Description
ERP systems are generic, packaged software systems that provide comprehensive functionality and business process integration across the firm (Davenport, 2000; Klaus, Rosemann, and Gable, 2000).
Enterprise Integration in Business Education:
Design and Outcomes of a Capstone ERP-based
Undergraduate e-Business Management Course
Charles H. Davis
Professor, Faculty of Business
J ana Comeau
Director of Partnerships and Innovation
University of New Brunswick (Saint J ohn)
Saint J ohn, New Brunswick E2L 4L5 Canada
[email protected], [email protected]
ABSTRACT
This article describes the design, delivery, and outcomes of a course on enterprise integration at the senior undergradu-
ate level in the e-business concentration in the University of New Brunswick’s Faculty of Business. The course aims to
provide education to the young business manager regarding the process of adoption and exploitation of an ERP or en-
terprise-wide software system. The course is deliberately “business-centric” rather than technology-oriented. It con-
tains two streams: a management component based on readings and discussion, and a hands-on laboratory component
in which students individually configure a firm. We evaluated students’ performance in three areas: completion of a
learning log containing literature summaries and reflections on individual learning, completion of configuration exer-
cises on SAP R/3, and completion of a take-home business case.
We offer several suggestions to potential providers of enterprise integration education to business students. First, do
not underestimate the considerable operational requirements of a lab-based ERP course. Second, because no business-
oriented curriculum for enterprise integration business education is presently available on the market, teachers must be
prepared to develop one. Third, students have very different learning needs with respect to ERP. The combination of
hands-on lab learning and management learning via reading, discussions, and cases is very powerful but it is a chal-
lenge to balance the two streams and to relate the lab learnings with the management learnings.
Keywords: ERP, enterprise system, enterprise integration, e-business, business education, teaching, course, syllabus,
learning outcomes
1. INTRODUCTION
ERP systems are generic, packaged software systems
that provide comprehensive functionality and business
process integration across the firm (Davenport, 2000;
Klaus, Rosemann, and Gable, 2000). These enterprise-
wide software systems offer significant potential bene-
fits, as suggested by the growing scholarly literature that
seeks to conceptualize and measure types of organiza-
tional outcomes, business impacts, and return on invest-
ment among ERP adopter firms (e.g. Hawking and Stein,
2004; Hitt, Wu, and Zhou, 2002; Hunton, Lippincott, and
Reck, 2003; Spathis and Constantinides, 2004; Staehr,
Shanks, and Seddon, 2002). However, the scholarly and
trade literatures contain numerous accounts of the diffi-
culties that firms face in justifying their decisions to
implement integrated systems, in dealing with unantici-
pated side effects, and in learning to use these systems
well enough to produce business value (see, for example,
Gattiker and Goodhue, 2002; Granlund and Malmi,
2002; Hanseth, Ciborra, and Braa, 2001; Kumar,
Maheshwari, and Kumar, 2003; and Oliver and Romm,
2002). The organizational learning curve is steep, and
little is known about individual users’ learning processes
throughout the enterprise systemadoption cycle. Unlike
general computer skills, enterprise system user and man-
agement skills are not widely diffused in the working
population. Firms express a great deal of frustration
about the costs and modalities of learning to use ERP
systems. Formal and informal training and learning
processes are consistently identified as critical success
factors in mastery of ERP systems (Amoako-Gyampah,
2004; Esteves and Pastor, 2001; Umble, Haft, and Um-
ble, 2003).
Interest in the use of information and communication
technologies in business education has largely focused
on applications of technology-mediated learning rather
than on learning to use core business IT tools. Although
private and public organizations incur significant costs in
adopting enterprise-wide systems, they have not yet
made strong enough or clear enough demands on educa-
tional establishments for the latter to routinely provide
some level of ERP competence and understanding
among their graduates. MIS students are sometimes
exposed to ERP technology, but business students in
other functional areas usually are not. When they are,
they typically learn operational skills related to their
functional area rather than acquire cross-functional busi-
ness process management understanding. Moreover,
they are not provided an understanding of the larger set
of management issues involved in adopting and exploit-
ing enterprise-wide systems. ERP technology is rela-
tively new to the business school curriculum. Bradford,
Vijayaraman, and Chandra’s (2003) survey of account-
ing and MIS professors (with responses primarily from
U.S. universities) showed that 37 percent of 94 respond-
ing business schools had brought enterprise systems into
their curricula, although fewer than one-third of these
teach a complete enterprise system module or cross-
functional business topics involving more than one mod-
ule.
The question of how and why core business technologies
should be integrated into the business curriculum, and
which capabilities should persons other than information
systems specialists acquire in respect of business tech-
nologies, has not been thoroughly addressed. Most em-
ployers of business school graduates do not seem to have
yet made a connection between the very high learning
costs that firms incur when adopting advanced informa-
tion technologies, including ERP systems, and the degree
of IT-based business tool competence and comprehen-
sion of their new employees. But many factors militate
against the adoption of complex business technologies in
university business schools for teaching and learning
purposes. These include the multidisciplinary scope of
enterprise system concepts that requires internal cross-
disciplinary coordination in curriculum design and
course delivery; the concern that keyboarding and labo-
ratory activities not supplant acquisition of management
theory and principles; the cost and considerable opera-
tional complexity of delivering lab-based learning with
enterprise software; and retaining faculty members with
ERP experience (Becerra-Fernandez, Murphy, and
Simon, 2000; Corbitt and Mensching, 2000)..
This article describes the design, delivery, and learning
outcomes of a capstone course in enterprise integration
for senior undergraduate e-business majors in the Faculty
of Business at the University of New Brunswick. The
course aimed to provide education to the young business
manager regarding the process of adoption and exploita-
tion of an enterprise system. In keeping with the phi-
losophical orientation of our e-business program, the
course was intended to be “business-centric” rather than
technology-oriented. It contains two components: a
management theory component based on readings and
discussion, and a hands-on laboratory component in
which students individually configure a firm.
The paper is organized as follows. In the next section we
discuss the dimensions of organizational learning to use
an ERP system and compare these with current ap-
proaches to ERP education and training. We then de-
scribe the syllabus of our Enterprise Integration course
and discuss issues in the implementation of the course.
Finally, we explore learning outcomes and students’
reaction to the course. In the conclusion we offer several
suggestions to those who seek to provide enterprise inte-
gration education to business students.
2. THE ERP LEARNING CURVE
In spite of many improvements in usability in recent
years, ERP systems are notoriously challenging to learn
to use. ERP systems represent a significant extension of
earlier information technology in terms of scale of organ-
izational effects, transparency of intraorganizational
transactions, and pervasiveness of the technology in the
work environment, complicating adoption and mastery
of the software. ERP system successes as well as fail-
ures can have large-scale organizational impacts (Hitt,
Wu, and Zhou, 2002). Through cross-functional busi-
ness process integration, ERP systems create transac-
tional intraorganizational interdependencies such that
every action has effects elsewhere in the organization
(Kallinikos, 2004). Errors that in earlier systems were
contained in localized environments propagate quickly in
ERP systems along business processes and must be cor-
rected before other workflows can take place. Mis-
alignments of IT and organizational structure are diffi-
cult to identify and correct early enough to avoid costly
rework at a later stage (Sia and Soh, 2002). The systems
are complex and to many users they operate as black
boxes. It is not simple for non-expert users to untangle
configuration, data, and human errors, and this affects
the efficiency of individual and organizational learning.
The most widely used frameworks for measuring infor-
mation system adoption and use – the Technology Ac-
ceptance Model (Davis, 1989) and the Delone-McLean
IS Success Model (1992) - assume that use of informa-
tion systems is discretionary and that user satisfaction is
a good predictor of IS success. However, in many ERP-
enabled work environments, use of the system is man-
datory. Employees may be more or less satisfied with
the system or use the system more or less effectively, but
they have to use it whether they are satisfied with it or
not because they cannot accomplish their work without
it. Explanations of business value creation via ERP sys-
tems must adapt prevailing models of IS system success
to take into account worker, manager, and executive
attitudes and competencies as users and the effects of
degrees of individual and group user competence on sys-
tem outcomes (Meta Group, 2003; Kraemmergaard and
Rose, 2002
The organizational aspects of ERP systems are notori-
ously more difficult to manage than implementation of
the technology per se. ERP systems introduce massive
changes into organizations (Hall, 2002). In general, low-
skill jobs involving routine data manipulation are elimi-
nated, while remaining jobs acquire greater degrees of
responsibility and intensity, and require greater cognitive
effort. Downsizing, delayering, downward delegation of
responsibility for task completion with centralization of
overall surveillance and control capability, and increased
organizational clock speed are the most frequently men-
tioned consequences of enterprise systems for design of
jobs and organization of work.
Enterprise system adoption can be described in terms of
implementation or life cycle models in which the adopter
progresses through “stages” of development (for exam-
ple, Holland and Light, 2001, or Rajagopal 2002) that are
easily interpreted as steps of increasing firm-level capa-
bility in use of the software. Most of what is currently
known about learning to use ERP systems encompasses
the initial adoption process, which usually involves a
loss of efficiency while the firm implements the software
system and learns the new routines embedded in the
software. Little is known of processes of post-imple-
mentation learning or “infusion” via extended use of
ERP software in which users go beyond learned routines
to develop improved ways of doing things (Sousa, 2002;
Sousa and Goodhue, 2003). ERP systems usually con-
tain more than one pathway toward task completion.
The discovery of these pathways is a source of sense of
creativity and innovation among users, although ulti-
mately workplace innovation with enterprise software
tools appears to be constrained (Davis, 2004). Further-
more, the process of adoption and mastery of an ERP
system involves a large and varying group of workers,
technical staff, managers, and external service providers
throughout the adoption lifecycle (Somers and Nelson,
2004). An impressive range of technical and organiza-
tional learnings must take place in the course of adoption
and mastery of an ERP system. Stage and life cycle
models can offer important insights into the ways that
learning support services might be organized for ERP
adopters.
1
Some of the learning may be supported
through formal training or education offerings but much
of the learnings are embedded in individual or group ex-
periences of learning-by-doing and informal or formal
on-the-job learning support processes.
3. WHAT SHOULD ENTERPRISE INTEGRATION
EDUCATION ENTAIL?
ERP systems pose a variety of significant learning chal-
lenges to adopter firms. What value can university-
based business education involving enterprise systems
contribute to acquisition of ERP capability in adopter
organizations? Arguments in favour of bringing enter-
prise systems into the business curriculum point to to the
benefits of exposing business students to up-to-date
business tools and a business process orientation, per-
mitting learning about enterprise systems theory (i.e.
management and benefits of enterprise-wide software
systems), and the increased employability of students
who have gained some familiarity with enterprise sys-
tems (Bradford, Vijayaraman, and Chandra, 2003; Gable
and Rosemann, 1999; Guthrie and Guthrie, 2000; Rich-
termeyer and.Bradford, 2003; Seethamraju, 2002; Stew-
art and Rosemann, 2001). Faculty members benefit from
enrichment of teaching and increased opportunities for
professional development and research, and universities
benefit from increased demand for graduates and oppor-
tunities to collaborate with the business community
(ibid.). Our own challenge, described below, was to
bring enterprise systems into a capstone undergraduate e-
business course.
The most obvious learning need in adoption of an ERP
system is for end users to acquire operational capability
with the software. This is the focus of most vendor-sup-
plied training courses: how to manipulate the software
and perform transactions. Training usually consists of
keyboarding exercises with progression to relatively
clear-cut problem solving assignments. This is a neces-
sary but not sufficient way to acquire competence as a
user. The celebrated CIO Magazine cover story pro-
claiming that “ERP Training Stinks” (Wheatley, 2000)
captures the feelings of many firms regarding the relative
costs and benefits of ERP training. The problem is that
operational training enables users to navigate in some
areas of the system and execute tasks but provides no
understanding of why the tasks are being performed.
ERP training manuals focus on step by step instruction
on task completion, not on business process logic (cf.
Scott and Sugar, 2004). Employers consider that ERP
training has limited value unless it enables the user to
understand information flows and business processes
(Wheatly, 2000). Without the ability to relate the opera-
tional task to a business process that connects various
points in the firm in order to produce value, users have
difficulty correcting errors or understanding how their
own work affects others. Unfortunately, the literature on
end-user training (reviewed by Niederman and Webster,
1998) says little about such process learning.
The distinction between ERP training and ERP education
defines a division of labor between ERP software ven-
dors and partners in the sphere of higher education.
Universities or colleges may offer for-credit educational
courses that use ERP as a platform, but they may not
offer training courses leading to certification. This pro-
vision of the software licensing agreement protects an
important revenue stream for vendors. The distinction
between ERP training and education also allows univer-
sities to define their own educational product in terms of
abstract, formal knowledge, as opposed to vocational
training. However, the distinction between training and
education as know-how versus know-why does not map
easily onto enterprise systems curricula in universities,
which display a wide range of learning methods and
objectives and frequently include activities that are de-
signed to convey operational know-how as well as man-
agement know-why. Training is often interpreted as
development of technical skills (Mennel, 2002). Enter-
prise systems can be taught at a high level of abstraction;
they can also be introduced into business curricula incre-
mentally to provide different “levels of immersion” in
the system (Guthrie and Guthrie, 2000). Finally, enter-
prise systems are objects of innovation in teaching meth-
ods, in matters of simulations for business process and
process-oriented management learning, and in distance
learning, and interuniversity collaboration (Antonucci
and zur Muehlen, 2001; Noguira and Watson, 1999;
Stewart et al., 2002; Shtub, 2001),
As we discuss below, an important challenge to ERP
education is to bridge the gap between microlevel skills
acquisition processes and general comprehension of
management theory and principles. This requires devel-
opment of a midlevel learning framework that recontex-
tualizes tasks and operations in terms of business proc-
esses and their management. If key individual ERP user
competence is located at this level, then real-time, con-
tinuous e-learning support and learning programs deliv-
ered in the workplace (rather than classroom-based busi-
ness education) may be the solution that industry chooses
as it seeks to improve ERP learning efficiencies (see,
e.g., Meta Group 2003). However, organizational ERP
competence encompasses more than business process
management capabilities. Stratman and Roth (2002)
identify eight groups of competencies (strategic IT plan-
ning, executive commitment, project management, IT
skills, business process skills, and ERP training, learn-
ing, and change readiness). ERP management education
needs to provide managers opportunities to improve their
capabilities in these areas.
