The management of change : a perspective over ERP implementation in a Romanian company

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The management of change: a

perspective over ERP implementation

in a Romanian company

Program:

MSc Accountancy and Control – Control track

Student:

Oana Diana Oprea

Student number:

10622764

First supervisor:

Rui J.O. Vieira

Second supervisor:

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Abstract

Purpose

The paper presents a multidisciplinary view over the management of change regarding an Enterprise Resource Planning system implementation. It depicts the case of a Romanian company both from a management control point of view, describing the the way in which the change in the accounting system impacts the activities and relationships among the employees and also from an internal control point of view, as the facts are analysed in the context of an ERP implementation.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper uses a case study approach, with data gathered from interviews with the management and branch employees, documentary analysis and participant observation. The theoretical framework used comprises two models that analyse the change in a company: Lewin’s 3-step model of change and Dunphy/ Stace change matrix. The pattern matching and explanation building have a manual coding scheme as a starting point.

Findings

The paper documents that fact that in a company still affected by communism influences, the directive leadership style from the headquarter and the submissive attitude of the branch employees impacts the implementation of an ERP system. The change brought by the implementation takes the form of a modular transformation and is done in three steps: unfreeze, change and refreeze.

Research limitations

In spite of its facilitative role, the close connection between the researcher and the company might constitute a limitation for the study. The research benefits from access to many relevant internal documents and also provides a clear and broad perspective over the case study setting. But the close involvement might trigger subjectivity in interpreting the results.

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Originality/Value

Besides being placed in an under-researched country, namely Romania, the study presents the case of a company in which communism reminsicents still pertain. The under-researched topic of inter-institutional relations is studied in this specific context. The research also aims to fill a research gap, by studying an ERP system which is different from the intensively studied SAP. Key words

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Abbreviations/Acronyms

ERP Enterprise Resource Planning

SAP Systems, Applications and Products in data processing. This is an integrated programme developed by the German company SAP A.G.

CEO Chief Executive Officer

CFO Chief Financial Officer

ERPetro Pseudonym for the case company

Shine Pseudonym for the ERP system implemented A-Soft Pseudonym for the previous accounting system

List of tables and figures

Figure 1. The Dunphy/Stace change matrix ... 16

Figure 2. A typology of change strategies ... 17

Figure 3. Field research as an iterative, cyclic learning journey ... 26

Figure 4. The company's organigram ... 35

Figure 5. Main processes for a trade organisation ... 39

Figure 6. Main processes for a production organisation ... 40

Table 1. Interviewee sample ... 31

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1. Introduction

Change is a notion that invariably characterises every individual and company. Be it a transformation, an alteration or a substitution, change occurs in order to adapt to a continuously evolving environment.

Given the diversification of companies’ activities and the expanded global competition, an instrument had to be created to ensure the management with better planning and control mechanisms. This is where the need of a company-wide Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system was generated. The introduction of this system brings a transformational change in the company, as a significantly different technology impacts the work of key departments in the company. The integrated system brings together information from various departments of the company such as production, sales, accounting, human resources and incorporates data from all of them in a single database. The integration implies the fact that an input data will not only impact the activity of a certain department, but the whole process which involves that data.

ERP systems are praised for bringing several advantages to the companies that implement them, as “a well-planned and well-executed ERP implementation, in conjunction with a good change management program, can create a dramatic turnaround for the company” (Motwani et al., 2005, p. 539). Be they tangible or intangible (O’Leary, 2004), the benefits brought by an ERP system add efficiency and a competitive advantage to the user companies.

Some authors do not attribute the praise for the changes in a company exclusively to these integrated systems. Scapens and Jazayeri (2003, p. 201) argue that the system’s “integration, standardization, routinization and centralization” are rather facilitators of the changes that were already taking place in the company.

But regardless of the actual trigger of change in processes, one thing is sure: “ERP influences the behaviors of people, which in turn changes how systems are used” (Grabski et al., 2011, p. 64).

Therefore, this study addresses an inter-institutional view over the implementation of an ERP system, in order to assess the impact of the relationships between the branch and the headquarter on the technological change brought by an ERP implementation.

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The research question of the present study focuses on how and why the relations between the headquarter and the subsidiary impact the change in the accounting system. The main change that occurred in the company was the replacement of the previous accounting system with an ERP system, presumed to adapt perfectly to the needs of the company.

In order to answer this research question, an interpretive research has been developed, based on a case study. This type of qualitative research is considered to be the most appropriate for the purpose of the study for three main reasons: the focus is on a contemporary phenomenon within a real-life setting, the research question intends to investigate how and why a certain situation occurs and moreover the researcher has no control over the events (Yin, 2009).

The company that makes the object of this study adds a glimpse of novelty to the paper, because of its setting and ownership structure. Being located in Romania, an under-researched Eastern-European country, the company also has the particularity of having existed since the communist era. This had a major impact on the mentality of the older employees, for whom the technological change does not challenge fundamentally their attitude and behavioral habits. Although the company has experienced privatisations and changes in ownership structure, the employees still maintain the mentality from the communist 1980’s. Undoubtedly, the relations between the branch and the headquarter are influenced by this factor. Furthermore, the cultural controls have a different meaning in this setting that still pertains influences from an era characterised by default by constraints and limitations.

Furthermore, the present study also intends to close a research gap, by studying the implementation of an ERP system, other than the intensively studied Systems, Applications and Products in data processing (SAP) (Motwani et al., 2005).

The framework through which the findings of the case study will be analysed is composed of Dunphy/Stace change matrix and Lewin’s 3-step model of change. They both deal with the process of change and each of them is used for interpreting a different side of the research question. Lewin proposes an analysis of how change occurs and divides the process in 3 steps: unfreeze, change and refreeze. The Dunphy/Stace change matrix guides the findings towards the type of transformation imposed by the implementation and why the relations and leadership style shape the process of change.

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The thesis is structured as follows: after this introductory chapter, section 2 will depict the relevant literature review regarding the key topics of the paper: change, ERP systems and inter-institutional relations. The subsequent section will provide a detailed description of the theoretical framework that will be used in the study. Chapter 4 will follow with an overview of the methodology of the research. Afterwards, in chapter 5, the findings will be presented in line with the frameworks introduced before. The final chapter introduces the conclusions of the research findings and some discussion points based on that.

