On managing business, organization climate and enterprise system implementation: Insights from Indian MSMEs

Abstract

Purpose

This study aims to explore the linkage between organization climate, politics and enterprise system implementation in context to micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs). Organizational climate and politics play a significant role in determining the outcome of enterprise implementations. Adequate focus on such factors can help resource-starved MSMEs to ensure a positive outcome of their enterprise system implementation exercise.

Design/methodology/approach

Primary data used in this study were collected from the users in 62 MSMEs who have been part of the implementation process in their organization. Responses were collected by means of validated questionnaires and personal interviews given by end-users. The study presents the reduced factors after analyzing the responses through exploratory study followed by a confirmatory study.

Findings

The results highlight that in addition to factors like project execution and management competency, package and vendor competency, top management support and leadership factors, organizational politics and organizational climate factors play a significant role in ensuring success of an implementation process. Organization climate in the form of organization politics emerges as a major inhibitor in context to MSMEs. The analysis also showed a statistically significant relationship between the identified factors like technical, project management competency and vendor- and package-specific competency.

Practical implications

MSMEs are resource-constrained and hence cannot afford any failure in the implementation of processes running within the system. For enterprise system implementation, not only financial commitments are required but a successful execution of processes is also required, otherwise there are chances of failures, which can adversely affect the business continuity of many MSMEs. Thus, the finding of this study can provide an insight into the management of such organizations, so that they can plan properly to ensure a successful implementation.

Originality/value

Some published studies have reported the role of top management in the enterprise implementation process but have not been able to provide specific evidence of the factor “organization climate” in the implementation process. Also in context to a developing economy, few published studies are available exploring this linkage in context to MSMEs, as attempted by this study.

Citation

Upadhyay, P., Kundu, A. and Nair, S. (2016), "On managing business, organization climate and enterprise system implementation: Insights from Indian MSMEs", Journal of Workplace Learning, Vol. 28 No. 8, pp. 472-483. https://doi.org/10.1108/JWL-05-2016-0040