The most widely accepted meaning of education is to
develop understanding. Kallinikos’ (1999) analysis of
information systems using concepts from linguistics and
semiotics provides a useful perspective on the cognitive
challenges of working in organizations based on inte-
grated software systems. Users need to develop compre-
hension in two areas: semantic comprehension and refer-
ence. Semantic comprehension refers to the problem of
making sense of the symbols and strings of symbols of
which the system is composed and with which the user
interacts with the system. Software is a system of self-
referential signs, symbols, and tokens, a kind of abstract
language. The architecture of the system, its rules of
operation, and its output statements are expressed in a
multitude of symbols and signs that users must learn.
The experience of ERP training can seem akin to memo-
rizing a telephone book – a flood of details without ref-
erence to an evident organizing framework or logic.
Novice users may find the graphical user interface
(GUI), with its unfamiliar symbols and arrangement of
records, challenging enough. Young users accustomed
to videogames who imagine themselves to be quite pro-
ficient with interactive technologies are dismayed to find
that business information systems have largely broken
from the conventions of similarity and proximity of
means for signifying. In other words, in contrast to
computer media entertainment in which symbols are
often graphical depictions of things and environments
that they represent, the symbols used in the business
system are primarily abstract, without intrinsic relation-
ship or similarity of appearance or physical analogy to
the things or environments that they stand for. In the
case of SAP R/3, for example, users need to understand
the organizational structure of the firm in terms of units
called FI, MM, CO, PP, and SD, etc.; the structure of the
master data in terms of a vocabulary of cost element
groups, purchasing groups, controlling areas, etc.; the
business rules in terms of a grammar of automatic post-
ings, credits, tolerances, document numbering, and so
forth; and the action of the system (transactions, proc-
esses, or workflows) in terms of sentences of specific
linked sets of procedures such as converting a planned
order to a production order, creating a sales order using
an item proposal, or checking stock status. Users are in
effect speaking an abstract language based on combina-
tions of symbols, signs, and tokens. Enterprise system
training acquaints new users with this language largely
through exercises, whereas human language education
would include a systematic mapping and dictionary of
the symbols, tokens, signs, and conventions of the sys-
tem, and an abstract treatment of rules of grammar.
Without the aid of a dictionary, a structural map, and a
grammar, learners of enterprise system symbols and
signs concentrate on learning sequences of keystrokes.
The second area in which users need to develop compre-
hension is reference, meaning the thing or situation re-
ferred to by a symbol or sign. Enterprise systems are
models of firms, and their components and transactions
refer to real parts of firms and real business processes
and transactions. However, in ERP systems, the soft-
ware becomes the firm and supplants paper-based trans-
actions. Because the software reproduces real business
processes, a user with experience in a functional area of
a firm can readily comprehend the business processes
that have been embedded in the software. In other
words, the user comprehends the references of the soft-
ware. However, persons without such business experi-
ence cannot easily comprehend the references of the
software, which to them represent an additional dimen-
sion of abstraction. This means that learners without
relevant business experience will comprehend the refer-
ent business operations in terms of the software that
mimics them.
2
Decontextualization of decision frameworks and process
automation of organizations represent not just cognitive
challenges to workers, but also a major change in the
ways that organizations behave that affects their man-
agement, routines, and learning processes (D’Adderio,
2003; Kallinikos, 2004; Strong, Volkoff, and Elmes,
2003; Tang, Sia, Soh, and Boh, 2000). An understanding
of the management issues raised by information-inten-
sive work in decontextualized, process-integrated work
environments is an important objective of future re-
search.
4. A CAPSTONE UNDERGRADUATE ENTER-
PRISE INTEGRATION COURSE
Enterprise Integration was taught in 2004 as the capstone
course in the “business-centric” e-business stream in
UNBSJ ’s Faculty of Business. The business-centric
curriculum for the e-business program was designed on
the advice of industry partners who identified a need for
graduates with hybrid competencies: individuals with
business and people skills and with the ability to work in
technical environments with technical people (Davis and
Hajnal, 1998). In this program e-business majors take
six required courses (Introduction to Electronic Com-
merce, Technology Fundamentals of Electronic Com-
merce, Industry Impact of Electronic Commerce, Mar-
keting on the Internet, Policy and Security Issues, and
the capstone course: Organizations and Electronic Com-
merce). They also take two electives from a selection of
several e-commerce courses: Frontiers of Electronic
Commerce, Consumer Behavior, Management of New
Enterprise, Management of Online Business, Accounting
Information Systems, and Management of Technology.
In previous years, the capstone course had focused on
integrative case analysis, special topics in consumer
behaviour, and workflow. Although UNBSJ had been a
member of the SAP University Alliance since 1998 and
several faculty members had received training, the usual
factors dissuaded colleagues from using enterprise sys-
tem software in the business curriculum. This situation
changed in 2003 when the Dolphin Group’s stand-alone
enterprise integration course (Dolphin Group, 2002),
associated training workshops, and remote hosting of the
database and clients all became available to members of
the SAP University Alliance.
We had previously taught undergraduate and MBA e-
business courses with an enterprise integration focus.
Our starting point in the design and delivery of the new
capstone Enterprise Integration course was the observa-
tion, based on an extensive literature review and on field
research with ERP-using organizations, that enterprise-
wide systems are unusually complex business tools that
cannot yield business without significant investment in
time and energy on the part of adopter organizations.
Our objective in this course was to prepare e-business
graduates for ERP-enabled work environments as em-
ployees or managers by providing a conceptual frame-
work and enough familiarity with an enterprise system to
gain a sense of self-efficacy regarding use of the tech-
nology or management of users in a business environ-
ment, thereby improving learning efficiencies on the part
of the adopter organization. Our Enterprise Integration
course is designed to be a management-oriented course
that follows the selection, implementation, and post-im-
plementation cycle of enterprise system adoption. As a
capstone course, Enterprise Integration completes our
program’s learning sequence by requiring the student to
use previous learnings to address and solve business
problems. The course has a management theory compo-
nent and a lab component. In the theory component, the
student learns how to manage the selection and deploy-
ment of ERP systems, with a focus on understanding the
organizational processes and individual competencies
required to take advantage of enterprise-wide software.
The lab component seeks to expose students to the com-
plexities of an ERP system by requiring them to config-
ure their own company in an SAP R/3 environment.
Overall, our Enteprise Integration course aims to provide
a sound conceptual foundation regarding the adoption
and effective use of ERP systems in firms; to provide
examples so that the student may apply the concepts in
real business situations; and to provide hands-on experi-
ence in configuring a firm with SAP R/3 software so that
the student may understand and appreciate the modalities
of achieving cross-functional software-based business
process integration.
The course was team-taught in two sections to about
twenty-five students. One of us took the lead on the
management learning component and the other on the lab
component. The course was delivered in three contact
hours per week over a period of thirteen weeks. Ninety
minutes were devoted to management theory and prac-
tice, and ninety minutes to hands-on laboratory learning
on SAP R/3. We evaluated students’ performance in
three areas: completion of a take-home business case,
completion of configuration exercises on SAP R/3, and
completion of a learning log containing literature sum-
maries and reflections on individual learning. The con-
figuration exercises were completed twice: once in a
learning environment and once in a testing environment.
Students’ performance in the lab was evaluated in terms
of completion of assignments, not for functionality of the
configuration. The learning logs were submitted weekly,
and required the students to summarize their under-
standing of the issues presented in the week’s readings,
assess the relative importance of the information, present
the learning challenges from the week’s lab exercises,
and submit questions.
The management learning component was designed to
provide a conceptual framework about business process
innovation and its supporting technologies, then address
the sequence of management issues through the ERP
adoption cycle. For this component we examined a
number of textbooks but found none that provided the
perspective and material we sought. Therefore, we as-
sembled reading packages from scholarly and trade lit-
erature. Each week, students were required to complete
a learning log in which readings were summarized and in
which the student provided reflections on learnings in the
lab and in the classroom. This component included a
weekly lecture lasting about forty-five minutes, followed
by a discussion in class. Table 1 shows the topics cov-
ered under the management component of our Enterprise
Integration course. Students learned about the rationale
for enterprise integration, the drivers and mechanisms of
process innovation, how to build a business case for
investment in enterprise systems, the software selection
and vendor management process, project planning and
organization, the implementation process and associated
change management issues, the management of enter-
prise systems in the post-implementation phase, and
decision making with enterprise systems.
[table 1 here]
The final evaluative component of the course was a
business case in which students had to apply their
knowledge to respond to a Request for Proposal from a
company seeking to invest in an ERP system. Students
were required to respond to a range of questions about
likely costs of adoption of an enterprise system, benefits,
other impacts on the adopter, and management and or-
ganization of the initiative
Three undergraduate Teaching Assistants were made
available by the University. For these positions we re-
cruited upper-level Electronic Commerce students with
IT backgrounds and prepared them to serve as surrogate
super-users in the labs. The TAs worked two or three
weeks ahead in the lab exercises, and assisted the stu-
dents as they moved through the exercises. The TAs
proved to be a valuable contribution to the course man-
agement team. They were able to troubleshoot and solve
many of the multitude of smaller problems that occurred,
freeing the instructors to concentrate on course delivery
and management of major issues.
5. DELIVERING THE LAB COMPONENT OF THE
ENTERPRISE INTEGRATION COURSE
The lab component for the course offering was adapted
from the Implementation of an Integrated Business Solu-
tion course developed by the Dolphin Group, an SAP
Consulting and Education firm based in South Dakota
(Dolphin Group, 2002). The Dolphin Group course is
designed to introduce students to integrated business
processes through the configuration of a small manufac-
turing firm. The course exposes students to business
processes through a series of mini-lectures that are then
reinforced with exercises in the SAP environment. The
expected outcome of the lab course is that students learn
the basics of business process integration by individually
configuring a sporting goods company in SAP R/3.
The Dolphin Group offers this course to SAP University
Alliance members, and encourages faculty members who
have undergone the suggested training to incorporate it
into their curriculum. Training involves a ten-day work-
shop exposing faculty participants to the course by hav-
ing them work through the entire program as students,
and a separate five-day workshop in which the configu-
ration of the clients and servers required to run the
course are reviewed. The format of the training helps to
reinforce some of the anticipated student user issues as
faculty members struggle with the interface, logic and
nomenclature of the system.
The Dolphin course encompasses the Financial, Control-
ling, Materials Management, Production Planning and
Sales and Distribution modules of SAP R/3. Time con-
straints, unanticipated down time of the hosted applica-
tion, and a restructuring of the lab curriculum limited the
Enterprise Integration course offering to the first four
modules. Students in the course completed the configu-
ration of the first four modules twice, once in a learning
environment and once in order to be tested. This ap-
proach was not originally planned, but was incorporated
into the course delivery as it became clear that students
were slow to grasp relationships among the business
processes they were setting up.
Throughout the semester, it became increasingly appar-
ent that some of the most trying issues related to teaching
the principles of ERP using the Dolphin SAP Imple-
mentation course arose at the operational level, involving
the system as well as individual users. The operational
issues can be broken down into four broad categories:
set-up and teaching issues, hosting issues, software is-
sues, and client level issues. Set-up and teaching issues
concern the initial configuration of the student learning
environments, as well as the teaching responsibilities that
fell outside of the scope of routine undergraduate busi-
ness education program delivery. Software issues en-
compass the challenges of teaching the SAP R/3 system.
Hosting issues refer to the realities of running a lab-
based course in an application server provider (ASP)
environment. The client level issues are specific to the
Dolphin course design in which students work on par-
ticular companies but are required to have access to cor-
porate level settings. The first two sets of issues proba-
bly exist in most software laboratory teaching environ-
ments, while the latter two are specific to the lab compo-
nent of the course.
The set-up requirements of the lab component were
much more onerous than expected. The instructor must
develop the student environment on the corresponding
server. The initial set-up requires the configuration of
two separate environments, one for demonstration pur-
poses and the other for student work. In total, this
amounts to fifty to eighty hours of work, depending on
the instructor’s knowledge of the system. The outcome
of this set-up task is the creation of two master clients
that can be copied each time the course is subsequently
taught. Thus, the set-up time for future course offerings
is lessened, but only as long as the same server and SAP
R/3 version are used. If either of these parameters
changes then the entire process must be repeated in the
new environment.
We severely underestimated the time required to trouble-
shoot the system throughout the course. Errors during
set-up would prevent students from successful comple-
tion of their exercises and would create problems during
course delivery. Following configuration of the clients
by an instructor, extensive testing must be carried and
actual transactions performed. In our Enterprise Integra-
tion course the burden of testing was borne by the two
instructors and the three TAs, who worked two to three
weeks ahead of the rest of the class in the course exer-
cises in order to identify configuration problems before
the exercises were performed in the classroom. This
rigorous pre-testing of the configuration immediately
before use of the system in the lab environment was also
necessary in order to identify and correct discrepancies
between the laboratory exercises and the SAP interface
and command structure. The exercises were designed
for SAP R/3 4.6C and had to be adapted for the 4.6B
environment used by the software hosting institution.
This required tedious checking of nomenclature, opera-
tional sequence and exercise descriptions. Failure to
identify such differences created confusion amongst the
students, and resulted in an inordinate of amount of time
expended to clarify the issue.
To encourage group learning amog students we intro-
duced a Frequently Asked Question (FAQ) discussion
board on the course management website with subhead-
ings for each group of exercises. Instructors and Teach-
ing Assistants shared responsibility to monitor this board
and reply to questions between 8 am and midnight seven
days a week. A number of students also offered solu-
tions to problems posted on the discussion board. With
instructors’ knowledge of the Dolphin course limited to
around two hundred hours of experience, many questions
from students about the systemor other modules could
not be answered. The only way to deal with this poten-
tially stressful situation is to emphasize to the students
that even SAP J edi only know a small fraction of the
system. This sets the stage for a collaborative learning
environment.
Finally, although we were able to solve many problems
that occurred, we frequently required recourse to the
technical expertise of the original course designers from
the Dolphin Group. Without this support we would have
experienced significant difficulties.