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2. Literature review

Change is “the act, process, or result of changing: as an alteration, transformation or substitution”, according to the Merriam-Webster online dictionary. Quattrone and Hopper (2001, p. 406) give a more purposeful description of change, defining it as a “process towards equilibrium” and stability. They state that this definition is supported by studies based on both social constructivist and realist epistemologies.

In the process of institutional change, the readiness for change is considered a factor of uttermost importance. Kwahk and Lee (2008) study this factor when analysing the change brought by the implementation of an ERP system in a company. The practical context of the change studied by Quattrone and Hopper (2001) is also based on the analysis of two study cases on ERP implementation.

In line with Kwahk and Lee (2008) and Quattrone and Hopper (2001), Aladwani (2001, p.267) also states that two of the most important factors in the ERP implementation regard the management of change: “organizational strategies for promoting ERP implementation success include change strategy development and deployment, change management techniques, project management, organizational structure and resources, managerial style and ideology, communication and coordination, and IS function characteristics”

Inquiries in the literature review regarding ERP systems lead to the conclusion that the development of Enterprise Resource Planning systems is considered to be the most important development of corporate evolution brought by the 1990's. (Davenport, 1998)

Grabski et al. (2011, p.38) define the ERP systems as “integrated cross-functional systems containing selectable software modules that address a wide range of operational activities in the firm, such as accounting and finance, human resources, manufacturing, sales and distribution”. In this way, Muscatello et al. (2003, p. 850) consider that ERP systems “address the problem of fragmentation of information or “islands of information” in business organizations. ERP systems promise to computerize an entire business with a suite of software modules covering activities in all areas of the business.”

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But real-life companies do not turn to an ERP system solely for these technical features. Spathis and Constantinides (2004) studied the reasons behind the decision of replacing the former information system with a complex, integrated system. And they found three main motives: the increased demand for real-time information, the need for integration of applications and the facility of information generation for the purpose of decision-making.

One of those main features of this kind of system is that it integrates “several business procedures, applications and departments while sharing one database.” (Kanellou and Spathis, 2012, p. 210) This consists also in a big advantage brought by such a system, as “all information is centralized in a single relational database accessible by all modules, eliminating the need for multiple entries of the same data.” (Muscatello et al., 2003, p. 852)

An ERP system brings numerous other advantages to a company. According to Motwani et al. (2005, p. 539), “a well-planned and well-executed ERP implementation, in conjunction with a good change management program, can create a dramatic turnaround for the company”. The benefits are tightly connected to the reasons for the implementation as they express the intended purpose of the implementation. In his study, Spathis (2006) spots out the main reasons for the implementation of an ERP system and the modules that are mostly implemented. The top three reasons for implementation, mentioned by approximately 90% of the companies who answered the questionnaire were: an increased demand for real-time information, the need for information for decision-making and the integration of applications. The module that was implemented in 100% of the cases was the financial-accounting one. The management accounting and asset accounting were implemented in 96% of the cases and the inventory purchase in 93% of the cases.

O’Leary’s (2004) study focuses on benefits brought by the implementation of ERP systems provided by Oracle. He presents these benefits in two sections: tangible benefits and intangible benefits. The tangible benefits mostly mentioned by the studied companies were: the improvement of the orders’ management, the productivity improvements, the inventory reduction and the procurement cost reduction. The intangible benefits identified by most of the companies were: the visibility of the information, integration, flexibility, standardisation and globalisation. As the study concluded, the tangible benefits were consistent across industries, whereas

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intangible gains differed across industries. Therefore “benefits are not seen as universally equivalent across industries” (p.71)

Although the benefits provided by an ERP system seem to be the panacea for the issues of every company, there are also some costs implied in order to gain these benefits. Grabski et al. (2011) emphasise the costs and downturns of ERP systems. First of all, they mention that the implementation consumes many resources of the company, denominated in both time and money. Secondly, although ERP systems are supposed to offer competitive advantage to the ones that implement them, this advantage is mostly represented by the fact that “firms which do not implement an enterprise system perform relatively worse than those which implemented an ERP” (p. 64). This advantage would be a temporary one, as the underperforming companies would also implements such a system and then all the companies will stand equal chances on the market. Thirdly, the outcomes of the implementation of an ERP system are not definite and not certain. As long as people have to interact with technology, “ERP influences the behaviors of people, which in turn changes how systems are used” (p. 64). The double direction of this relationship adds unpredictability to the outputs of the implementation. As a fourth argument, the ERP system is not a static entity. The system continues to evolve, as it is reconfigured, updated and extended. “Common extensions take the form of business intelligence applications, inter-organizational value-chain integration enhancements, or focus on security, auditability, and reporting, among other functions” (p.64).

Scapens and Jazayeri (2003) also present a possible trigger for discontent in the design of an ERP system. They state that the “modules are fully integrated and users can access real-time information on all aspects of the business” (p. 202). But then they also add that “however, integration means that data entries in one part of the system can have consequences throughout the system.” (p. 202)

In line with the cost and downturns, it is worthwhile to mention also the renowned companies that faced losses due to unsuccessful ERP implementations. According to Muscatello et al. (2003), FoxMeyer Drug, which is one of the US largest pharmaceutical companies, worth $5 billion, filed for bankruptcy in 1996 due to major problems generated by a failed ERP implementation. The system created excess shipments resulting from incorrect orders and thus

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claiming that it was not flexible enough to handle their expanding global operations.” (p. 853). Motwani et al. (2002, p. 83) write about Hershey Foods Corporation, the biggest chocolate producer in North America, that in 1999 “reported a 19% drop in 3rd-quarter profits and a 29% increase in inventories over the previous year due to order processing problems caused by its faulty $112 million ERP implementation.”

But there are also many successful implementation studies in the literature. For example, Motwani et al. (2002) study focuses on the factors that distinguish a successful ERP implementation from a failure. Their paper compares a successful ERP implementation with an unsuccessful one. They stress that the successful implementation was characterised by a bureaucratic process, backed up by the readiness of the employees, good relationships within the company and a careful management of change. The opposite has been found to be true for the unsuccessful implementation: there was a top-down mandated decision, not supported by the readiness of the employees and lacking “proper change management” (p.95). The authors also provide suggestions that could turn an unsuccessful implementation into a successful one: “subdividing the project, improving project management through the use of formal tools and techniques, and using a team-based approach to solving specific problems. “ (p.95)

Motwani et al. (2005) adopts a different approach: they present different ways of dealing with the same ERP. Four companies from 4 different industries are analysed. Their differences in respect to their reaction to the environment (either reactive or proactive), the change that was introduced (either revolutionary or evolutionary) and their strategy in implementing the ERP (either management-imposed or team-approached) determine the impact of the ERP on the employees and the organisation itself.

