IMPACT OF ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE ON THE ACHIEVEMENT OF STRATEGIC ADVANTAGES OF ENTERPRISE RESOURCE PLANNING SYSTEM (SYSTEMS APPLICATIONS AND PRODUCTS ) AT EAST AFRICA BOTTLING S.Co

Abstract

This paper is aimed at studying the relationship that organizational culture has with the achievement of strategic advantages from implementing ERP software known as SAP by EABSC. In order to undertake this study, the researcher has distributed questionnaires to 49 participants including 32 management staff and 17 SAP System implementers to test a number of hypotheses. A CVF approach to measuring organizational culture was used to quantitatively measure an organization’s cultural profile. Accordingly, rational culture was found the most dominant culture followed by group, developmental and hieratical culture in EABSC. However, all the four cultures were high in terms of level. The results of the descriptive analysis for the ERP construct items showed that improved communication, increased efficiency and better collaboration were major achievements based on their mean value. The overall mean of the ERP construct was 3.75 representing a high level. The ERP construct was represented by the overall mean of the items to represent as a single dependent variable. PLS method of SEM was then used to determine the relationship that the organization's culture has with ERP success. The results show the organization's culture is significantly related to the achievement of strategic advantages from implementing ERP systems like SAP in EABSC. The researcher recommends that identifying and understanding the organizational culture is necessary before ERP implementation as there is a clear indication of a positive relationship that an appropriate culture is vital to the success of ERP. In addition, business organizations, which are thinking to buy or upgrade the available ERP system, should pay more emphasize to create a culture that believes in ERP system expected benefits. Moreover EABSC managers, system implementers and other business organization managers should measure achieved strategic advantages more frequently to gauge its impact on overall organizational performance.