Perhaps the most perplexing teaching challenge in the
lab component involved the testing of the student knowl-
edge of the system. In the final lab session, students
were asked to complete various transaction-based exer-
cises in their test environments, with the understanding
that if properly configured, their companies would suc-
cessfully generate the corresponding transaction num-
bers. This apparently reasonable means of testing stu-
dents has drawbacks: how can instructors differentiate
between student errors and a system error caused by
faulty or corrupt data? The other concern with this as-
sessment method is to determine whether it tested stu-
dents’ understanding of business processes or merely
their ability to follow instructions in the configuration
exercises. It appears that students with the most fully
operational company configurations had a better grasp of
the SAP R/3 system’s functionality, but it is not clear
how well students learned about the underlying business
processes.
The second set of operational issues relates to the use of
a hosted software solution. Use of an ASP provides
many benefits because the host institution has far more
technical expertise, infrastructure, and support services
than we do. Our experience with with applications host-
ing was much more positive than that reported by
Seethamraju (2002). However, the ASP arrangement
poses some challenges. In the case of our Enterprise
Integration course, the SAP R/3 system was hosted at a
university approximately 500 kilometers away in a
neighboring province. The relationship with the ASP
was well established prior to the course, and remained
cordial throughout. Nevertheless it became clear as the
course progressed that a formal service level agreement
(SLA) would have helped to identify accountability lev-
els should problems occur. With an SLA in place, the
customer can plan around expected server down time;
understand the protocol for handling unexpected server
delays; ensure that redundancy in data and system is in
place; formalize access to the server; and count on es-
tablished lines of communication.
Each of these issues arose at some point throughout the
course. The semester schedules of the host institution
differed from ours, and while the ASP school was on
spring break, we required support that was not easily
attained. Should the ASP reside in a different time zone
this issue could be even more serious. Our difficulties
were compounded by an act of nature in the form of a
severe winter storm that caused a power surge on the
host’s server and corrupted some data. However it was
not possible to restore a copy of our database because the
server was shared with another university that did not
experience the same problems. There was debate as to
whether the problems resided locally or with the ASP.
The ordeal caused many problems for the students and
for the instructional team. The ultimate outcome was
that some students were unable to complete their exer-
cises in the learning client environment, and had to move
directly into the testing client environment.
The last two sets of issues are related to the SAP R/3
system and to the design of the integration course itself.
The software’s user interface has improved substantially
in the past several years, but it retains non-intuitive fea-
tures and design inconsistencies. Even after sixty or
seventy hours of experience on the system some students
struggled with the interface. The exercises for the course
were posted weekly to the course website, but questions
regarding placement of data fields or transaction proc-
esses regularly arose. It would be possible to provide
more detailed learning support in the form of full screen
shots or simulations of each exercise, but this would be
very time consuming to organize and it would remove
the requirement that students learn the language of the
system. Because of the disparate comfort levels of the
students using the system, it was difficult to provide
enough one-on-one technical assistance during and be-
tween lab sessions. To alleviate some of this resource
strain, the TAs ran supplemental lab sessions outside of
normal class time.
The final set of operational issues relates specifically to
the laboratory course design and access levels required
for students in order to complete their exercises. The
Dolphin course is designed in such a way that each stu-
dent is assigned a code for one company to configure
within the same client. This poses instructional prob-
lems because due to the types of configuration exercises
undertaken, students need access to both their company
and the overall client. This means that students, either
knowingly or inadvertently, could destroy the work of
others or the entire class. It also means that students can
see the many elements of the configurations of other
students and simply imitate them. It is often difficult to
track the root cause of a change in a client-level setting.
Further, some client level operations are so resource
intensive that students must complete them one at a time,
which is hardly efficient in a group laboratory setting.
6. LEARNING PROCESSES AND OUTCOMES
The literature on classroom-based ERP learning out-
comes is still very small. Scott (1999) describes five
theoretical learning models and discusses differences
between industry ERP training methods and university-
based ERP instruction. Nelson and Millet (2001) report
students’ self-described levels of knowledge before and
after a foundation course on ERP and business processes.
Wagner, Majdawi, and Otto (2000) provide a summary
of results of a study seeking to measure increases in stu-
dents’ understanding of cross-functional business proc-
esses following exposure to HR and other functional
modules of an ERP system. Seethamraju (2002) reports
students’ assessments of a graduate program in enter-
prise resource planning, showing some significant differ-
ences between domestic and international students. The
most rigorous research to date on classroom-based ERP
learning outcomes is provided Noguera and Watson
(2004), who test the effects of learning styles and three
instructional delivery methods (lectures with readings,
lectures with hands-on transaction exercises, and lectures
with simulated transactions) on students’ performance,
self-efficacy, and satisfaction. Noguera and Watson find
no learning style effects and show that simulated system
use with screen shots is as effective as hands-on experi-
ence on an ERP system in teaching business process
concepts – a result that will certainly stimulate other
assessments of the relative merits of lab-based ERP edu-
cation.
At the close of our Enterprise Integration course we ad-
ministered an evaluation questionnaire with twenty-one
questions. This questionnaire measured students’ previ-
ous ERP knowledge and experience, perceived utility of
various features of the course, suggestions for improve-
ment, and several perceived learning outcomes. We
performed a hierarchical cluster analysis on these re-
sponse data using Ward’s method, which minimizes
intracluster variances. A four-cluster solution was se-
lected on the basis of an inspection of coefficients in the
agglomeration schedule, supplemented by visual inspec-
tion of the dendogram. Table 2 shows the questionnaire
items and the mean responses for each cluster. ANOVA
tests were performed to identify significant differences in
the group means, and post hoc tests identified significant
differences between pairs of group means. Because
some of the data did not display homogenous variance,
we used Tamhane’s T2 statistic in the post hoc tests. F
scores and significance levels are shown in Table 2. The
principal differences between the groups of students
concern the degree of prior hands-on experience with
ERP software (Q2); perceived utility of course reading
material (Q5), management theory sessions (Q6), learn-
ing logs (Q7), and the contents of the course for em-
ployment purposes (Q8); perceived importance of group
time in lab (Q10); perceived understanding of how ERP
generates business value (Q18), and perceived ability to
manage workers in an ERP-enabled work environment
(Q21).
[Table 2 here]
Students in Cluster 1 were quite positive about the learn-
ing experience. They had significantly less prior hands-
on experience with ERP systems than students in clusters
3 or 4. They rated the lab elements and the management
learning elements of the course equally highly, they
found relatively high value in the course readings, and
they expressed optimism that the course enhanced their
employment prospects. These students seem most suc-
cessful in relating the laboratory experience with the
management component of the course.
Students in Cluster 2 found the laboratory exercises to be
easy, but gave low scores to the management learning
component. Their focus was primarily on the laboratory
experience and they would have liked to have group
learning experiences in the lab. Their rating of the utility
of management readings was significantly lower than
that of the other three groups. Although students in
Cluster 2 expressed confidence in their ability to manage
enterprise systems, they seem to have regarded them-
selves as potential users of ERP systems, not as potential
managers.
Students in Cluster 3 had prior work experience in ERP
environments. Therefore the laboratory experience was
of relatively low interest to them. However, the manage-
ment component was of great interest to these students.
They were active and well prepared in the group discus-
sions, and they showed the strongest performance in the
business case analysis (data not shown).
Students in Cluster 4 responded positively to the labora-
tory and management learning components of the course,
but expressed a lower sense of self-efficacy than the
other students. They were not sure that they had gained
skills and understanding that would be rewarded in the
job market, and they seemed to feel that the course pre-
sented too much material to learn and that its pace was
too fast. They expressed the need to spend more time in
the lab.
Overall, students in clusters 1 and 3 seem to have bene-
fited most from the dual management learning and labo-
ratory components of the course, and they seem to have
approached the course as a business management learn-
ing experience rather than as a software training experi-
ence. Students in clusters 1 and 3 accounted for around
forty percent of the students in the course. Students in
cluster 2 focused largely on completion of the laboratory
exercises (but did not express significantly lower percep-
tions of self-efficacy on the outcome variables). Stu-
dents in cluster 4 found both the laboratory and manage-
ment components to be difficult and they expressed sig-
nicantly lower sense of efficacy than other groups in
understanding ERP systems, in understanding how to
product business value from these systems, and in ability
to effectively manage workers in ERP environments.
7. CONCLUSIONS
The novely of our course was its combination of a com-
prehensive management learning stream with a major
hands-on lab component. The combination of hands-on
lab learning on a live enterprise system and management
learning via reading, discussions, and cases is potentially
a very powerful combination in an enterprise integration
course, but it is a challenge to balance the two compo-
nents and to relate the lab learnings with the man-
agement learnings. This difficulty is magnified when
students have diverse educational, employment, and
cultural backgrounds.
The lab component was deemed by students to be useful
although the actual learning outcomes sometimes varied
from those originally anticipated. From a management
learning perspective, students came to appreciate the
complexities of mastering the enterprise system well
enough to use it in a production environment. They also
gained some insights related to managing software
within an ASP relationship, and some of the system is-
sues that can impact corporate performance. However,
from the perspective of comprehension of business proc-
esses their knowledge gain appeared to be below ex-
pected levels. While students claimed in their learning
logs that repeating the exercises helped them to under-
stand the connection between the operations they per-
formed and business processes they activated, many
students still seemed to focus on completion of the exer-
cises without understanding how these individual steps
contributed to a bigger picture. Nevertheless the course
was identified as a positive learning experience by most
students.
It is operationally complex to introduce an enterprise
system into a business course. To bring current business
IT tools such as enterprise systems into the business
curriculum, the tools either must be significantly modi-
fied for teaching purposes or space must be made in the
curriculum for lab-based courses on live systems. In the
latter case, universities will need to treat lab-based busi-
ness courses the way they treat lab-based science and
engineering courses in terms of instructors’ course loads
and perhaps also in terms of credits granted to students.
The ease of adoption of enterprise systems in the man-
agement curriculum could be substantially increased if
universities were able to purchase packages of teaching
materials and services in the form of textbooks, enter-
prise software modified for teaching purposes, pre-
populated and pre-configured clients, simulations of
workflows and business processes, dictionaries of soft-
ware nomenclature, teaching cases that illustrate man-
agement issues (including ones encountered in laboratory
exercises), debugged lab assignments, and web-based
technical assistance.
8. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We are grateful to the University of New Brunswick -
Saint J ohn for its support and encouragement in the de-
livery of the course described in this article. The course
is one outcome of research on “Enterprise Integration:
J obs and Work in the New Millenium,” funded by SAP
Americas, of which Davis is co-investigator. This sup-
port is gratefully acknowledged. Thanks also to the three
anonymous reviewers for their useful comments on an
earlier draft of this paper.
9. ENDNOTES
1
For discussions of ERP learning processes from an
organizational learning perspective see Baskerville, Paw-
lowski and McLain (2000), Robey, Ross, and Boudreau
(2002), and Scott and Vessey (2000).
2
This process of transposition of frames of reference as
an effect of introduction of information technologies into
organizations was first described by Shoshanna Zuboff
in In the Age of the Smart Machine (1988).
3
Adapted from the Integration of an Integrated Business
Solution Configuration and Integration Workshop Man-
ual provided by the Dolphin Group as part of the training
materials.
9. REFERENCES
Amoako-Gyampah, Kwasi (2004), “ERP Implementation
Factors: a Comparison of Managerial and End-User
Perspectives.” Business Process Management J our-
nal, Vol. 10, No. 2, pp. 171-183.
Antonucci, Yvonne L., and Michael zur Meuhlen (2001),
“Deployment of Business to Business Scenarios in
ERP Education: Evaluation and Experiences from
an International Collaboration.” Proceedings of the
Seventh Americas Conference on Information Sys-
tems, Miami, pp. 998-1004.
Baskerville, Richard, Suzanne Pawlowski, and Ephraim
McLain (2000), “Enterprise Resource Planning and
Organizational Knowledge: Patterns of Conver-
gence and Divergence.” Proceedings of the 21st
Annual Conference on Information Systems, Bris-
bane, pp. 396-406.
Becerra-Fernandez, Irma., Kenneth E. Murphy, K.E., and
Steven J . Simon (2000), “Integrating ERP in the
Business School Curriculum.” Communications of
the ACM, Vol. 43, No. 4, pp. 39-41.
Bradford, Marianne, B.S. Vijayaraman, and Akhilesh
Chandra (2003), “The Status of ERP Integration in
Business School Curricula: Results of a Survey of
Business Schools.” Communications of the Asso-
ciation for Information Systems, Vol. 12, Article
26.
Corbitt, Gail, and J ames Mensching (2000), “Integrating
SAP R/3 into a Business School Curriculum: Les-
sons Learned.” Information Technology and Man-
agement Vol. 1, 2000, pp. 247-258.
D’Adderio, Luciana (2003), “Configuring Software,
Reconfiguring Memories: the Influence of Inte-
grated Systems on the Reproduction of Knowledge
and Routines.” Industrial and Corporate Change
Vol 12, No. 2, 2003, pp. 321-350.
Davenport, Thomas H. (2000). Mission Critical. Realiz-
ing the Promise of Enterprise Systems. Harvard
Business School Press, Cambridge, Mass.
Davis, Charles H. (2004). “Perceived Impact of ERP on
J obs and Work in a Contact Center.” Proceedings of
Working with Computer Systems 2004
(WWCS2004), Kuala Lumpur, June.
Davis, Charles H., and Catherine Hajnal (1998), “Man-
agement Skill Requirements for Electronic Com-
merce: A ‘Business-Centric’ Approach.” Proceed-
ings of ISMOT 98, Zhejiang University, China.
Davis, F. D. “Perceived Usefulness, Perceived Ease of
Use, and User Acceptance of Information Technol-
ogy,” MIS Quarterly, Vol. 13, No. 3, 1989, pp. 319-
339.
DeLone, William H., and Ephraim R. McLean (1992),
“Information Systems Success: the Quest for the
Dependent Variable.” Information Systems Re-
search, Vol.3, No. 1, 1992, pp. 60-95.
Dolphin Group (2002). SAP Consulting and Education
(2002): Dolphin 200 - Configuration and Integration
Workshop. Self-published.
Esteves, J osé., and J oan Pastor (2001), “Analysis of
Critical Success Factors Relevance along SAP Im-
plementation Phases.” Proceedings of the Seventh
Americas Conference on Information Systems, Mi-
ami, 2001, pp. 1019-1025.