Scapens and Jazayeri (2003) study a successful implementation as well, but their findings are somehow surprising: they find out that the implementation of an SAP is not claimed to be the driver of the changes in the company, namely “(i) the elimination of routine jobs; (ii) line managers with accounting knowledge; (iii) more forward looking information; and (iv) a wider role for the management accountants.” (p. 201) It is argued that the implementation of this system was rather a facilitator of the changes that were already taking place in the company. The elements that accelerated the change were the system’s “integration, standardization, routinization and centralization”.

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As noted from the studies mentioned before, ERP systems trigger changes in a company. Thus, it can be expected to find studies that present the ERP systems as related to the change in the normal flow of activities of a company.

Quattrone and Hopper’s (2001) study focuses on the changes brought by an ERP implementation and emphasises that the concept of change should be replaced by the notion of “drift” - “redefine conventional notions of change through the concept of ‘drift’” (p. 406). They define the notion of drifting like “when things are drifting (say castaways in a boat in the ocean or friends lost during an excursion in a wood), they may have no devices such as maps or a clock to give them a conception of time or space. They cannot accurately define their location or the time though they are likely to continually try to do so. This does not mean that they will not act purposefully—they may try to create a shared idea of the ‘right’ direction.[…] If they are unlucky they may return to where they started. But in both instances the purposeful action involves serendipity and chance, i.e. drifting” (p. 426).

Other authors connect the ERP implementation with a different kind of change. Motwani et al. (2005) present ERP implementations as related to business process change, business process re-engineering, as some authors choose to name it. They define business process change “as an organizational initiative to design business processes to achieve significant (breakthrough) improvement in performance (e.g. quality, responsiveness, cost, flexibility, satisfaction, shareholder value, and other critical process measures) through changes in the relationships between management, information technology, organizational structure, and people” (p. 530). Applying this definition to the general description of ERP systems, it can be concluded that an ERP system is also an initiative that triggers business process change.

Along with the business process change, the system can bring also inter-institutional changes, when we are not discussing about the implementation in a company considered singularly. Therefore, the present study also deals with the relations between the headquarter and the branch or subsidiary of a company, in the case of an ERP system implementation at a consolidated level. Therefore, a proper introduction of inter-institutional relations should be presented.

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Birkinshaw (1997, p. 207) define a subsidiary as an “operational unit controlled by the MNC [i.e. “multi national company”] and situated outside the home country”. From this description, it can be extrapolated that a branch is an operational unit opened by a company inside the home country.

The present case regards the inter-institutional relationships between a company and its branch, situated in a different city, but in the same country. Due to a lack of literature relevant for the headquarter-branch relationship, the literature that studies the headquarter-subsidiary will be critically presented, in order to draw similarities and differences between these two types of relationships. Both of them present a subordination relationship but they are considered to differ in some aspects.

Nohria and Ghoshal (1994) argue that the relationship between the parent company and its subsidiary resembles the principal-agent relation. Personally, I consider that this type of relationship applies to a branch as well. The definition of the principal-agent relationship should be given as a starting point. Jensen and Meckling (1976, p. 608) define this relationship as “a contract under which one or more persons (the principal(s)) engage another person (the agent) to perform some service on their behalf which involves delegating some decision making authority to the agent. If both parties to the relationship are utility maximizers there is good reason to believe that the agent will not always act in the best interests of the principal.” Just like a subsidiary, a branch deals with some of the operations and therefore it should be responsible for its actions. It has its own management that takes decisions and empowers them, but the decisions should be in line with the strategy received from the headquarter.

Doz and Prahalad (1981) notice that when subsidiaries become independent and do not rely on the headquarter for providing them with strategic resources, top-down decision making is harder to be imposed. Therefore, headquarters have to adopt some different control systems, not based on planning and resources, but on measurement of the output.

According to the conceptual framework of Merchant and Van der Stede (2012), management control systems comprise three categories of controls:

- Action controls, that imply defining guidelines and controls for the employees’ behaviour in order to ensure that their actions are in line with the company’s interest.

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- Result controls, which focus on the results of the employees’ work and not on the ways the pursue in order to achieve those results. The outputs of their work are evaluated in order to establish if the target has been achieved and whether a reward or a sanction has to be applied.

- Cultural controls, that are enforced through more informal ways. This type of control resembles the belief system from Simons’ (1995) framework. Simons defines the belief system as comprising the “values and direction that the senior managers want their employees to embrace” (p. 82). These are communicated through core values and mission of the company.

As concluded by Doz and Prahalad (1981), the headquarter should rely mostly on result controls in case the subsidiary becomes more independent.

A difference between the control over a subsidiary and over a branch can be withdrawn from their definition, more specifically the location in a foreign country or in the same country as the headquarter. Singh (1981) stresses the problem of subsidiaries that find themselves in the tense position of choosing whom to give more importance: to the parent company or to the regulations of the country in which they perform their activity. The multi national companies want to manage in a unitary way all the subsidiaries and in the same time the national governments want to integrate the subsidiaries in the local environment. Being situated in the same country and being governed by the same laws and regulations, the branch will not find itself in such a difficult position as the subsidiary. Consequently, it can be argued that the headquarter control over a branch can be exercised more effectively, as long as it does not conflict with the local government’s interests.

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3. Theoretical framework

The theoretical framework used in this paper gravitates around two models: the Dunphy/Stace change matrix and Lewin’s 3 step model of change. The first model will be used in order to interpret the results concerning the “why” part of the research question (i.e. why did the relations between the headquarter and the subsidiary impact the change in the accounting system?). The second model will be used in order to interpret the results concerning the “how” part of the research question (i.e. how was the ERP implementation influenced by the relations between the headquarter and the subsidiary?)

Dunphy and Stace (1993) have developed a model (see figure 1) with two critical dimensions: the scale of change needed to bring the organisation back into fit with its environment and the style of leadership required to bring about the change.

Figure 1. The Dunphy/Stace change matrix

Source: Dunphy and Stace (1993, p. 908)

The model was designed in order to address the shortcomings of the traditional organisational development model. This traditional model prescribed a universal model of incremental change, put in place through a participative management style for all types of changes that a company might go through.

