. 1 All correspondence should be directed to Carl.E.Moe@hia.no

An enterprise resource planning (ERP) system is an integrated set of programs that provides support for core organizational activities, such as manufacturing and logistics, finance and accounting, sales and marketing, and human resources. An ERP system helps the different parts of an organization share data and knowledge, reduce costs, and improve management of business processes. In spite of their benefits, many ERP systems fail (Stratman & Roth, 1999). Implementing an ERP system is a major undertaking. About 90% of ERP implementations are late or over budget (Martin, 1998), and the success rate of ERP systems implementation is only about 33% (Zhang et al., 2003).

This study reviews the enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems in higher education institutions (HEIs), as a study like this is very scarce in literature. Because ERPs are consisted of modules, understanding modules designed for HEIs has remained unclear. The current scenery of research is very scattered with analysis conducted mainly in failures or success stories, or specifically factors for success during a module implementation. However, to this date there are no studies that provide a comprehensive picture of ERP modules for HEIs. This research contributes by reducing this gap by providing characteristics of the identified modules and making a clear distinction between the ERP modules in HEI and business. The results of this study show that it is arguable that standard tools for business organizations can be similarly applied in HEI. Rather, ERP systems in HEI are very different in terms of functionality and modules compared to corporate ERPs. The main contribution of this study is its originality and is the first study that provides an overview of HEI ERP with the core and extended modules, the functionalities and differences with the business ERPs.

ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) system is considered to provide benefits for the company. ERP systems provide useful accounting information for decision making. This
\nstudy aims to determine the impact of ERP systems on the relevance of accounting information and firm performance on companies that adopt ERP and companies that do not adopt ERP. In this study the relevance of accounting information is tested with three variables of predictive value, timeliness and feedback value. The results of this analysis are obtained from questionnaires that have been distributed to 75 companies, consisting of 40 companies that adopt ERP system and 35 companies that do not adoption of ERP system, the samples obtained by each of only 30 companies so that there are 60 companies studied. The hypothesis in this study will be tested using Mann Whitney nonparametric analysis with SPSS to look for differences in the impact of the two types of firms. This analysis proves that the ERP system affects the relevance of accounting information consisting of three variables and firm performance on companies that adopt ERP systems.

Linguistic performance evaluation for an ERP system with link failures

This study investigates the advantages of using Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems in business performance, focusing on employee, supervisor, and manager perspectives within Greek companies. It addresses the relationship between ERP system performance factors, including Completeness, Organizational Effectiveness of Use, Customer Relationship Improvement, and Financial Efficiency. A cross-sectional, quantitative, correlative, and comparative research design was employed, involving 170 participants from various sectors such as services, trade, and production. Participants completed a questionnaire assessing ERP performance, and data analysis was conducted using SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences) 26. The results indicate that ERP systems are rated high in Completeness and Customer Relationship Improvement, with moderate to high ratings for Organizational Effectiveness of Use and moderate for Financial Efficiency. Factors were found to be strongly positively correlated. Notably, Completeness and Financial Efficiency were influenced by the working position, with executive directors and accountant assistants expressing higher satisfaction. Additionally, the completeness of ERP systems was more supported by employees who work in general management and information technology. Moreover, the SAP (Systems Applications and Products) ERP system was most commonly associated with improved performance across all metrics. This study contributes to the understanding of ERP system effectiveness in Greece, highlighting the importance of ERP systems in optimizing decision-making processes, improving customer relationships, and enhancing financial efficiency. The findings emphasize the necessity of tailoring ERP systems to specific organizational roles to maximize their impact on business performance. The study also recommends further research with larger samples and stratified sampling techniques to confirm these results and explore additional dimensions of ERP performance.

Over the last five to eight years a large number of businesses worldwide have implemented Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Systems. ERP systems are a category of software that offer extensive support to manage business processes. They are application software that can be used in most kinds of businesses and organizations. Adoption and implementation of ERP systems involves risks and a large number of organizations have wasted millions of dollars as a result of failed implementations. Some of these failed implementations may be attributed to the selection of an ineffective ERP system. This paper applies Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to the process of selecting an ERP system.

Background: Public sector organisations encounter many challenges because of their complex legislative requirements, social responsibilities and higher public expectations. In the early 1980s, governments worldwide started experimenting with improving functions and processes through enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. Objective: This study investigated the feasibility of South African government institutions in adopting a guideline that will assist in implementing a sustainable ERP system to improve their information systems strategy. Method: This study followed the qualitative dominating mixed research methodology. A survey was distributed to 20 participants with closed-ended questions to collect quantitative data and open-ended questions to collect qualitative data. Results: Thirteen factors that allow ERP systems to be successfully implemented were identified. Some of the factors included effective change management policies, end-user specialised knowledge, organisation culture fit, top management support, ERP training before and post-implementation, visibility of activities throughout the workflow, and willingness to change. Sixteen issues that restrict ERP implementation were also identified. Some of the restricting factors include ERP system complexity, high levels of customisation, inadequate flexibility, budget, maintenance costs, lack of vendor support, implementation delays and cost overruns. The current state of ERP implementation in the investigated organisation is of acceptance with growth being achieved gradually and steadily. Conclusion: The proposed framework provides core competencies such as top management support, ERP training before and post-implementation, and effective change management policies among others, that can be used to establish corrective measures before and during the installation of ERP systems. Contribution: This study contributed to the body of knowledge by identifying the success and hindering factors of ERP system implementation. The proposed framework outlines guidelines for organisations to successfully adopt and implement ERP systems.