Gable, Guy G., and Michael Rosemann (1999), “ERP in
University Teaching and Research: an International
Survey.” Proceedings the Third Asia-Pacific Insti-
tute of Higher Learning Forum, Singapore, pp. 53-
69.
Gattiker, Thomas F., and Dale L. Goodhue (2002),
“Software-Driven Changes to Business Processes:
an Empirical Study of Impacts of Enterprise Re-
source Planning (ERP) Systems at the Local Level.”
International J ournal of Production Research, Vol.
40, No. 18, pp. 4799-4814.
Granland, Markus, and Teemu Malmi (2002), “Moderate
Impact of ERPS on Management Accounting: a Lag
or Permanent Outcome?” Managemetn Accounting
Research, Vol. 13, pp. 299-321.
Guthrie, Rand W., and Ruth A. Guthrie (2000), “Inte-
gration of Enterprise System Software in the Un-
dergraduate Curriculum.” Proceedings of ISECON
2000, Philadelphia, Vol. 17, No. 301.
Hall, Richard (2002), “Enterprise Resource Planning
Systems and Organizational Change: Transforming
Work Organizations?” Strategic Change, Vol. 11,
pp. 263-270.
Hanseth, Ole, Claudio U. Ciborra, Kristin Braa (2001),
“The Control Devolution: ERP and the Side Effects
of Globalization,” The Data Base for Advances in
Information Systems, Vol 32, No. 4, pp. 34-48.
Hawking, Paul, and Andrew Stein (2004), “Revisiting
ERP Sytems: Benefit Realization.” Proceedings of
the 37
th
Hawaii International Conference on Sys-
tems Science, Maui.
Hitt, Loren M., D.J . Wu, and Xiaoge Zhou (2002), “In-
vestment in Enteprise Resource Planning: Business
Impact and Productivity Measures.” J ournal of
Management Information Systems, Vol. 19, No. 1,
pp. 71-98.
Holland, Christopher P., and Ben Light (2001), “A Stage
Maturity Model for Enterprise Resource Planning
System Use.” The DATA BASE for Advances in
Information Systems Vol. 32 No. 2, pp. 43-45.
Hunton, J ames E., Barbara Lippincott, and J acqueline L.
Reck (2003), “Enterprise Resource Planning Sys-
tems: Comparing Performance of Adopters and Non
Adopters.” International J ournal of Accounting In-
formation Systems, Vol. 4, pp. 165-184.
Kallinikos, J annis (2004), “Deconstructing Information
Packages. Organizational and Behavioral Implica-
tions of ERP Systems.” Information Technology
and People, Vol. 17, No. 1, pp. 8-30.
Kallinikos, J annis (1999), “Computer-based Technology
and the Constitution of Work: a Study on the Cog-
nitive Foundations of Work.” Accounting, Man-
agement, and Information Technology Vol. 9, pp.
261-291.
Klaus, Helmut. Michael Rosemann, and Guy G. Gable
(2000), “What is ERP?” Information Systems Fron-
tiers, Vol. 2, No. 2, pp. 141-162.
Kraemmergaard, Pernille, and J eremy Rose (2002),
“Managerial Competence for ERP J ourneys.” In-
formation Systems Frontiers, Vol. 4, No. 2, pp.
199-211.
Kumar, Vinod, Bharat Maheshwari, and Uma Kumar
(2003), “An Investigation of Critical Management
Issues in ERP Implementation: Empirical Evidence
from Canadian Organizations.” Technovation, Vol.
23, pp. 793-807.
Mennel, Astrid (2002), The Effect of Training on ERP
Acceptance: an Empirical Study. Unpublished the-
sis, University of Maastricht.
Meta Group (2003), Gaining Continuous Value from
ERP through a Comprehensive, Continuous Educa-
tion Strategy. Stamford, Conn.: white paper.
*Nelson, Robert J ., and Ido Millet (2001), “A Founda-
tion Course in ERP and Business Processes: Ra-
tionale, Design, and Educational Outcomes.” Pro-
ceedings of the Seventh Americas Conference on
Information Systems, Miami, pp. 992-997.
Niederman, Fred, and J ane Webster (1998), “Trends in
End-User Training: a Research Agenda.” Proceed-
ings of CPR 98, Boston, pp. 224-232.
Noguera, J osé H., and Edward F. Watson (2004), “Ef-
fectiveness of Using an Enterprise System to Teach
Process-Centered Concepts in Business Education.”
J ournal of Enterprise Information Management, Vol
17, No. 1, pp. 56-74.
Oliver, Dave, and Celia Romm (2002), “J ustifying Ente-
prise Resource Planning Adoption,” J ournal of In-
formation Technology, Vol. 17, pp. 199-213.
Richtermeyer, Sandra B., and Marianne Bradford (2003),
PeopleSoft on Campus: Benefits of Incorporating
ERP Systems into Business Curricula. PeopleSoft:
Pleasanton, California.
Robey, Daniel, J eanne W. Ross, and Marie-Claude
Boudreau (2002), “Learning to Implement Enter-
prise Systems: an Exploratory Study of the Dialec-
tics of Change.” J ournal of Management Informa-
tion Systems Vol. 19, No. 1, pp. 17-46.
Rosemann, Michael, and Ed Watson (2001), “Education
in Enterprise Systems at Universities,” Proceedings
of the Seventh Americas Conference on Information
Systems, Boston, pp. 2244-2248.
Scott, J udy E (1999), "ERP Effectiveness in the Class-
room: Assessing Congruence with Theoretical
Learning Models." Proceedings of the Fifth Ameri-
cas Conference on Information Systems, Madison,
pp. 794-796.
Scott, J udy E., and Don Sugar (2004), “Perceived Effec-
tiveness of ERP Training Manuals.” Proceedings of
the Tenth Americas Conference on Information
Systems, New York, pp. 3211-3215.
Scott, J udy E., and Iris Vessey (2000), “Implementing
Enterprise Resource Systems: the Role of Learning
from Failure.” Information Systems Frontiers Vol 2,
No. 2, pp. 213-232.
Seethamraju, Ravi C. (2002), “Trials and tribulations in
the design and delivery of innovative business
course in enterprise resource planning in Australia,”
Proceedings of the 17th Annual Conference of the
International Academy for Information Manage-
ment (IAIM), Barcelona, pp. 237-249.
Shtub, Avraham (2001), “A Framework for Teaching
and Training in the Enterprise Resource Planning
(ERP) Era.” International J ournal of Production Re-
search Vol. 39, No. 3, pp. 567-576.
Sousa, Rui D., and Dale L. Goodhue (2003), “Under-
standing Exploratory Use of ERP Systems.” Pro-
ceedings of the Ninth Americas Conference on In-
formation Systems, Tampa, pp. 494-499.
Sia, Siew Kian, and Christina Soh (2002), “Severity
Assessment of ERP-Organization Misalignment.”
Proceedings of the Twenty-Second International
Conference on Information Systems, New Orleans,
pp. 723-729.
Somers, Toni M., and Klara G. Nelson (2004), “A Tax-
onomy of Players and Activities across the ERP
Project Life Cycle.” Information and Management
Vol. 41, No. 3, 2004, pp. 257-278.
Spathis, Charalambos, and Sylvia Constantinides (2003),
“The Usefulness of ERP Systems for Effective
Management.” Industrial Management and Data
Systems Vol. 103, No. 9, pp. 677-685.
Staer, Lorraine, Graeme Shanks, and Peter Seddon
(2002), “Understanding the Business Benefits of
ERP Systems.” Proceedings of the Eighth Americas
Conference on Information Systems, Dallas, 2002,
pp. 899-906.
Stewart, Glenn, Stephen Tracy, Ray Boykin, Majdi
Najm, Michael Rosemann, Luiz Carpinetti, and Ed
Watson (2002), “Configuring the SAP Student
Marketplace for the Advancement of Research and
Teaching (SAP SMART).” Proceedings of the
Eighth Americas Conference on Information Sys-
tems, Dallas, pp. 918-924.
Stewart Glenn., and Michael Rosemann (2001), “Indus-
try-oriented Design of ERP-related Curriculum: an
Australian Initiative.” Business Process Manage-
ment J ournal, Vol. 7, No. 3, pp. 234-242.
Stratman, J eff K., and Aleda V. Roth (2002), “Enterprise
Resource Planning (ERP) Competence Constructs:
Multi-Item Scale Development and Validation.”
Decision Sciences Vol 33, No. 4, pp. 601-628.
Strong, Diane M., Olga Volkoff, and Michael B. Elmes
(2003), “ERP Systems and the Paradox of Control.”
Proceedings of the Ninth Americas Conference on
Information Systems, Tampa, pp. 500-507.
Tang, Mary, Siew Kian Sia, Christina Soh, and Waifong
Boh (2000), “A Contingency Analysis of Post-Bu-
reaucratic Controls in IT-Related Change.” Pro-
ceedings of the 21
st
International Conference on In-
formation Systems, Brisbane, pp. 501-512.
Umble, Elizabeth J ., Ronald R. Haft, and M. Michael
Umble (2003), “Enterprise Resource Planning: Im-
plementation Procedures and Critical Success Fac-
tors.” European J ournal of Operational Research
146, pp. 241-257.
Wagner, William P., Mohammad K. Najdawi, and J ames
Otto (2000), “An Empirical Investigation into the
Impact of ERP Training on Cross Functional Edu-
cation.” J ournal of Business Education, Vol. 1, pa-
per No. 107.
Watson, Edward F., and Helmut Schneider (1999), “Us-
ing ERP Systems in Education.” Communications
of the Association for Information Systems Vol. 1,
Article 9.
Wheatley, Malcolm (2000), “ERP Training Stinks,” CIO
Magazine, J une.
Zuboff, Shoshanna (1988), In the Age of the Smart Ma-
chine: the Future of Work and Power. Basic Books:
New York.
10. AUTHOR BIOGRAPHIES
Charles Davis is a professor in
the Faculty of Business at the
University of New Brunswick
(Saint J ohn) where he teaches
courses in electronic com-
merce, new products devel-
opment, and strategy. His
Ph.D. is from the Université
de Montréal.
J ana Comeau earned her
M.B.A. from the University
of New Brunswick, where
she has subsequently taught a
range of electronic commerce
and business courses. She is
presently Director of Partner-
ships and Innovation at
UNBSJ .
11. APPENDICES
Table 1: syllabus of the management component of Enterprise Integration course
Week 1: Introduction to Enterprise Integration
Week 2: Introduction to the SAP lab environment
Week 3: an Overview of Enterprise Integration
Week 4: Business Process Management and Workflow Management 1
Week 5: Business Process Management and Workflow Management 2
Week 6: Technical Infrastructure for Enterprise Integration
Week 7: ERP and Enterprise Applications Industry
Week 8: ERP Adoption Cycle 1: Building the Business Case
Week 9: ERP Adoption Cycle 2: Purchasing, Vendor Management, and Project Planning
Week 10: ERP adoption cycle 3: Implementation and change management
Week 11: ERP adoption cycle 4: post-implementation issues (knowledge transfer, work and workers)
Week 12: Decision-making in an ERP environment
Week 13: course wrap-up
Week 14: take-home case
Table 2: mean scores and intergroup diffferences on evaluation questionnaire responses
cluster all 1 2 3 4 ANOVA
N 24 7 8 3 6 F Sig.
Background
1. My knowledge of enterprise integration before taking this
course was (1: little to 5: high):
2.2 2.1 2.2 3.0 1.8 .871 .473
2. The hands-on experience with SAP R/3 software was: (1:
familiar territory to 5: new to me)
3.9 4.7 4.5 1.7 3.2 23.93 .000
Assessment of course features
3. The laboratory learning was (1: difficult to 5: easy) 3.4 3.3 4.1 2.7 3.1 1.914 .160
4. The technical support system (RAs, online support, lab
assistance) was (1: not useful to 5: very useful)
4.1 4.6 3.7 3.7 4.3 1.750 .189
5. The course readings were (1: not useful to 5: very useful) 3.8 4.6 2.5 4.7 4.2 15.867 .000
6. The management theory sessions were (1: not useful to 5:
very useful)
3.6 4.6 2.6 3.7 3.6 5.419 .007
7. The learning logs were (1: not useful to 5: very useful) 3.0 3.4 2.0 4.0 3.7 3.136 .048
8. Did this course provide skills and knowledge that are
likely to be useful to you in the job market? (1: unlikely to 5:
very likely)
4.0 4.9 3.6 4.0 3.7 5.061 .009
How would you improve this course?
9. Hands on system learning (1: less to 5: more) 3.7 4.4 3.9 2.7 3.3 1.983 .149
10. Group time in lab (1: less to 5: more) 3.9 4.7 4.1 1.3 4.0 18.478 .000
11. Group discussions of management topics (1: less to 5:
more)
4.0 4.4 3.4 5.0 3.8 2.474 .090
12. Guest speakers (1: less to 5: more) 3.3 3.7 3.2 3.3 3.0 .293 .830
13. Writing assignments (1: less to 5: more) 2.3 2.3 2.4 1.3 2.8 2.359 .102
14. Lectures by professors (1: less to 5: more) 3.6 3.9 3.0 4.3 3.6 1.383 .277
15. Lab demos (1: less to 5: more) 3.7 4.0 3.5 3.0 3.9 1.615 .218
16. Group projects (1: less to 5: more) 3.7 4.0 4.2 2.3 3.3 2.933 .058
Please indicate your degree of agreement or disagreement
with the following statements (1: no agreement to 5: com-
plete agreement)
17. I understand what Enterprise Systems are about. 4.2 4.4 4.4 5.0 3.5 5.088 .099
18. I understand how to generate business value from Enter-
prise Systems
3.8 4.1 3.7 4.7 3.2 4.646 .033
19. I am confident that with the appropriate training, I could
learn to use most ERP software effectively.
4.0 4.4 4.2 3.3 3.4 1.799 .180
20. I would be a useful member of an ERP implementation
team.
4.1 4.4 3.9 4.7 3.6 1.975 .150
21. I could become an effective manager of workers in an
ERP-enabled work environment.