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The first version of the framework was developed by the same authors in 1988 (see figure 2).

Figure 2. A typology of change strategies

Source: Dunphy and Stace (1988, p. 327)

Five years later, Dunphy and Stace revised the framework. They conducted a study on 13 Australian companies which implied applying structured interviews. Using the results of the study, the framework has been improved by making distinctions between the collaborative and consultative style of change leadership and between the directive and coercive style of leadership.

The collaborative style is the one that involves the most active participation of the employees: it implies that they take part in the decision-making regarding the future of the company and regarding the ways of implementing the change in the organisation.

When a consultative style is adopted, the involvement of the employees is more limited: they will be consulted mostly about the means of implementing organisational change. There is also a possibility of involving them in goal-setting, but in a more limited sense, according to their area of responsibility and expertise.

The directive style involves the exclusive implication of the managers in decision-making. Using their authority, they would take the decisions by themselves and afterwards impose them to the employees.

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The coercive style is the one that involves the greatest distance from the employees, as it does not involve them at all, but it can involve external parties. Basically, executive directors or outside parties are the ones that influence key groups in the organisation and further on their influence will be seen in the decisions taken by the company.

The new framework (Dunphy/Stace change matrix) also identifies four types of change, as the revised version uses a broader taxonomy, that classifies further the two types of change proposed initially. The initially identified incremental change is now distinguished in two categories: fine tuning and incremental adjustment. The transformative change has two sub-types: modular transformation and corporate transformation.

Fine tuning is the type of organisational change that implies the slightest alterations of the initial situation. It does not involve the whole company, but only some departments or divisions. It implies refining or clarifying some aspects like: “refining policies, methods and procedures, clarifying the established roles of some employees, fostering individual and group commitment to the company’s mission and promoting confidence in the accepted norms and beliefs” (Dunphy and Stace, 1993, p. 917)

The incremental adjustments define the changes suffered by the entire company, on order to adapt to the changing environment. The changes incurred refer to the corporate strategy, structures and management processes. Examples of such incremental changes are: expanding the sales territory, improving the production process and modifying the production mix according to the demand.

A modular transformation defines a radical change in the company, focused more on some departments and divisions and not on the company as a whole. It can define changes like the major restructuring of a department, modifying the goals of a department, changing the directors in charge of these departments or the introduction of some new and significantly different technologies that impact the work of key departments in the company.

Compared to the modular transformation, the corporate transformation regards the radical changes that occur in the whole corporation. This transformation can address revolutionary changes in the business strategy or in the mission and core values, the reorganisation of the

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company, the redistribution of the power in the organisation or the intervention of external persons that are named in key positions of the company.

This framework has been chosen because an ERP system implementation is considered to be a modular transformation, being an example of a technology newly introduced in the company, that impacts the activity of key departments in the company. The leadership style cannot be assessed from the start, but it is assumed that this style will have an impact on the implementation itself. As stated by Grabski et al. (2011, p. 64) “ERP influences the behaviors of people, which in turn changes how systems are used”.

Now that the first framework has been introduced, the second one will be presented in the context of ERP implementation: Lewin’s 3 step model of change. The common point of these two framework is the notion of “change”: the first framework proposes a change matrix, whereas the second suggests a 3 step model of change.

Dillard et al. (2005) consider that ERP systems can change organisational structures and roles. Sutton (2006) argues furthermore that the change in the way the information is processed affects also the accounting process. Nicolaou and Bhattacharya (2008) emphasise the fact that “firms which implement an ERP system must be conscious of and circumspect enough to realize that ERPs are different from other IT systems. They bring about global changes to firms’ business processes”. In order to explain how this change occurs, Lewin’s 3 step model of change has been chosen.

Levasseur (2010) uses Lewin’s framework when proving that change management principles can improve the success rate of the projects implemented in a company. When dealing with the non-technical causal factors in a project failure, he states that “line managers, project managers, and others involved in implementing new methods must understand the potentially dramatic impact that change management principles and practices can have on project success, thus motivating them to acquire new soft (i.e. people) skills and behave differently.” (p. 160)

Ronnenberg et al. (2011) also use Lewin’s framework, more specifically the 3-step model of change, when analysing an environmental management system implementation. One of the hypotheses of their quantitative research is “The greater the degree of (a) unfreezing (b)

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perceived environmental performance of the firm.” (p. 635). Because almost all the coefficients are significant, the hypothesis is confirmed.

Therefore, Lewin’s framework is considered to be appropriate for analysing the management of change in the context of the present company.

Kurt Lewin was one of the most praised social scientists of all time. He has been called “the intellectual father of contemporary theories of applied behavioral science” (Schein, 1988, p. 239). He elaborated the planned approach to change, comprising four elements: the Field theory, the Group dynamics, the Action research and the 3-step model of change. He considered that all four combined are necessary in order to achieve the planned change.

The Field theory stated that the behaviour of an individual changes along with the group environment, or “field” as Lewin named it. Thus, changes in the “field” trigger individual behaviour changes.

The Group dynamics emphasises the influence that the group has on the behaviour of the individuals. Lewin was the first psychologist to write about group dynamics. He considered the effort of focusing on individual change as useless. He stressed that the focus should be on the group level, as individuals feel constrained by the group to conform.

In Lewin’s opinion, the process of Action research implied that research within one’s self will lead to action and this action will be translated into change. He was more interested in the processes that make people take the decision to change, rather than the change itself.

When conceiving the 3-step model of change, Lewin believed that a successful change project would involve 3 steps.

Step 1: unfreezing. For Lewin, “human behaviour was based on a quasi-stationary equilibrium supported by a complex field of forces.” (Burnes, 2004, p. 313) This equilibrium has to be destabilised in order for change to occur. “To break open the shell of complacency and self-righteousness it is sometimes necessary to bring about an emotional stir up” (Lewin, 1947, p. 229)

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Step 2: change. The destabilisation is not a sufficient step. This is only the motivation towards change. The individuals will have to evaluate now all the available options and the constraints imposed by all the forces at work.

Step 3: refreezing. The new stage acquired after the change has to be frozen, in order to become a new quasi-equilibrium. As Lewin emphasises in the Group dynamics, this new equilibrium should be the same for all the group because change only in the individual behaviour cannot be sustained. In this way, refreezing implies that a new organisational culture, new policies and practices have to be defined.

