Relationships Between ERP Leadership Competences and Perceived Client Satisfaction and Moderating Effect of Implementation Context
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Relationships between ERP Leadership Competences and Perceived Client Satisfaction and Moderating Effect of Implementation Context HENLEY BUSINESS SCHOOL THE UNIVERSITY OF READING Thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the degree of Doctor of Business Administration by Olusegun Adu December 2019 Declaration I confirm that this is my own work and the use of all material from other sources has been properly and fully acknowledged. Name: Olusegun Adu Date: 31 December 2019 Signature: ii Acknowledgements The undertaking of this research has been an immense challenge in many ways and for many years. An appreciation is in order to all those who took part and supported the research from inception to completion. I would like to thank my supervisors Professor Victor Dulewicz and Dr. Stephen Simister for their support throughout the course of this research work. I especially appreciate the contributions of Professor Dulewicz who took me under his wings from the beginning and sought to guide me through the challenges of a doctoral thesis. His assistance and advice and the painstaking review of my draft submissions have served to ensure the correctness and focus of the research. Thanks to Dr. Simister, whom with his experience in IT leadership and management has provided guidance and assurance of the work during the years. A special acknowledgement is served to Dr. Richard McBain (my MBA mentor) for his role in my pursuance of the DBA. I still remember my first mention of studying a DBA to him via email in 2009 while working in Geneva, Switzerland – and then the follow-up phone call during which I was invited to attend the DBA introductory event at Henley. Finally, I would like to thank Louise Hillier and Becky Kite at the DBA Programme office who have been very patient with me during this process. iii Dedication I dedicate this to my long-suffering family, who have stood there waiting through the years. To my parents who set me on this path. My dad, mathematician Professor David I Adu, nicknamed the ‘maths wizard’ during his early days - who might have preferred for this to be a mathematics thesis with a mathematics doctorate at the end of it – I say there is still hope with the grand- kids. To my mum Agnes Adu, a woman with endless faith in me, who never relented in her mission of support for me. It is so easy to attribute this work to you both because you have both lifted me and willed me on to the finishing line with your weekly check-ups, encouraging words and your fervent prayers. I would like to thank my wife and kids for all the sacrifices and adjustments they have made to afford me the space and the opportunity to focus on this work especially in the last couple of years. I could not have done this without your support. Thank you Finally, to my Lord and King, my saviour Jesus Christ for breaking down every barrier on the way to completing this Doctorate. Thank you Lord. iv Abstract The current thesis focuses on Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system implementations, investigating the significance of ERP managers’ leadership competences on perceived client satisfaction and how the ERP context moderates that relationship. It reviews the impact of contextual problems and the hurdles to be circumvented during the implementation and their influence on ERP leaders’ ability to achieve perceived client satisfaction. In doing so, the current study attempts to remedy the dearth of literature considering context in relation to ERP leadership and client satisfaction; moreover, adding further support to the foundations of the Contingency Theory - applied in the ERP context - by proposing a model of ERP leadership competence-based theory of perceived client satisfaction. As noted by Saxena and McDonagh (2019) user perception and user satisfaction are considered highly crucial for implementation success in both research literature (Chevers, 2018; Mekadmi and Louati, 2018) and by implementing organisations (Sumner, 2018). Likewise, a considerable amount of research has been conducted into critical success factors, or CSFs, for ERP implementations (e.g. Holland & Light, 1999; Sumner, 1999; Willcocks & Sykes, 2000; Ram & Corkindale, 2014; Costa, Ferreira & Aparicio, 2016; Vargas & Comuzzi, 2019). However, for the current research it has been identified that bringing context into the picture will help to focus such discussions and help converge findings to much more generalisable and useable outcomes and proposals. The ERP implementation train, due to its heavy dependence on Business and Information Technology (IT) skills, would typically have onboard, a diverse multicultural people, a disparate set of processes and several unrelated traditional systems and technologies, all led and driven along the implementation journey by the manager, usually referred to as: project manager, program manager, implementation manager, project leader, and other possible names based on the role definitions set out for a particular implementation. The implementation would normally play out within the organisational dynamics of the day, referred to in the current work as the ERP implementation context. The research employs a quantitative approach. An initial pilot study was conducted, using six semi-structured interviews with ERP program and project management practitioners in Sweden, Germany, Canada, United States and the United Kingdom. The six interviewees were all experienced program and project managers who have managed ERP implementations for several years. Each interview took roughly one hour. The aim of the study was to generate v insights from practitioners to be used in building preliminary constructs for the concepts in the research model, such as the ERP implementation context, managers’ competences and client satisfaction. Results from the pilot study were used as a basis for development of the latter questionnaire distributed to gather data on managers’ leadership competences, ERP implementation context and perceived client satisfaction. In all, 83 responses were further analysed to test the hypotheses using quantitative analysis techniques including factor analysis and moderated hierarchical regression analysis. The results indicate that the competences: Emotional Intelligence, Leadership Performance, Follower Commitment, Team and Peer Cooperation and Project Management Knowledge are significant predictors of Perceived Client Satisfaction (PCSAT), with Follower Commitment as the strongest predictor of PCSAT. No significant effects were noted for Delivery Capabilities and Offshore Team Relations. The research also found that moderators: Resource Availability Problems, Cultural problems and External Partnership Problems showed highly significant impacts on the strength of the relationship between the independent variables and the dependent variable with Resource Availability problems showing significance across three of the moderated regression analyses carried out. However, cultural problems showed the highest singular significance as a moderator on the relationship between Follower commitment and Perceived Client Satisfaction. The study adds further support to the foundations of Contingency theory by providing a Model of ERP Leadership-Competence-based Theory of Perceived Client Satisfaction. It is expected that further contributions may be found when harnessing the outcomes of the study to develop required leadership competences to positively affect and tackle problems arising from an ERP implementation context. Furthermore, as follower commitment is illuminated as a highly important antecedent to perceived client satisfaction, to use this information to both select implementation team members and to influence the commitment of the team positively. Keywords: ERP implementation, ERP leadership, project management, emotional intelligence, EI, Enterprise Resource Planning, IT, organizational leadership, programme management, client satisfaction, information systems implementations and human resources. vi Contents Declaration ............................................................................................................................. ii Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................... iii Dedication ............................................................................................................................. iv Abstract .................................................................................................................................. v Contents ............................................................................................................................... vii List of Figures ...................................................................................................................... xiii List of Tables ....................................................................................................................... xiv List of abbreviations (or symbols) ......................................................................................... 17 1 Introduction and Overview of Thesis ............................................................................. 19 1.1 Purpose of the Research ........................................................................................ 19 1.2 Academic Context of the Research ........................................................................ 21 1.2.1 ERP Program / Project Management .............................................................