3.9 4.7 3.6 4.3 3.2 8.094 .001
doc_816651232.pdf
ERP systems are generic, packaged software systems that provide comprehensive functionality and business process integration across the firm (Davenport, 2000; Klaus, Rosemann, and Gable, 2000).
Enterprise Integration in Business Education:
Design and Outcomes of a Capstone ERP-based
Undergraduate e-Business Management Course
Charles H. Davis
Professor, Faculty of Business
J ana Comeau
Director of Partnerships and Innovation
University of New Brunswick (Saint J ohn)
Saint J ohn, New Brunswick E2L 4L5 Canada
[email protected], [email protected]
ABSTRACT
This article describes the design, delivery, and outcomes of a course on enterprise integration at the senior undergradu-
ate level in the e-business concentration in the University of New Brunswick’s Faculty of Business. The course aims to
provide education to the young business manager regarding the process of adoption and exploitation of an ERP or en-
terprise-wide software system. The course is deliberately “business-centric” rather than technology-oriented. It con-
tains two streams: a management component based on readings and discussion, and a hands-on laboratory component
in which students individually configure a firm. We evaluated students’ performance in three areas: completion of a
learning log containing literature summaries and reflections on individual learning, completion of configuration exer-
cises on SAP R/3, and completion of a take-home business case.
We offer several suggestions to potential providers of enterprise integration education to business students. First, do
not underestimate the considerable operational requirements of a lab-based ERP course. Second, because no business-
oriented curriculum for enterprise integration business education is presently available on the market, teachers must be
prepared to develop one. Third, students have very different learning needs with respect to ERP. The combination of
hands-on lab learning and management learning via reading, discussions, and cases is very powerful but it is a chal-
lenge to balance the two streams and to relate the lab learnings with the management learnings.
Keywords: ERP, enterprise system, enterprise integration, e-business, business education, teaching, course, syllabus,
learning outcomes
1. INTRODUCTION
ERP systems are generic, packaged software systems
that provide comprehensive functionality and business
process integration across the firm (Davenport, 2000;
Klaus, Rosemann, and Gable, 2000). These enterprise-
wide software systems offer significant potential bene-
fits, as suggested by the growing scholarly literature that
seeks to conceptualize and measure types of organiza-
tional outcomes, business impacts, and return on invest-
ment among ERP adopter firms (e.g. Hawking and Stein,
2004; Hitt, Wu, and Zhou, 2002; Hunton, Lippincott, and
Reck, 2003; Spathis and Constantinides, 2004; Staehr,
Shanks, and Seddon, 2002). However, the scholarly and
trade literatures contain numerous accounts of the diffi-
culties that firms face in justifying their decisions to
implement integrated systems, in dealing with unantici-
pated side effects, and in learning to use these systems
well enough to produce business value (see, for example,
Gattiker and Goodhue, 2002; Granlund and Malmi,
2002; Hanseth, Ciborra, and Braa, 2001; Kumar,
Maheshwari, and Kumar, 2003; and Oliver and Romm,
2002). The organizational learning curve is steep, and
little is known about individual users’ learning processes
throughout the enterprise systemadoption cycle. Unlike
general computer skills, enterprise system user and man-
agement skills are not widely diffused in the working
population. Firms express a great deal of frustration
about the costs and modalities of learning to use ERP
systems. Formal and informal training and learning
processes are consistently identified as critical success
factors in mastery of ERP systems (Amoako-Gyampah,
2004; Esteves and Pastor, 2001; Umble, Haft, and Um-
ble, 2003).
Interest in the use of information and communication
technologies in business education has largely focused
on applications of technology-mediated learning rather
than on learning to use core business IT tools. Although
private and public organizations incur significant costs in
adopting enterprise-wide systems, they have not yet
made strong enough or clear enough demands on educa-
tional establishments for the latter to routinely provide
some level of ERP competence and understanding
among their graduates. MIS students are sometimes
exposed to ERP technology, but business students in
other functional areas usually are not. When they are,
they typically learn operational skills related to their
functional area rather than acquire cross-functional busi-
ness process management understanding. Moreover,
they are not provided an understanding of the larger set
of management issues involved in adopting and exploit-
ing enterprise-wide systems. ERP technology is rela-
tively new to the business school curriculum. Bradford,
Vijayaraman, and Chandra’s (2003) survey of account-
ing and MIS professors (with responses primarily from
U.S. universities) showed that 37 percent of 94 respond-
ing business schools had brought enterprise systems into
their curricula, although fewer than one-third of these
teach a complete enterprise system module or cross-
functional business topics involving more than one mod-
ule.
The question of how and why core business technologies
should be integrated into the business curriculum, and
which capabilities should persons other than information
systems specialists acquire in respect of business tech-
nologies, has not been thoroughly addressed. Most em-
ployers of business school graduates do not seem to have
yet made a connection between the very high learning
costs that firms incur when adopting advanced informa-
tion technologies, including ERP systems, and the degree
of IT-based business tool competence and comprehen-
sion of their new employees. But many factors militate
against the adoption of complex business technologies in
university business schools for teaching and learning
purposes. These include the multidisciplinary scope of
enterprise system concepts that requires internal cross-
disciplinary coordination in curriculum design and
course delivery; the concern that keyboarding and labo-
ratory activities not supplant acquisition of management
theory and principles; the cost and considerable opera-
tional complexity of delivering lab-based learning with
enterprise software; and retaining faculty members with
ERP experience (Becerra-Fernandez, Murphy, and
Simon, 2000; Corbitt and Mensching, 2000)..
This article describes the design, delivery, and learning
outcomes of a capstone course in enterprise integration
for senior undergraduate e-business majors in the Faculty
of Business at the University of New Brunswick. The
course aimed to provide education to the young business
manager regarding the process of adoption and exploita-
tion of an enterprise system. In keeping with the phi-
losophical orientation of our e-business program, the
course was intended to be “business-centric” rather than
technology-oriented. It contains two components: a
management theory component based on readings and
discussion, and a hands-on laboratory component in
which students individually configure a firm.
The paper is organized as follows. In the next section we
discuss the dimensions of organizational learning to use
an ERP system and compare these with current ap-
proaches to ERP education and training. We then de-
scribe the syllabus of our Enterprise Integration course
and discuss issues in the implementation of the course.
Finally, we explore learning outcomes and students’
reaction to the course. In the conclusion we offer several
suggestions to those who seek to provide enterprise inte-
gration education to business students.
2. THE ERP LEARNING CURVE
In spite of many improvements in usability in recent
years, ERP systems are notoriously challenging to learn
to use. ERP systems represent a significant extension of
earlier information technology in terms of scale of organ-
izational effects, transparency of intraorganizational
transactions, and pervasiveness of the technology in the
work environment, complicating adoption and mastery
of the software. ERP system successes as well as fail-
ures can have large-scale organizational impacts (Hitt,
Wu, and Zhou, 2002). Through cross-functional busi-
ness process integration, ERP systems create transac-
tional intraorganizational interdependencies such that
every action has effects elsewhere in the organization
(Kallinikos, 2004). Errors that in earlier systems were
contained in localized environments propagate quickly in
ERP systems along business processes and must be cor-
rected before other workflows can take place. Mis-
alignments of IT and organizational structure are diffi-
cult to identify and correct early enough to avoid costly
rework at a later stage (Sia and Soh, 2002). The systems
are complex and to many users they operate as black
boxes. It is not simple for non-expert users to untangle
configuration, data, and human errors, and this affects
the efficiency of individual and organizational learning.
The most widely used frameworks for measuring infor-
mation system adoption and use – the Technology Ac-
ceptance Model (Davis, 1989) and the Delone-McLean
IS Success Model (1992) - assume that use of informa-
tion systems is discretionary and that user satisfaction is
a good predictor of IS success. However, in many ERP-
enabled work environments, use of the system is man-
datory. Employees may be more or less satisfied with
the system or use the system more or less effectively, but
they have to use it whether they are satisfied with it or
not because they cannot accomplish their work without
it. Explanations of business value creation via ERP sys-
tems must adapt prevailing models of IS system success
to take into account worker, manager, and executive
attitudes and competencies as users and the effects of
degrees of individual and group user competence on sys-
tem outcomes (Meta Group, 2003; Kraemmergaard and
Rose, 2002
The organizational aspects of ERP systems are notori-
ously more difficult to manage than implementation of
the technology per se. ERP systems introduce massive
changes into organizations (Hall, 2002). In general, low-
skill jobs involving routine data manipulation are elimi-
nated, while remaining jobs acquire greater degrees of
responsibility and intensity, and require greater cognitive
effort. Downsizing, delayering, downward delegation of
responsibility for task completion with centralization of
overall surveillance and control capability, and increased
organizational clock speed are the most frequently men-
tioned consequences of enterprise systems for design of
jobs and organization of work.
Enterprise system adoption can be described in terms of
implementation or life cycle models in which the adopter
progresses through “stages” of development (for exam-
ple, Holland and Light, 2001, or Rajagopal 2002) that are
easily interpreted as steps of increasing firm-level capa-
bility in use of the software. Most of what is currently
known about learning to use ERP systems encompasses
the initial adoption process, which usually involves a
loss of efficiency while the firm implements the software
system and learns the new routines embedded in the
software. Little is known of processes of post-imple-
mentation learning or “infusion” via extended use of
ERP software in which users go beyond learned routines
to develop improved ways of doing things (Sousa, 2002;
Sousa and Goodhue, 2003). ERP systems usually con-
tain more than one pathway toward task completion.
The discovery of these pathways is a source of sense of
creativity and innovation among users, although ulti-
mately workplace innovation with enterprise software
tools appears to be constrained (Davis, 2004). Further-
more, the process of adoption and mastery of an ERP
system involves a large and varying group of workers,
technical staff, managers, and external service providers
throughout the adoption lifecycle (Somers and Nelson,
2004). An impressive range of technical and organiza-
tional learnings must take place in the course of adoption
and mastery of an ERP system. Stage and life cycle
models can offer important insights into the ways that
learning support services might be organized for ERP
adopters.
1
Some of the learning may be supported
through formal training or education offerings but much
of the learnings are embedded in individual or group ex-
periences of learning-by-doing and informal or formal
on-the-job learning support processes.
3. WHAT SHOULD ENTERPRISE INTEGRATION
EDUCATION ENTAIL?
ERP systems pose a variety of significant learning chal-
lenges to adopter firms. What value can university-
based business education involving enterprise systems
contribute to acquisition of ERP capability in adopter
organizations? Arguments in favour of bringing enter-
prise systems into the business curriculum point to to the
benefits of exposing business students to up-to-date
business tools and a business process orientation, per-
mitting learning about enterprise systems theory (i.e.
management and benefits of enterprise-wide software
systems), and the increased employability of students
who have gained some familiarity with enterprise sys-
tems (Bradford, Vijayaraman, and Chandra, 2003; Gable
and Rosemann, 1999; Guthrie and Guthrie, 2000; Rich-
termeyer and.Bradford, 2003; Seethamraju, 2002; Stew-
art and Rosemann, 2001). Faculty members benefit from
enrichment of teaching and increased opportunities for
professional development and research, and universities
benefit from increased demand for graduates and oppor-
tunities to collaborate with the business community
(ibid.). Our own challenge, described below, was to
bring enterprise systems into a capstone undergraduate e-
business course.
The most obvious learning need in adoption of an ERP
system is for end users to acquire operational capability
with the software. This is the focus of most vendor-sup-
plied training courses: how to manipulate the software
and perform transactions. Training usually consists of
keyboarding exercises with progression to relatively
clear-cut problem solving assignments. This is a neces-
sary but not sufficient way to acquire competence as a
user. The celebrated CIO Magazine cover story pro-
claiming that “ERP Training Stinks” (Wheatley, 2000)
captures the feelings of many firms regarding the relative
costs and benefits of ERP training. The problem is that
operational training enables users to navigate in some
areas of the system and execute tasks but provides no
understanding of why the tasks are being performed.
ERP training manuals focus on step by step instruction
on task completion, not on business process logic (cf.
Scott and Sugar, 2004). Employers consider that ERP
training has limited value unless it enables the user to
understand information flows and business processes
(Wheatly, 2000). Without the ability to relate the opera-
tional task to a business process that connects various
points in the firm in order to produce value, users have
difficulty correcting errors or understanding how their
own work affects others. Unfortunately, the literature on
end-user training (reviewed by Niederman and Webster,
1998) says little about such process learning.
The distinction between ERP training and ERP education
defines a division of labor between ERP software ven-
dors and partners in the sphere of higher education.
Universities or colleges may offer for-credit educational
courses that use ERP as a platform, but they may not
offer training courses leading to certification. This pro-
vision of the software licensing agreement protects an
important revenue stream for vendors. The distinction
between ERP training and education also allows univer-
sities to define their own educational product in terms of
abstract, formal knowledge, as opposed to vocational
training. However, the distinction between training and
education as know-how versus know-why does not map
easily onto enterprise systems curricula in universities,
which display a wide range of learning methods and
objectives and frequently include activities that are de-
signed to convey operational know-how as well as man-
agement know-why. Training is often interpreted as
development of technical skills (Mennel, 2002). Enter-
prise systems can be taught at a high level of abstraction;
they can also be introduced into business curricula incre-
mentally to provide different “levels of immersion” in
the system (Guthrie and Guthrie, 2000). Finally, enter-
prise systems are objects of innovation in teaching meth-
ods, in matters of simulations for business process and
process-oriented management learning, and in distance
learning, and interuniversity collaboration (Antonucci
and zur Muehlen, 2001; Noguira and Watson, 1999;
Stewart et al., 2002; Shtub, 2001),
As we discuss below, an important challenge to ERP
education is to bridge the gap between microlevel skills
acquisition processes and general comprehension of
management theory and principles. This requires devel-
opment of a midlevel learning framework that recontex-
tualizes tasks and operations in terms of business proc-
esses and their management. If key individual ERP user
competence is located at this level, then real-time, con-
tinuous e-learning support and learning programs deliv-
ered in the workplace (rather than classroom-based busi-
ness education) may be the solution that industry chooses
as it seeks to improve ERP learning efficiencies (see,
e.g., Meta Group 2003). However, organizational ERP
competence encompasses more than business process
management capabilities. Stratman and Roth (2002)
identify eight groups of competencies (strategic IT plan-
ning, executive commitment, project management, IT
skills, business process skills, and ERP training, learn-
ing, and change readiness). ERP management education
needs to provide managers opportunities to improve their
capabilities in these areas.