The last part of Lewin’s planned approach to change has been chosen to be a theoretical framework for the present study. The findings of the present study can be interpreted through the lens of this framework because the process of ERP implementation can also be seen as a 3-step approach: the “unfreeze” moment corresponds to the announcement that a new system will be implemented in the company. The “change” phase includes all the processes through which the company implements the new system and starts working with it. New rules and routines come from outside, namely in this case the ERP procedures. ERP systems restrict some of the previous accounting routines implemented in the company, by imposing new ones, detailed in the “Instructions manual”. Employees will enact the new rules, by incorporating them in their routines. In this way, change occurs and it is refrozen in the employees’ work habits by being reproduced daily. So this is when the “refreeze” moment occurs, when the employees replace the old routines that they knew in the past with the new ones, corresponding to the new system. The refreeze step occurs so that the new habits will not regress into the old ones. This is, of course, a group activity because all the employees have to adapt to the new system. Whenever one employee is behind schedule, there is peer pressure for him/her to keep the pace so that the integration intended by the ERP implementation to be achieved.

This reshaping of the past processes is found to be beneficial for the company, as noted in Järvenpää (2007)’s paper. He states that after this change in accounting practices, “accountants are able to carry out routine activities more effectively, to handle large databases more quickly and to report in a faster and more flexible way”. (p. 100)

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These two theories will be used to interpret the change brought in the company by the ERP implementation. The data that would be interpreted under the lens of these two frameworks was the subject of a qualitative method, which will be explained in the following chapter.

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4. Methodology

A qualitative research bring the benefit of rich, deep data, that represent the points of view of multiple participants. As opposed to the quantitative research which is based on an artificial setting and its main purpose it to generalise the findings, the qualitative research is placed in a natural setting and is aimed at contextual understanding. Considering these characteristics, a qualitative study is considered to be appropriate for the purpose of the present paper.

Moreover, considering Chua (1986)’s classification of accounting research, the present paper can be assigned to the category of interpretive accounting research, as it does not resonate with the mainstream and critical typologies. One of the dominant assumptions of the interpretive accounting research is that there is not just one reality, but different realities, as seen through the lenses of different persons. Reality is socially created, as it is impacted by human interactions. Conflicting opinions are not considered an issue and are considered individually because they represent the reality of a different character. This type on research is mostly done through a case study.

The next chapter presents the qualitative method chosen for the interpretive research of the change in an ERP implementation context.

4.1. Research methods

The term “qualitative research” defines a broad category that encompasses five research methods: experiment, survey, archival analysis, history and case study. According to Yin (2009), the difference between them is established by the different answers that can be given to the following three questions:

1. What type of research question is posed?

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3. Is the study based on a contemporary setting or does it have a historical perspective? According to Yin (2009, p. 2), case studies are the preferred method when “(a) “how” or “why” questions are being posed, (b) the investigator has little control over events, and (c) the focus is on a contemporary phenomenon within a real-life context.”

Eisenhardt (1989) argues that in the literature, “qualitative” and “case study” research are used interchangeably.

The present case study wants to address the research question: “how and why did the relationships among employees impact the change of the accounting system?” Thus, it includes both “how” and “why”. Moreover, the researcher does not have control over these facts, as her role was to be only an observant of the changes. And also the study focuses on a phenomenon happening nowadays, in a real-life context. Consequently, the case study research method is considered to be the most appropriate one, in line with the purpose of the study.

This research is based on a case study, developed on a Romanian company, active in the petrochemical industry. It has a headquarter and a branch located in the outskirts, where the production process takes place.

The case study benefited from researcher’s involvement, due to the employee status for almost one year in the studied company. This period fostered professional and trustworthy relationships with the personnel, including the management.

4.2. Data collection

When planning a qualitative research based on a case study, Yin (2009, p. 2) points out that “an essential tactic is to use multiple sources of evidence, with data needing to converge in a triangulation fashion.”

The research question was analysed through semi-structured interviews, documentary analysis and participant observation. Using multiple sources of evidence also ensures the construct validity of the research.

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Semi-structured interviews were chosen instead of structured interviews, because the structured ones are more rigid. The researcher wanted to get more insights from the interviewees, because everyone interacts differently with the system and with the colleagues and experiences different challenges as well. These interviews were accompanied by field notes. “Field notes are an ongoing stream-of-consciousness commentary about what is happening in the research, involving both observation and analysis.” (Eisenhardt, 1989, p. 539) This brings adeeper implication of the researcher, which can be regarded in two ways: the negative part would be the subjective side of the interpretation, while the positive side is represented by a holistic representation of the interview results, because in an interview not only the recorded words are important, but also the facial cues, laughs and activities undertaken during the interview can bring some meaning. This is in line with the statement that field notes are an overlap of the data collection and data analysis. (Eisenhardt, 1989)

The documentary analysis implied requesting relevant documents from the company, that reflected the formal relations in the company (represented in the organigram), the characteristics of the new systems, the procedures imposed and documents reflecting some tense situations with the supplier of the product. These documents were intended to support and emphasise some aspects already found in the interviews.

The participant observation was stated as a data collection method, because the working experience in the company provided insights in the working environment. By working as well with the accounting system, the researcher could understand better the employees’ statements and concerns about this. Despite the lack of contact with the company for one year, it can be noted that the relations and procedures did not change much.

Being acquainted to the company, the resarcher tailored the research question in line with the context of the company. Eisenhardt (1989, p. 536) states that “the rationale for defining the research question is the same as it is in hypothesis-testing research. Without a research focus, it is easy to become overwhelmed by the volume of data.” Having many insights of the company, I had to choose a topic that would be of interest for the academic research. So the topic of ERP implementation was chosen in the beginning as an area of research.

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But as Edmondson and McManus (2007) suggest, a qualitative research is often a process of coming back and forth and rethinking the research question and the theoretical framework used for studying it (see figure 3). This also reflects the flexibility of this research method.

Figure 3. Field research as an iterative, cyclic learning journey

Source: Edmondson and McManus (2007, p. 1174)

Eisenhardt (1989, p. 536) supports this evolution of the research process, by stating that “the research question may shift during the research.” Moreover, “no construct is guaranteed a place in the resultant theory, no matter how well it is measured.”

In the present research, the emphasis shifted in time from the ‘perceptions over the ERP implementation’ towards the ‘change brought by this implementation’. The theories used to understand the presumed findings changed accordingly.

The interview guide has been developed having the presumably supporting theories in mind. Also, a certain situation was expected to be found regarding the ERP implementation in the company so this was also taken into consideration when formulating the questions.

The situation was somehow different that expected came as a surprise. So the research question had to be reformulated, in line with the answers received at the interviews. The answers provided were not focused strictly on the technical part of the implementation, but also on the human interactions that were implied by this implementation. And this is where the research question was born. It intends to deal with why and how the ERP implementation was influenced by the relations between the headquarter and the branch.

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The literature review was adapted accordingly, comprising also articles regarding this relation and inter-organisational change. The theoretical framework was also altered: Lewin’s 3 step model of change was chosen as the framework for answering the “how” part of my research question. And the Dunphy/Stace change matrix is used in order to interpret the findings for the “why” perspective of the research question.

Besides the case study method, a historical perspective of the accounting information systems used in the company was gained through interacting with the chief financial officer. He provided a short history of the programmes used in the company and then the knowledge about the systems was additionally improved by studying some internal documents. ERP procedures and instructions manuals were provided, along with different types of documents issued by the two programmes and also detailed e-mail discussions with the ERP developer when problems occurred. The company’s website was also used for the study, for gathering data. In this way, triangulation of data was achieved, as multiple sources of data have been used in this study; hence the reliability of the research.

4.3. Case design

As stated before, the study is placed in a Romanian company, active in the petrochemical industry. This company was chosen for 3 reasons: the novelty of the setting, the closing of a research gap and the access to information.

The novelty of the setting regards both the country and the company itself. Romania was chosen as an interesting area, because it is an Eastern European country, not intensively studied as the Western European countries. The company itself is an interesting choice, as it has been privatised and thus changes have also existed when the employees that worked in a state-owned company, part of a centralised economy, had to adapt to a free market and a private ownership of the company. This brought a different vision and leadership style. The management of change can therefore be translated in two ways: the change imposed by the ERP implementation and also the change from the state-owned to private-owned company.

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process. But in Motwani et al. (2005)’s paper, a research gap has been identified. In the paper, it is stated that “although several theory testing articles dealing with case studies exist in the literature, very few discuss ERP systems other than SAP. It would be beneficial to generalize the findings to other ERP systems.” The present study intends to address this opportunity, by dealing with an ERP system developed by a Romanian IT company. This will consist as a futher motivation for choosing this company and also a contribution to prior research. It will be of interest to study how a Romanian ERP system addresses the needs of Romanian companies. Also, a minor emphasis will be put on the relations between the software developer and the company that uses its product, in order to see how a small, national IT company provides assistance and support, compared to the SAP developers.

Another fact that played an important role in the choice of the company was the access. I have worked in this company for one year before I came to study at the University of Amsterdam. I was a financial reviewer at the headquarter and I have worked along with the chief financial officer. Besides the daily work in the ERP system, I also got access to more in-depth information regarding the integrated system because of my position in the company. Thus this position helped me get access more easily to people and information. The intention to study the implementation and perception of both the subsidiary and the parent company resides from my working period, when I experienced discussions between the subsidiary employees and the CFO and then with the developers of the system, almost on a daily basis. I perceived it as a subject worthy of being researched, as it comprised not only technical information, but also control leverages.

Being an employee of the company, I knew already the organisational structure, ownership structure and the management style. Moreover, my daily activities implied interacting both with the management of the company and also the accountants from the factory. During my work, I also had the chance to visit the subsidiary. This was not only an formal visit that implied getting acquainted with the personnel that I was interacting with only by phone or e-mail, but also visiting the production site. So I must concur that I have a broad perspective over the activities undertaken both at the headquarter and at the factory where the production takes place. But this personal implication can also trigger a limitation of the study, as the interpretation of the findings might be biased, due to the close connection to the company.

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Getting to know the production process and having contacts from every step in the production process, I knew who could be of interest in my study and could provide me with relevant information for my research. The case study setting will be presented further on, in order to develop the reliability of the study.

Because the focus of this research is on the accounting side of operations, in line with the field of Master studies, all the employees that were co-opted for interviews were form the accounting department (the chief accountant from the branch and the employees in charge with accounts receivable, accounts payable, cost accounting and cash and bank statements). When studying issues regarding the control and inter-institutional relations, the perceptions of both the headquarter and the branch were needed, in order to convey a broad image over the relations in the company. So the Chief Executive Officer, the deputy Chief Executive Officer and the Chief Financial Officer were interviewed, in order to enrich my perspective over the facts with the explanations given by the management.

Therefore, there were eight interviews conducted, as eight employees were considered to be relevant for the study. The company bought twelve authentication rights from the ERP developer and thus only twelve persons that have access to the ERP system. Out of these twelve, eight were interviewed. The four persons not interviewed were a young accountant that has been working in the company for less that one year, an employee from the Commercial department that seldom introduces some sale invoices, an HR person, and the IT employee in charge with maintenance that recently left the company.

The research implied on-field visits and face-to-face interviews with the intended persons. The period for conducting the interviews was determined after a discussion with the management, who provided information about the leave patterns of the employees during Easter. The period chosen was intended to provide access to all the relevant persons who had been chosen for the interviews. There was an unexpected event that made the employee from the commercial department unavailable for the whole period, but this is not perceived to be a major limitation of the study, as it focuses mostly on accounting employees.

Before establishing the period to conduct interviews, all persons were notified via e-mail about this research and they were required to state their agreement of participating in the study.

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This notification was necessary because in Romania companies are not used to receiving researchers and being subjects of some studies. In the beginning, this step was considered to be mostly a formality, because of the status of a former employee of this company and because of the trustworthy relationships developed with the personnel. But in reality the situation had to be handled with care, as people are reluctant to revealing detailed descriptions of their activities, being concerned that this information might be used by third-parties or in their detriment. Thus, confidentiality measures had to be taken in order to increase their trust in the purposes of the study. Consequently, an interview protocol had to be concluded before the actual interview took place. (see Appendix 1) Besides its usefulness in describing the conditions and providing clarity on the topics to be tackled in the interview, the case study protocol also contributes to the reliability of the study.