The most widely accepted meaning of education is to
develop understanding. Kallinikos’ (1999) analysis of
information systems using concepts from linguistics and
semiotics provides a useful perspective on the cognitive
challenges of working in organizations based on inte-
grated software systems. Users need to develop compre-
hension in two areas: semantic comprehension and refer-
ence. Semantic comprehension refers to the problem of
making sense of the symbols and strings of symbols of
which the system is composed and with which the user
interacts with the system. Software is a system of self-
referential signs, symbols, and tokens, a kind of abstract
language. The architecture of the system, its rules of
operation, and its output statements are expressed in a
multitude of symbols and signs that users must learn.
The experience of ERP training can seem akin to memo-
rizing a telephone book – a flood of details without ref-
erence to an evident organizing framework or logic.
Novice users may find the graphical user interface
(GUI), with its unfamiliar symbols and arrangement of
records, challenging enough. Young users accustomed
to videogames who imagine themselves to be quite pro-
ficient with interactive technologies are dismayed to find
that business information systems have largely broken
from the conventions of similarity and proximity of
means for signifying. In other words, in contrast to
computer media entertainment in which symbols are
often graphical depictions of things and environments
that they represent, the symbols used in the business
system are primarily abstract, without intrinsic relation-
ship or similarity of appearance or physical analogy to
the things or environments that they stand for. In the
case of SAP R/3, for example, users need to understand
the organizational structure of the firm in terms of units
called FI, MM, CO, PP, and SD, etc.; the structure of the
master data in terms of a vocabulary of cost element
groups, purchasing groups, controlling areas, etc.; the
business rules in terms of a grammar of automatic post-
ings, credits, tolerances, document numbering, and so
forth; and the action of the system (transactions, proc-
esses, or workflows) in terms of sentences of specific
linked sets of procedures such as converting a planned
order to a production order, creating a sales order using
an item proposal, or checking stock status. Users are in
effect speaking an abstract language based on combina-
tions of symbols, signs, and tokens. Enterprise system
training acquaints new users with this language largely
through exercises, whereas human language education
would include a systematic mapping and dictionary of
the symbols, tokens, signs, and conventions of the sys-
tem, and an abstract treatment of rules of grammar.
Without the aid of a dictionary, a structural map, and a
grammar, learners of enterprise system symbols and
signs concentrate on learning sequences of keystrokes.
The second area in which users need to develop compre-
hension is reference, meaning the thing or situation re-
ferred to by a symbol or sign. Enterprise systems are
models of firms, and their components and transactions
refer to real parts of firms and real business processes
and transactions. However, in ERP systems, the soft-
ware becomes the firm and supplants paper-based trans-
actions. Because the software reproduces real business
processes, a user with experience in a functional area of
a firm can readily comprehend the business processes
that have been embedded in the software. In other
words, the user comprehends the references of the soft-
ware. However, persons without such business experi-
ence cannot easily comprehend the references of the
software, which to them represent an additional dimen-
sion of abstraction. This means that learners without
relevant business experience will comprehend the refer-
ent business operations in terms of the software that
mimics them.
2
Decontextualization of decision frameworks and process
automation of organizations represent not just cognitive
challenges to workers, but also a major change in the
ways that organizations behave that affects their man-
agement, routines, and learning processes (D’Adderio,
2003; Kallinikos, 2004; Strong, Volkoff, and Elmes,
2003; Tang, Sia, Soh, and Boh, 2000). An understanding
of the management issues raised by information-inten-
sive work in decontextualized, process-integrated work
environments is an important objective of future re-
search.
4. A CAPSTONE UNDERGRADUATE ENTER-
PRISE INTEGRATION COURSE
Enterprise Integration was taught in 2004 as the capstone
course in the “business-centric” e-business stream in
UNBSJ ’s Faculty of Business. The business-centric
curriculum for the e-business program was designed on
the advice of industry partners who identified a need for
graduates with hybrid competencies: individuals with
business and people skills and with the ability to work in
technical environments with technical people (Davis and
Hajnal, 1998). In this program e-business majors take
six required courses (Introduction to Electronic Com-
merce, Technology Fundamentals of Electronic Com-
merce, Industry Impact of Electronic Commerce, Mar-
keting on the Internet, Policy and Security Issues, and
the capstone course: Organizations and Electronic Com-
merce). They also take two electives from a selection of
several e-commerce courses: Frontiers of Electronic
Commerce, Consumer Behavior, Management of New
Enterprise, Management of Online Business, Accounting
Information Systems, and Management of Technology.
In previous years, the capstone course had focused on
integrative case analysis, special topics in consumer
behaviour, and workflow. Although UNBSJ had been a
member of the SAP University Alliance since 1998 and
several faculty members had received training, the usual
factors dissuaded colleagues from using enterprise sys-
tem software in the business curriculum. This situation
changed in 2003 when the Dolphin Group’s stand-alone
enterprise integration course (Dolphin Group, 2002),
associated training workshops, and remote hosting of the
database and clients all became available to members of
the SAP University Alliance.
We had previously taught undergraduate and MBA e-
business courses with an enterprise integration focus.
Our starting point in the design and delivery of the new
capstone Enterprise Integration course was the observa-
tion, based on an extensive literature review and on field
research with ERP-using organizations, that enterprise-
wide systems are unusually complex business tools that
cannot yield business without significant investment in
time and energy on the part of adopter organizations.
Our objective in this course was to prepare e-business
graduates for ERP-enabled work environments as em-
ployees or managers by providing a conceptual frame-
work and enough familiarity with an enterprise system to
gain a sense of self-efficacy regarding use of the tech-
nology or management of users in a business environ-
ment, thereby improving learning efficiencies on the part
of the adopter organization. Our Enterprise Integration
course is designed to be a management-oriented course
that follows the selection, implementation, and post-im-
plementation cycle of enterprise system adoption. As a
capstone course, Enterprise Integration completes our
program’s learning sequence by requiring the student to
use previous learnings to address and solve business
problems. The course has a management theory compo-
nent and a lab component. In the theory component, the
student learns how to manage the selection and deploy-
ment of ERP systems, with a focus on understanding the
organizational processes and individual competencies
required to take advantage of enterprise-wide software.
The lab component seeks to expose students to the com-
plexities of an ERP system by requiring them to config-
ure their own company in an SAP R/3 environment.
Overall, our Enteprise Integration course aims to provide
a sound conceptual foundation regarding the adoption
and effective use of ERP systems in firms; to provide
examples so that the student may apply the concepts in
real business situations; and to provide hands-on experi-
ence in configuring a firm with SAP R/3 software so that
the student may understand and appreciate the modalities
of achieving cross-functional software-based business
process integration.
The course was team-taught in two sections to about
twenty-five students. One of us took the lead on the
management learning component and the other on the lab
component. The course was delivered in three contact
hours per week over a period of thirteen weeks. Ninety
minutes were devoted to management theory and prac-
tice, and ninety minutes to hands-on laboratory learning
on SAP R/3. We evaluated students’ performance in
three areas: completion of a take-home business case,
completion of configuration exercises on SAP R/3, and
completion of a learning log containing literature sum-
maries and reflections on individual learning. The con-
figuration exercises were completed twice: once in a
learning environment and once in a testing environment.
Students’ performance in the lab was evaluated in terms
of completion of assignments, not for functionality of the
configuration. The learning logs were submitted weekly,
and required the students to summarize their under-
standing of the issues presented in the week’s readings,
assess the relative importance of the information, present
the learning challenges from the week’s lab exercises,
and submit questions.
The management learning component was designed to
provide a conceptual framework about business process
innovation and its supporting technologies, then address
the sequence of management issues through the ERP
adoption cycle. For this component we examined a
number of textbooks but found none that provided the
perspective and material we sought. Therefore, we as-
sembled reading packages from scholarly and trade lit-
erature. Each week, students were required to complete
a learning log in which readings were summarized and in
which the student provided reflections on learnings in the
lab and in the classroom. This component included a
weekly lecture lasting about forty-five minutes, followed
by a discussion in class. Table 1 shows the topics cov-
ered under the management component of our Enterprise
Integration course. Students learned about the rationale
for enterprise integration, the drivers and mechanisms of
process innovation, how to build a business case for
investment in enterprise systems, the software selection
and vendor management process, project planning and
organization, the implementation process and associated
change management issues, the management of enter-
prise systems in the post-implementation phase, and
decision making with enterprise systems.
[table 1 here]
The final evaluative component of the course was a
business case in which students had to apply their
knowledge to respond to a Request for Proposal from a
company seeking to invest in an ERP system. Students
were required to respond to a range of questions about
likely costs of adoption of an enterprise system, benefits,
other impacts on the adopter, and management and or-
ganization of the initiative
Three undergraduate Teaching Assistants were made
available by the University. For these positions we re-
cruited upper-level Electronic Commerce students with
IT backgrounds and prepared them to serve as surrogate
super-users in the labs. The TAs worked two or three
weeks ahead in the lab exercises, and assisted the stu-
dents as they moved through the exercises. The TAs
proved to be a valuable contribution to the course man-
agement team. They were able to troubleshoot and solve
many of the multitude of smaller problems that occurred,
freeing the instructors to concentrate on course delivery
and management of major issues.
5. DELIVERING THE LAB COMPONENT OF THE
ENTERPRISE INTEGRATION COURSE
The lab component for the course offering was adapted
from the Implementation of an Integrated Business Solu-
tion course developed by the Dolphin Group, an SAP
Consulting and Education firm based in South Dakota
(Dolphin Group, 2002). The Dolphin Group course is
designed to introduce students to integrated business
processes through the configuration of a small manufac-
turing firm. The course exposes students to business
processes through a series of mini-lectures that are then
reinforced with exercises in the SAP environment. The
expected outcome of the lab course is that students learn
the basics of business process integration by individually
configuring a sporting goods company in SAP R/3.
The Dolphin Group offers this course to SAP University
Alliance members, and encourages faculty members who
have undergone the suggested training to incorporate it
into their curriculum. Training involves a ten-day work-
shop exposing faculty participants to the course by hav-
ing them work through the entire program as students,
and a separate five-day workshop in which the configu-
ration of the clients and servers required to run the
course are reviewed. The format of the training helps to
reinforce some of the anticipated student user issues as
faculty members struggle with the interface, logic and
nomenclature of the system.
The Dolphin course encompasses the Financial, Control-
ling, Materials Management, Production Planning and
Sales and Distribution modules of SAP R/3. Time con-
straints, unanticipated down time of the hosted applica-
tion, and a restructuring of the lab curriculum limited the
Enterprise Integration course offering to the first four
modules. Students in the course completed the configu-
ration of the first four modules twice, once in a learning
environment and once in order to be tested. This ap-
proach was not originally planned, but was incorporated
into the course delivery as it became clear that students
were slow to grasp relationships among the business
processes they were setting up.
Throughout the semester, it became increasingly appar-
ent that some of the most trying issues related to teaching
the principles of ERP using the Dolphin SAP Imple-
mentation course arose at the operational level, involving
the system as well as individual users. The operational
issues can be broken down into four broad categories:
set-up and teaching issues, hosting issues, software is-
sues, and client level issues. Set-up and teaching issues
concern the initial configuration of the student learning
environments, as well as the teaching responsibilities that
fell outside of the scope of routine undergraduate busi-
ness education program delivery. Software issues en-
compass the challenges of teaching the SAP R/3 system.
Hosting issues refer to the realities of running a lab-
based course in an application server provider (ASP)
environment. The client level issues are specific to the
Dolphin course design in which students work on par-
ticular companies but are required to have access to cor-
porate level settings. The first two sets of issues proba-
bly exist in most software laboratory teaching environ-
ments, while the latter two are specific to the lab compo-
nent of the course.
The set-up requirements of the lab component were
much more onerous than expected. The instructor must
develop the student environment on the corresponding
server. The initial set-up requires the configuration of
two separate environments, one for demonstration pur-
poses and the other for student work. In total, this
amounts to fifty to eighty hours of work, depending on
the instructor’s knowledge of the system. The outcome
of this set-up task is the creation of two master clients
that can be copied each time the course is subsequently
taught. Thus, the set-up time for future course offerings
is lessened, but only as long as the same server and SAP
R/3 version are used. If either of these parameters
changes then the entire process must be repeated in the
new environment.
We severely underestimated the time required to trouble-
shoot the system throughout the course. Errors during
set-up would prevent students from successful comple-
tion of their exercises and would create problems during
course delivery. Following configuration of the clients
by an instructor, extensive testing must be carried and
actual transactions performed. In our Enterprise Integra-
tion course the burden of testing was borne by the two
instructors and the three TAs, who worked two to three
weeks ahead of the rest of the class in the course exer-
cises in order to identify configuration problems before
the exercises were performed in the classroom. This
rigorous pre-testing of the configuration immediately
before use of the system in the lab environment was also
necessary in order to identify and correct discrepancies
between the laboratory exercises and the SAP interface
and command structure. The exercises were designed
for SAP R/3 4.6C and had to be adapted for the 4.6B
environment used by the software hosting institution.
This required tedious checking of nomenclature, opera-
tional sequence and exercise descriptions. Failure to
identify such differences created confusion amongst the
students, and resulted in an inordinate of amount of time
expended to clarify the issue.
To encourage group learning amog students we intro-
duced a Frequently Asked Question (FAQ) discussion
board on the course management website with subhead-
ings for each group of exercises. Instructors and Teach-
ing Assistants shared responsibility to monitor this board
and reply to questions between 8 am and midnight seven
days a week. A number of students also offered solu-
tions to problems posted on the discussion board. With
instructors’ knowledge of the Dolphin course limited to
around two hundred hours of experience, many questions
from students about the systemor other modules could
not be answered. The only way to deal with this poten-
tially stressful situation is to emphasize to the students
that even SAP J edi only know a small fraction of the
system. This sets the stage for a collaborative learning
environment.
Finally, although we were able to solve many problems
that occurred, we frequently required recourse to the
technical expertise of the original course designers from
the Dolphin Group. Without this support we would have
experienced significant difficulties.