The research protocol had to include some confidentiality clauses because in Romania people are generally reluctant to being recorded because they think that this is typical mostly for the mass-media and they fear that the recording could be used against them. The nondisclosure of the name of the company and the name of the interviewees was a clause that made the relationship between me and the interviewees more open. So this is the reason why the study presents only the field of activity of the company and the positions of the interviewees. This proved to be an effective measure, as the employees were open when discussing their experiences and were honest and presented both the good sides and the bad sides of the situation.

When arriving at the company’s locations, the context of my research had to be presented again. I presented them my student status in a foreign country in order to convince the employees to be open and share their experiences with the system. They appreciated my ambition, as they consider education as a very important asset in one’s development. Therefore they were open and eager to help and thus, they gave detailed answers to the questions that have been asked. The atmosphere during the interviews was generally friendly and relaxed, and the employees presented their own experiences, emphasising the expressions “in my opinion”, “according to me”, “this is what I think. It may be right, it may be wrong, but this is what I experienced”.

All interviews were conducted in Romanian (see table 1). The 3 interviews with the general management were conducted at the head-quarter, whereas the other 5 interviews were conducted at the subsidiary. They were all tape-recorded, as every employee gave his/her

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consent about this. So their original answers stand as the starting point of the present thesis research.

Table 1. Interviewee sample

Interviewee Duration Evidence

Chief Executive Officer 37 minutes Recorded and transcribed Plus notes taken

Deputy Chief Executive Officer 33 minutes Recorded and transcribed Plus notes taken

Chief Financial Officer 48 minutes Recorded and transcribed Plus notes taken

Chief Accountant (branch) 31 minutes Recorded and transcribed Plus notes taken

Accounts payable 17 minutes Recorded and transcribed

Plus notes taken

Accounts receivable 27 minutes Recorded and transcribed Cash and bank statements 16 minutes Recorded and transcribed

Plus notes taken

Cost accountant 37 minutes Recorded and transcribed

When the interview guide was elaborated, the intention was to send the employees the conclusions of the study, as a courtesy for accepting to cooperate with the research. After interacting with them and understanding their concerns, the decision was not to send them the findings, as it proved to be a sensitive matter for them, especially for the branch employees, whose subordination relation to the management is full and committed and they do not dare to disagree publicly with them.

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4.4. Case analysis

After each interview was finished, I set on paper my impressions of the interviewee, based on his/her facial cues, gestures, laughs and pauses. The filed notes also included transcripts of the remainder of the discussion with the interviewee, because they felt more comfortable to share ideas after the recording was ended. They made sure that the “finish” button has been pressed and then they continued to share impressions that they were to afraid to convey during the recorded part.

After having finished all the interviews, I transcribed the entire discussions and notes. When transcribing the interviews, some notes were also taken, as I began to have a better understanding of the processes and I found similarities and differences of perceptions. Basically, this is how the coding system started.

As Edmondson and McManus (2007, p.1160) stated “interviews or observations are designed to be systematically coded and quantified”. The purpose of this is to “obtain data that measure the extent or amount of salient constructs”. Strauss (1987, p. 27) emphasises the importance of coding by stating: “The excellence of the research rests on large part on the excellence of the coding.”

The transcripts were manually coded, based on my intuition, analytical abilities and the chosen theoretical framework. The personal experience as a financial reviewer in the company was also used as a starting point. This is in line with Saldaña’s (2013, p. 7) remark on coding: “The act of coding requires that you wear your researcher’s analytics lens.”

Doing pattern matching and explanation-building ensured the internal validity of the study. The connections between different related facts led to the coding scheme in Table 2.

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Table 2. Coding scheme

No. Major topic Minor topic

1.1 “Unfreeze” step - reasons for implementation

- perceived reasons for implementation by the branch employees - conditions for the implementation

- reactions of the employees to the announcement 1.2. “Change” step - phases of implementation

- working with two systems in parallel - employees’ reaction to change - the change in daily activities - the relation with the developer - financial cost of change - financial benefit of change - satisfaction with the system 1.3. “Refreeze” step - compliance of the employees

- future plans of the management 2. Style of change

management

- way of referring to the superiors

- attitude of expressing satisfaction with the programme - reminiscence of communist era

- ERP as a control mechanism - consultative leadership style

More than 40 pages of relevant transcripts were analysed based on this coding scheme and the following chapter deals with the findings drawn from them.

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5. Findings

As Dawson (2003, p. 10) states, “a historical perspective on both the internal and external organisational context is central to understanding the opportunities, constraints and organisationally defined routes to change”. Therefore, it is imperatively necessary to start the presentation of the findings by setting the scene. First, the context of the company will be presented, taking care not to offer so many details that would ruin the confidentiality of data. The company’s name has been changed into ERPetro in order to preserve confidentiality. Then the system that was imposed when the parent company bought the subsidiary will be presented. Afterwards, the new ERP system will be introduced.

5.1. Description of the company

ERPetro is one of the main producers of synthetic rubber in Romania. Its activity started in 1962 and it was a project from a research and development institute in Russia. Back then, this state-owned factory supported the cost of living for most of the inhabitants in the area. It was a renowned producer and exporter back then. In 1991, due to political interests, the factory was divided into the 3 sections that formed it: the refinery, the chemical factory and the rubber production factory. Then it went through two waves of privatisation: an unsuccessful one in 2005 and another one in 2008 when the current owner acquired it. Since its purchase in 2008, the number of employees at the factory dropped from almost 1,500 to approximately 500.

The company is a joint stock legal entity, with 100% private Romanian capital. It is active in the petrochemical field and it is located in Bucharest (Romania) having also a production factory 300 km away from the capital city. This organisation has ISO 9001:“Quality Management System” certificate for various activities and it makes business with both big national companies and international companies.

Figure 4, below, shows the organizational structure of ERPetro. The positions that are below the Regional Director refer to the branch where the factory is operating. The ones above the Regional Director are the positions at the headquarter, which is located in Bucharest.

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Taking into account the long history of the company, the age of the employees spans from 24 at the headquarter to more than 60 at the subsidiary. The 14 employees at the headquarter have been in the company for 6 years at most, since its purchase, whereas the majority of the 418 employees from the factory have been working there for more than 20 years. They have also experienced the communist period and have not been working with computers until recent years. Therefore, the reaction to change will be different at the branch and at the headquarter.

5.2. The previous accounting system

An accounting system is of uttermost importance in a company. This is both due to the legal financial requirements and also because, as stated by the Chief Financial Officer of the studied company, 80% the activity of each employee is reflected in financial information, whereas only 20% of his activity is seen in non-financial information.

A-Soft was the accounting system introduced in the factory in 2008, once it was purchased by the current owner. Its implementation was suggested by the Chief Financial Officer because:

“Before the company was purchased, I did not think I would have to work on A-Soft. I always thought that the factory already had a management application, which proved to be efficient and on which people were already working. Surprisingly, I did not find anything of that kind so I had to implement A-Soft, which proved to be good for that situation.”

When asked to give a brief presentation of A-Soft, the Chief Financial Officer of the company provided the following description:

“A-Soft accounting software is widely used in Romania, especially for small and medium enterprises. The developers of the software provide the user with a simple programme, that covers almost all of a firms’ needs regarding an accounting program. So the program suits very well the small and medium enterprises, but is more difficult to be used by large companies with a complex activity.”

The website of the developer confirms the fact that the programme is very cheap, hence its wide portfolio of clients. It offers multiple modules such as: financial accounting, management accounting, accounts receivable, accounts payable, accounting for salaries, bank

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and cash management, production and support for foreign exchange operations. So basically “it splits a big process into many sub-processes.” (Chief Financial Officer) Moreover, it can be accessed by many users at the same time. Having many modules and allowing multi-access to the database, the system can be categorised as an Enterprise Resource Planning system for small and medium companies.

Being an accounting programme, a person with an accounting background is required in order to use it. The documents are introduced in the system one at a time and a journal entry has to be written for the every operation. The journal entry is semi-automated because the user has to indicate the accounts that are debited and the ones that are credited. Therefore, a knowledgeable person of the national accounting system should be the user, in order to input correctly the accounts.

The Chief Financial Officer describes the programme as resembling a game: “the way you receive it is the way you use it. You can also customise some reports at your own will, but usually the default reports can fulfill 99% of the accounting needs of the company.”

A drawback for this system is represented by the technical support for the database:

“A-Soft is developed on a FoxPro database, which is owned by Microsoft. In the last years, Microsoft stopped developing the FoxPro project. They offer maintenance for this programme only until 2015 and then the future operating systems will not support this application any more. Thus, the programmes developed on a FoxPro platform will disappear. Besides that, FoxPro is a small database and when a large amount of data is introduced, the speed of processing decreases and errors can occur, as well as loss of data and so on.

Anyway, I heard that A-Soft has a project of migrating the programme from the FoxPro database to an SQL database, which will make the programme more reliable, even for a big company” (Chief Financial Officer).

The deputy CEO also expressed his content with this programme :

“Soft is a good programme. If you were now to invest in the stock of a Romanian company, A-Soft would be the best option if it would be listed on the stock exchange. And this is because it is a wide-spread product in Romania, it is cheap and the users are satisfied with it.”

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5.3. The new ERP system

Shine is an ERP system offered by a Romanian software developer. The user manuals provided by the developer present it as an ERP with a wide implementation in various types of organisations. It has seven modules: General, Purchases, Sales, Deposit, Fixed assets, Financial and Accounting.

The General module comprises lists with article codes, tax rates, foreign exchange rates and various settings. The Purchases module has the purchase invoices as a main focus, be they domestic purchases or imports, and the orders placed to the suppliers. The Sales module deals with the orders received from the clients, the sales invoices issued and the delivery documents that have to accompany the goods once they leave the company. The module Deposit deals with the movements in the stocks of goods: reception of goods, sales of goods, transfers, inventory and various reports regarding the stock of goods. The module Fixed Assets was designed as a special part, due to the special features of fixed assets: they depreciate over time and also the purchase of such assets implies issuing many documents once they enter the company, according to the Romanian law. The Financial modules deals with the operations like encashment recordings and payments and involve bank statements, cash management, revaluation of invoices in different currencies and financial reports. The Accounting module is the one that encompasses information from all the previous modules, through the journal entries attributed to every operation.

The conclusions of Muscatello et al. (2003) paper develop the concept of “fit” between an ERP system and the company. The paper is based on an analysis of 4 companies and concludes that the fit between the system and the company can be achieved in two ways:

- The chosen ERP system to be tailored in order to meet the requirements of the company. In the present case, the requirements concerned the existing IT hardware, the continuous flow of goods and the emphasis put on the production process and cost accounting.

- To reengineer the business processes of the company in order to fit the purchased ERP system (this was the case of 3 out of the 4 companies studied by Muscatello et al. (2003))

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ERPetro found itself in the first presented situation: the one of adapting the purchased system to its needs. As a starting point, the supplier of the system provided a programme designed for a cash and carry business, which is different in some aspects from a company that also has a production cycle. Figure 5 presents the most important processes for the cash and carry company, that according to Romney and Steinbart (2012) typology, is a trade organisation with cash sales:

Figure 5. Main processes for a trade organisation

The cycle begins with the purchase of inventory from the supplier. The goods are accounted afterwards in the stock file. The cycle now has arrived in the Customer area. When the products are sold to the customer, accounts receivable are recorded in the financial accounting. Once the invoice is paid and the money received, money enters into the company. This money will serve for paying and covering the accounts payable towards the suppliers that provided the goods. Then the process reiterates itself.

Figure 6 presents the most important processes for ERPetro, that according to Romney and Steinbart (2012) typology, is a production organisation:

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Figure 6. Main processes for a production organisation

The purchase of the raw materials ordered from the supplier is similar to the one for the trade organisation. The raw materials are stored before being used in the production process. But these raw materials are not sold in the same shape and composition as they were bought, because they will go through the production process. The product design phase is really important, because the product should meet the customer demands for quality, durability and functionality, while minimizing production costs. When the finished goods are ready, they are sold to the customers. The accounting department bills the clients are registers the accounts receivable accordingly. When the money is collected, the transaction is registered in the cash file. Afterwards, payments are made, in order to diminish the accounts payable towards the suppliers. Then the cycle will reiterate itself.

As can be inferred from the figures, the two types of organisations differ in respect to the stocks of materials: the trade organisation holds only stocks of goods that are bought and sold without alterations, whereas the production organisation has stocks of raw materials, work in progress and finished goods and the production process takes place in order to transform the materials into products.

The employees that were in charge of operations common to the two activity sectors were obviously satisfied with the ERP system because it was perfected previously for a cash and carry

The management of change : a perspective over ERP implementation in a Romanian company