Perhaps the most perplexing teaching challenge in the
lab component involved the testing of the student knowl-
edge of the system. In the final lab session, students
were asked to complete various transaction-based exer-
cises in their test environments, with the understanding
that if properly configured, their companies would suc-
cessfully generate the corresponding transaction num-
bers. This apparently reasonable means of testing stu-
dents has drawbacks: how can instructors differentiate
between student errors and a system error caused by
faulty or corrupt data? The other concern with this as-
sessment method is to determine whether it tested stu-
dents’ understanding of business processes or merely
their ability to follow instructions in the configuration
exercises. It appears that students with the most fully
operational company configurations had a better grasp of
the SAP R/3 system’s functionality, but it is not clear
how well students learned about the underlying business
processes.
The second set of operational issues relates to the use of
a hosted software solution. Use of an ASP provides
many benefits because the host institution has far more
technical expertise, infrastructure, and support services
than we do. Our experience with with applications host-
ing was much more positive than that reported by
Seethamraju (2002). However, the ASP arrangement
poses some challenges. In the case of our Enterprise
Integration course, the SAP R/3 system was hosted at a
university approximately 500 kilometers away in a
neighboring province. The relationship with the ASP
was well established prior to the course, and remained
cordial throughout. Nevertheless it became clear as the
course progressed that a formal service level agreement
(SLA) would have helped to identify accountability lev-
els should problems occur. With an SLA in place, the
customer can plan around expected server down time;
understand the protocol for handling unexpected server
delays; ensure that redundancy in data and system is in
place; formalize access to the server; and count on es-
tablished lines of communication.
Each of these issues arose at some point throughout the
course. The semester schedules of the host institution
differed from ours, and while the ASP school was on
spring break, we required support that was not easily
attained. Should the ASP reside in a different time zone
this issue could be even more serious. Our difficulties
were compounded by an act of nature in the form of a
severe winter storm that caused a power surge on the
host’s server and corrupted some data. However it was
not possible to restore a copy of our database because the
server was shared with another university that did not
experience the same problems. There was debate as to
whether the problems resided locally or with the ASP.
The ordeal caused many problems for the students and
for the instructional team. The ultimate outcome was
that some students were unable to complete their exer-
cises in the learning client environment, and had to move
directly into the testing client environment.
The last two sets of issues are related to the SAP R/3
system and to the design of the integration course itself.
The software’s user interface has improved substantially
in the past several years, but it retains non-intuitive fea-
tures and design inconsistencies. Even after sixty or
seventy hours of experience on the system some students
struggled with the interface. The exercises for the course
were posted weekly to the course website, but questions
regarding placement of data fields or transaction proc-
esses regularly arose. It would be possible to provide
more detailed learning support in the form of full screen
shots or simulations of each exercise, but this would be
very time consuming to organize and it would remove
the requirement that students learn the language of the
system. Because of the disparate comfort levels of the
students using the system, it was difficult to provide
enough one-on-one technical assistance during and be-
tween lab sessions. To alleviate some of this resource
strain, the TAs ran supplemental lab sessions outside of
normal class time.
The final set of operational issues relates specifically to
the laboratory course design and access levels required
for students in order to complete their exercises. The
Dolphin course is designed in such a way that each stu-
dent is assigned a code for one company to configure
within the same client. This poses instructional prob-
lems because due to the types of configuration exercises
undertaken, students need access to both their company
and the overall client. This means that students, either
knowingly or inadvertently, could destroy the work of
others or the entire class. It also means that students can
see the many elements of the configurations of other
students and simply imitate them. It is often difficult to
track the root cause of a change in a client-level setting.
Further, some client level operations are so resource
intensive that students must complete them one at a time,
which is hardly efficient in a group laboratory setting.
6. LEARNING PROCESSES AND OUTCOMES
The literature on classroom-based ERP learning out-
comes is still very small. Scott (1999) describes five
theoretical learning models and discusses differences
between industry ERP training methods and university-
based ERP instruction. Nelson and Millet (2001) report
students’ self-described levels of knowledge before and
after a foundation course on ERP and business processes.
Wagner, Majdawi, and Otto (2000) provide a summary
of results of a study seeking to measure increases in stu-
dents’ understanding of cross-functional business proc-
esses following exposure to HR and other functional
modules of an ERP system. Seethamraju (2002) reports
students’ assessments of a graduate program in enter-
prise resource planning, showing some significant differ-
ences between domestic and international students. The
most rigorous research to date on classroom-based ERP
learning outcomes is provided Noguera and Watson
(2004), who test the effects of learning styles and three
instructional delivery methods (lectures with readings,
lectures with hands-on transaction exercises, and lectures
with simulated transactions) on students’ performance,
self-efficacy, and satisfaction. Noguera and Watson find
no learning style effects and show that simulated system
use with screen shots is as effective as hands-on experi-
ence on an ERP system in teaching business process
concepts – a result that will certainly stimulate other
assessments of the relative merits of lab-based ERP edu-
cation.
At the close of our Enterprise Integration course we ad-
ministered an evaluation questionnaire with twenty-one
questions. This questionnaire measured students’ previ-
ous ERP knowledge and experience, perceived utility of
various features of the course, suggestions for improve-
ment, and several perceived learning outcomes. We
performed a hierarchical cluster analysis on these re-
sponse data using Ward’s method, which minimizes
intracluster variances. A four-cluster solution was se-
lected on the basis of an inspection of coefficients in the
agglomeration schedule, supplemented by visual inspec-
tion of the dendogram. Table 2 shows the questionnaire
items and the mean responses for each cluster. ANOVA
tests were performed to identify significant differences in
the group means, and post hoc tests identified significant
differences between pairs of group means. Because
some of the data did not display homogenous variance,
we used Tamhane’s T2 statistic in the post hoc tests. F
scores and significance levels are shown in Table 2. The
principal differences between the groups of students
concern the degree of prior hands-on experience with
ERP software (Q2); perceived utility of course reading
material (Q5), management theory sessions (Q6), learn-
ing logs (Q7), and the contents of the course for em-
ployment purposes (Q8); perceived importance of group
time in lab (Q10); perceived understanding of how ERP
generates business value (Q18), and perceived ability to
manage workers in an ERP-enabled work environment
(Q21).
[Table 2 here]
Students in Cluster 1 were quite positive about the learn-
ing experience. They had significantly less prior hands-
on experience with ERP systems than students in clusters
3 or 4. They rated the lab elements and the management
learning elements of the course equally highly, they
found relatively high value in the course readings, and
they expressed optimism that the course enhanced their
employment prospects. These students seem most suc-
cessful in relating the laboratory experience with the
management component of the course.
Students in Cluster 2 found the laboratory exercises to be
easy, but gave low scores to the management learning
component. Their focus was primarily on the laboratory
experience and they would have liked to have group
learning experiences in the lab. Their rating of the utility
of management readings was significantly lower than
that of the other three groups. Although students in
Cluster 2 expressed confidence in their ability to manage
enterprise systems, they seem to have regarded them-
selves as potential users of ERP systems, not as potential
managers.
Students in Cluster 3 had prior work experience in ERP
environments. Therefore the laboratory experience was
of relatively low interest to them. However, the manage-
ment component was of great interest to these students.
They were active and well prepared in the group discus-
sions, and they showed the strongest performance in the
business case analysis (data not shown).
Students in Cluster 4 responded positively to the labora-
tory and management learning components of the course,
but expressed a lower sense of self-efficacy than the
other students. They were not sure that they had gained
skills and understanding that would be rewarded in the
job market, and they seemed to feel that the course pre-
sented too much material to learn and that its pace was
too fast. They expressed the need to spend more time in
the lab.
Overall, students in clusters 1 and 3 seem to have bene-
fited most from the dual management learning and labo-
ratory components of the course, and they seem to have
approached the course as a business management learn-
ing experience rather than as a software training experi-
ence. Students in clusters 1 and 3 accounted for around
forty percent of the students in the course. Students in
cluster 2 focused largely on completion of the laboratory
exercises (but did not express significantly lower percep-
tions of self-efficacy on the outcome variables). Stu-
dents in cluster 4 found both the laboratory and manage-
ment components to be difficult and they expressed sig-
nicantly lower sense of efficacy than other groups in
understanding ERP systems, in understanding how to
product business value from these systems, and in ability
to effectively manage workers in ERP environments.
7. CONCLUSIONS
The novely of our course was its combination of a com-
prehensive management learning stream with a major
hands-on lab component. The combination of hands-on
lab learning on a live enterprise system and management
learning via reading, discussions, and cases is potentially
a very powerful combination in an enterprise integration
course, but it is a challenge to balance the two compo-
nents and to relate the lab learnings with the man-
agement learnings. This difficulty is magnified when
students have diverse educational, employment, and
cultural backgrounds.
The lab component was deemed by students to be useful
although the actual learning outcomes sometimes varied
from those originally anticipated. From a management
learning perspective, students came to appreciate the
complexities of mastering the enterprise system well
enough to use it in a production environment. They also
gained some insights related to managing software
within an ASP relationship, and some of the system is-
sues that can impact corporate performance. However,
from the perspective of comprehension of business proc-
esses their knowledge gain appeared to be below ex-
pected levels. While students claimed in their learning
logs that repeating the exercises helped them to under-
stand the connection between the operations they per-
formed and business processes they activated, many
students still seemed to focus on completion of the exer-
cises without understanding how these individual steps
contributed to a bigger picture. Nevertheless the course
was identified as a positive learning experience by most
students.
It is operationally complex to introduce an enterprise
system into a business course. To bring current business
IT tools such as enterprise systems into the business
curriculum, the tools either must be significantly modi-
fied for teaching purposes or space must be made in the
curriculum for lab-based courses on live systems. In the
latter case, universities will need to treat lab-based busi-
ness courses the way they treat lab-based science and
engineering courses in terms of instructors’ course loads
and perhaps also in terms of credits granted to students.
The ease of adoption of enterprise systems in the man-
agement curriculum could be substantially increased if
universities were able to purchase packages of teaching
materials and services in the form of textbooks, enter-
prise software modified for teaching purposes, pre-
populated and pre-configured clients, simulations of
workflows and business processes, dictionaries of soft-
ware nomenclature, teaching cases that illustrate man-
agement issues (including ones encountered in laboratory
exercises), debugged lab assignments, and web-based
technical assistance.
8. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We are grateful to the University of New Brunswick -
Saint J ohn for its support and encouragement in the de-
livery of the course described in this article. The course
is one outcome of research on “Enterprise Integration:
J obs and Work in the New Millenium,” funded by SAP
Americas, of which Davis is co-investigator. This sup-
port is gratefully acknowledged. Thanks also to the three
anonymous reviewers for their useful comments on an
earlier draft of this paper.
9. ENDNOTES
1
For discussions of ERP learning processes from an
organizational learning perspective see Baskerville, Paw-
lowski and McLain (2000), Robey, Ross, and Boudreau
(2002), and Scott and Vessey (2000).
2
This process of transposition of frames of reference as
an effect of introduction of information technologies into
organizations was first described by Shoshanna Zuboff
in In the Age of the Smart Machine (1988).
3
Adapted from the Integration of an Integrated Business
Solution Configuration and Integration Workshop Man-
ual provided by the Dolphin Group as part of the training
materials.
9. REFERENCES
Amoako-Gyampah, Kwasi (2004), “ERP Implementation
Factors: a Comparison of Managerial and End-User
Perspectives.” Business Process Management J our-
nal, Vol. 10, No. 2, pp. 171-183.
Antonucci, Yvonne L., and Michael zur Meuhlen (2001),
“Deployment of Business to Business Scenarios in
ERP Education: Evaluation and Experiences from
an International Collaboration.” Proceedings of the
Seventh Americas Conference on Information Sys-
tems, Miami, pp. 998-1004.
Baskerville, Richard, Suzanne Pawlowski, and Ephraim
McLain (2000), “Enterprise Resource Planning and
Organizational Knowledge: Patterns of Conver-
gence and Divergence.” Proceedings of the 21st
Annual Conference on Information Systems, Bris-
bane, pp. 396-406.
Becerra-Fernandez, Irma., Kenneth E. Murphy, K.E., and
Steven J . Simon (2000), “Integrating ERP in the
Business School Curriculum.” Communications of
the ACM, Vol. 43, No. 4, pp. 39-41.
Bradford, Marianne, B.S. Vijayaraman, and Akhilesh
Chandra (2003), “The Status of ERP Integration in
Business School Curricula: Results of a Survey of
Business Schools.” Communications of the Asso-
ciation for Information Systems, Vol. 12, Article
26.
Corbitt, Gail, and J ames Mensching (2000), “Integrating
SAP R/3 into a Business School Curriculum: Les-
sons Learned.” Information Technology and Man-
agement Vol. 1, 2000, pp. 247-258.
D’Adderio, Luciana (2003), “Configuring Software,
Reconfiguring Memories: the Influence of Inte-
grated Systems on the Reproduction of Knowledge
and Routines.” Industrial and Corporate Change
Vol 12, No. 2, 2003, pp. 321-350.
Davenport, Thomas H. (2000). Mission Critical. Realiz-
ing the Promise of Enterprise Systems. Harvard
Business School Press, Cambridge, Mass.
Davis, Charles H. (2004). “Perceived Impact of ERP on
J obs and Work in a Contact Center.” Proceedings of
Working with Computer Systems 2004
(WWCS2004), Kuala Lumpur, June.
Davis, Charles H., and Catherine Hajnal (1998), “Man-
agement Skill Requirements for Electronic Com-
merce: A ‘Business-Centric’ Approach.” Proceed-
ings of ISMOT 98, Zhejiang University, China.
Davis, F. D. “Perceived Usefulness, Perceived Ease of
Use, and User Acceptance of Information Technol-
ogy,” MIS Quarterly, Vol. 13, No. 3, 1989, pp. 319-
339.
DeLone, William H., and Ephraim R. McLean (1992),
“Information Systems Success: the Quest for the
Dependent Variable.” Information Systems Re-
search, Vol.3, No. 1, 1992, pp. 60-95.
Dolphin Group (2002). SAP Consulting and Education
(2002): Dolphin 200 - Configuration and Integration
Workshop. Self-published.
Esteves, J osé., and J oan Pastor (2001), “Analysis of
Critical Success Factors Relevance along SAP Im-
plementation Phases.” Proceedings of the Seventh
Americas Conference on Information Systems, Mi-
ami, 2001, pp. 1019-1025.
Gable, Guy G., and Michael Rosemann (1999), “ERP in
University Teaching and Research: an International
Survey.” Proceedings the Third Asia-Pacific Insti-
tute of Higher Learning Forum, Singapore, pp. 53-
69.
Gattiker, Thomas F., and Dale L. Goodhue (2002),
“Software-Driven Changes to Business Processes:
an Empirical Study of Impacts of Enterprise Re-
source Planning (ERP) Systems at the Local Level.”
International J ournal of Production Research, Vol.
40, No. 18, pp. 4799-4814.
Granland, Markus, and Teemu Malmi (2002), “Moderate
Impact of ERPS on Management Accounting: a Lag
or Permanent Outcome?” Managemetn Accounting
Research, Vol. 13, pp. 299-321.
Guthrie, Rand W., and Ruth A. Guthrie (2000), “Inte-
gration of Enterprise System Software in the Un-
dergraduate Curriculum.” Proceedings of ISECON
2000, Philadelphia, Vol. 17, No. 301.
Hall, Richard (2002), “Enterprise Resource Planning
Systems and Organizational Change: Transforming
Work Organizations?” Strategic Change, Vol. 11,
pp. 263-270.
Hanseth, Ole, Claudio U. Ciborra, Kristin Braa (2001),
“The Control Devolution: ERP and the Side Effects
of Globalization,” The Data Base for Advances in
Information Systems, Vol 32, No. 4, pp. 34-48.
Hawking, Paul, and Andrew Stein (2004), “Revisiting
ERP Sytems: Benefit Realization.” Proceedings of
the 37
th
Hawaii International Conference on Sys-
tems Science, Maui.
Hitt, Loren M., D.J . Wu, and Xiaoge Zhou (2002), “In-
vestment in Enteprise Resource Planning: Business
Impact and Productivity Measures.” J ournal of
Management Information Systems, Vol. 19, No. 1,
pp. 71-98.
Holland, Christopher P., and Ben Light (2001), “A Stage
Maturity Model for Enterprise Resource Planning
System Use.” The DATA BASE for Advances in
Information Systems Vol. 32 No. 2, pp. 43-45.
Hunton, J ames E., Barbara Lippincott, and J acqueline L.
Reck (2003), “Enterprise Resource Planning Sys-
tems: Comparing Performance of Adopters and Non
Adopters.” International J ournal of Accounting In-
formation Systems, Vol. 4, pp. 165-184.
Kallinikos, J annis (2004), “Deconstructing Information
Packages. Organizational and Behavioral Implica-
tions of ERP Systems.” Information Technology
and People, Vol. 17, No. 1, pp. 8-30.
Kallinikos, J annis (1999), “Computer-based Technology
and the Constitution of Work: a Study on the Cog-
nitive Foundations of Work.” Accounting, Man-
agement, and Information Technology Vol. 9, pp.
261-291.
Klaus, Helmut. Michael Rosemann, and Guy G. Gable
(2000), “What is ERP?” Information Systems Fron-
tiers, Vol. 2, No. 2, pp. 141-162.
Kraemmergaard, Pernille, and J eremy Rose (2002),
“Managerial Competence for ERP J ourneys.” In-
formation Systems Frontiers, Vol. 4, No. 2, pp.
199-211.
Kumar, Vinod, Bharat Maheshwari, and Uma Kumar
(2003), “An Investigation of Critical Management
Issues in ERP Implementation: Empirical Evidence
from Canadian Organizations.” Technovation, Vol.
23, pp. 793-807.
Mennel, Astrid (2002), The Effect of Training on ERP
Acceptance: an Empirical Study. Unpublished the-
sis, University of Maastricht.
Meta Group (2003), Gaining Continuous Value from
ERP through a Comprehensive, Continuous Educa-
tion Strategy. Stamford, Conn.: white paper.
*Nelson, Robert J ., and Ido Millet (2001), “A Founda-
tion Course in ERP and Business Processes: Ra-
tionale, Design, and Educational Outcomes.” Pro-
ceedings of the Seventh Americas Conference on
Information Systems, Miami, pp. 992-997.
Niederman, Fred, and J ane Webster (1998), “Trends in
End-User Training: a Research Agenda.” Proceed-
ings of CPR 98, Boston, pp. 224-232.
Noguera, J osé H., and Edward F. Watson (2004), “Ef-
fectiveness of Using an Enterprise System to Teach
Process-Centered Concepts in Business Education.”
J ournal of Enterprise Information Management, Vol
17, No. 1, pp. 56-74.
Oliver, Dave, and Celia Romm (2002), “J ustifying Ente-
prise Resource Planning Adoption,” J ournal of In-
formation Technology, Vol. 17, pp. 199-213.
Richtermeyer, Sandra B., and Marianne Bradford (2003),
PeopleSoft on Campus: Benefits of Incorporating
ERP Systems into Business Curricula. PeopleSoft:
Pleasanton, California.
Robey, Daniel, J eanne W. Ross, and Marie-Claude
Boudreau (2002), “Learning to Implement Enter-
prise Systems: an Exploratory Study of the Dialec-
tics of Change.” J ournal of Management Informa-
tion Systems Vol. 19, No. 1, pp. 17-46.
Rosemann, Michael, and Ed Watson (2001), “Education
in Enterprise Systems at Universities,” Proceedings
of the Seventh Americas Conference on Information
Systems, Boston, pp. 2244-2248.
Scott, J udy E (1999), "ERP Effectiveness in the Class-
room: Assessing Congruence with Theoretical
Learning Models." Proceedings of the Fifth Ameri-
cas Conference on Information Systems, Madison,
pp. 794-796.
Scott, J udy E., and Don Sugar (2004), “Perceived Effec-
tiveness of ERP Training Manuals.” Proceedings of
the Tenth Americas Conference on Information
Systems, New York, pp. 3211-3215.
Scott, J udy E., and Iris Vessey (2000), “Implementing
Enterprise Resource Systems: the Role of Learning
from Failure.” Information Systems Frontiers Vol 2,
No. 2, pp. 213-232.
Seethamraju, Ravi C. (2002), “Trials and tribulations in
the design and delivery of innovative business
course in enterprise resource planning in Australia,”
Proceedings of the 17th Annual Conference of the
International Academy for Information Manage-
ment (IAIM), Barcelona, pp. 237-249.
Shtub, Avraham (2001), “A Framework for Teaching
and Training in the Enterprise Resource Planning
(ERP) Era.” International J ournal of Production Re-
search Vol. 39, No. 3, pp. 567-576.
Sousa, Rui D., and Dale L. Goodhue (2003), “Under-
standing Exploratory Use of ERP Systems.” Pro-
ceedings of the Ninth Americas Conference on In-
formation Systems, Tampa, pp. 494-499.
Sia, Siew Kian, and Christina Soh (2002), “Severity
Assessment of ERP-Organization Misalignment.”
Proceedings of the Twenty-Second International
Conference on Information Systems, New Orleans,
pp. 723-729.
Somers, Toni M., and Klara G. Nelson (2004), “A Tax-
onomy of Players and Activities across the ERP
Project Life Cycle.” Information and Management
Vol. 41, No. 3, 2004, pp. 257-278.
Spathis, Charalambos, and Sylvia Constantinides (2003),
“The Usefulness of ERP Systems for Effective
Management.” Industrial Management and Data
Systems Vol. 103, No. 9, pp. 677-685.
Staer, Lorraine, Graeme Shanks, and Peter Seddon
(2002), “Understanding the Business Benefits of
ERP Systems.” Proceedings of the Eighth Americas
Conference on Information Systems, Dallas, 2002,
pp. 899-906.
Stewart, Glenn, Stephen Tracy, Ray Boykin, Majdi
Najm, Michael Rosemann, Luiz Carpinetti, and Ed
Watson (2002), “Configuring the SAP Student
Marketplace for the Advancement of Research and
Teaching (SAP SMART).” Proceedings of the
Eighth Americas Conference on Information Sys-
tems, Dallas, pp. 918-924.
Stewart Glenn., and Michael Rosemann (2001), “Indus-
try-oriented Design of ERP-related Curriculum: an
Australian Initiative.” Business Process Manage-
ment J ournal, Vol. 7, No. 3, pp. 234-242.
Stratman, J eff K., and Aleda V. Roth (2002), “Enterprise
Resource Planning (ERP) Competence Constructs:
Multi-Item Scale Development and Validation.”
Decision Sciences Vol 33, No. 4, pp. 601-628.
Strong, Diane M., Olga Volkoff, and Michael B. Elmes
(2003), “ERP Systems and the Paradox of Control.”
Proceedings of the Ninth Americas Conference on
Information Systems, Tampa, pp. 500-507.
Tang, Mary, Siew Kian Sia, Christina Soh, and Waifong
Boh (2000), “A Contingency Analysis of Post-Bu-
reaucratic Controls in IT-Related Change.” Pro-
ceedings of the 21
st
International Conference on In-
formation Systems, Brisbane, pp. 501-512.
Umble, Elizabeth J ., Ronald R. Haft, and M. Michael
Umble (2003), “Enterprise Resource Planning: Im-
plementation Procedures and Critical Success Fac-
tors.” European J ournal of Operational Research
146, pp. 241-257.
Wagner, William P., Mohammad K. Najdawi, and J ames
Otto (2000), “An Empirical Investigation into the
Impact of ERP Training on Cross Functional Edu-
cation.” J ournal of Business Education, Vol. 1, pa-
per No. 107.
Watson, Edward F., and Helmut Schneider (1999), “Us-
ing ERP Systems in Education.” Communications
of the Association for Information Systems Vol. 1,
Article 9.
Wheatley, Malcolm (2000), “ERP Training Stinks,” CIO
Magazine, J une.
Zuboff, Shoshanna (1988), In the Age of the Smart Ma-
chine: the Future of Work and Power. Basic Books:
New York.
10. AUTHOR BIOGRAPHIES
Charles Davis is a professor in
the Faculty of Business at the
University of New Brunswick
(Saint J ohn) where he teaches
courses in electronic com-
merce, new products devel-
opment, and strategy. His
Ph.D. is from the Université
de Montréal.
J ana Comeau earned her
M.B.A. from the University
of New Brunswick, where
she has subsequently taught a
range of electronic commerce
and business courses. She is
presently Director of Partner-
ships and Innovation at
UNBSJ .
11. APPENDICES
Table 1: syllabus of the management component of Enterprise Integration course
Week 1: Introduction to Enterprise Integration
Week 2: Introduction to the SAP lab environment
Week 3: an Overview of Enterprise Integration
Week 4: Business Process Management and Workflow Management 1
Week 5: Business Process Management and Workflow Management 2
Week 6: Technical Infrastructure for Enterprise Integration
Week 7: ERP and Enterprise Applications Industry
Week 8: ERP Adoption Cycle 1: Building the Business Case
Week 9: ERP Adoption Cycle 2: Purchasing, Vendor Management, and Project Planning
Week 10: ERP adoption cycle 3: Implementation and change management
Week 11: ERP adoption cycle 4: post-implementation issues (knowledge transfer, work and workers)
Week 12: Decision-making in an ERP environment
Week 13: course wrap-up
Week 14: take-home case
Table 2: mean scores and intergroup diffferences on evaluation questionnaire responses
cluster all 1 2 3 4 ANOVA
N 24 7 8 3 6 F Sig.
Background
1. My knowledge of enterprise integration before taking this
course was (1: little to 5: high):
2.2 2.1 2.2 3.0 1.8 .871 .473
2. The hands-on experience with SAP R/3 software was: (1:
familiar territory to 5: new to me)
3.9 4.7 4.5 1.7 3.2 23.93 .000
Assessment of course features
3. The laboratory learning was (1: difficult to 5: easy) 3.4 3.3 4.1 2.7 3.1 1.914 .160
4. The technical support system (RAs, online support, lab
assistance) was (1: not useful to 5: very useful)
4.1 4.6 3.7 3.7 4.3 1.750 .189
5. The course readings were (1: not useful to 5: very useful) 3.8 4.6 2.5 4.7 4.2 15.867 .000
6. The management theory sessions were (1: not useful to 5:
very useful)
3.6 4.6 2.6 3.7 3.6 5.419 .007
7. The learning logs were (1: not useful to 5: very useful) 3.0 3.4 2.0 4.0 3.7 3.136 .048
8. Did this course provide skills and knowledge that are
likely to be useful to you in the job market? (1: unlikely to 5:
very likely)
4.0 4.9 3.6 4.0 3.7 5.061 .009
How would you improve this course?
9. Hands on system learning (1: less to 5: more) 3.7 4.4 3.9 2.7 3.3 1.983 .149
10. Group time in lab (1: less to 5: more) 3.9 4.7 4.1 1.3 4.0 18.478 .000
11. Group discussions of management topics (1: less to 5:
more)
4.0 4.4 3.4 5.0 3.8 2.474 .090
12. Guest speakers (1: less to 5: more) 3.3 3.7 3.2 3.3 3.0 .293 .830
13. Writing assignments (1: less to 5: more) 2.3 2.3 2.4 1.3 2.8 2.359 .102
14. Lectures by professors (1: less to 5: more) 3.6 3.9 3.0 4.3 3.6 1.383 .277
15. Lab demos (1: less to 5: more) 3.7 4.0 3.5 3.0 3.9 1.615 .218
16. Group projects (1: less to 5: more) 3.7 4.0 4.2 2.3 3.3 2.933 .058
Please indicate your degree of agreement or disagreement
with the following statements (1: no agreement to 5: com-
plete agreement)
17. I understand what Enterprise Systems are about. 4.2 4.4 4.4 5.0 3.5 5.088 .099
18. I understand how to generate business value from Enter-
prise Systems
3.8 4.1 3.7 4.7 3.2 4.646 .033
19. I am confident that with the appropriate training, I could
learn to use most ERP software effectively.
4.0 4.4 4.2 3.3 3.4 1.799 .180
20. I would be a useful member of an ERP implementation
team.
4.1 4.4 3.9 4.7 3.6 1.975 .150
21. I could become an effective manager of workers in an
ERP-enabled work environment.
3.9 4.7 3.6 4.3 3.2 8.094 .001
doc_816651232.pdf