The Determinants of Student Effort at Learning ERP: A Cultural Perspective

1. INTRODUCTION Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software is a comprehensive packaged solution that integrates all business processes and functions into one complete information system (Klaus, Rosemann, and Gable, 2000). Today, nearly all Fortune 500 firms have adopted ERP systems to operate their business and improve business strategy execution (Revenaugh and Muretta, 2013). Although the ERP market has matured, the demand for ERP solutions is still growing worldwide. Increasingly, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are investing in and reaping benefits from ERP systems implementations (Haddara and Zach, 2012). According to the latest Gartner report (Pang et al., 2013), the global ERP software market continues to grow at an annual average rate of 6% and it is expected to reach $34 billion by 2017. Due to this widespread adoption of ERP systems, there is a high demand by large enterprises (LE) as well as SMEs for graduates with passable ERP experiences (Strong et al., 2006). Indeed, newly hired employees who complete one ERP course are realizing higher salaries than those who do not (Cronan and Douglas, 2012). Hence, it is expected from universities that such specialized knowledge will be embedded in their coursework, more particularly in courses related to information systems (Venkatesh, 2008). This demand for ERP skills is prompting universities to form alliances with ERP vendors. According to SAP, the world's largest ERP vendor, the number of educational institutions they collaborate with continues to increase. Over 1,400 educational institutions in over 80 countries use SAP in their curricula, and over 1.4 million students are practicing SAP (SAP, 2013). Through the SAP university alliance network, professors from around the globe are creating and sharing SAP educational material and exercises. The results from using ERP systems as a tool to teach students business concepts and provide them with hands-on experiences have been positive. The information systems literature asserts that educators are satisfied with using ERP systems as a teaching method to integrate ERP topics into lectures, exercises, and projects (Leyh, 2012). The relevant literature also shows that students who learn about ERP systems improve their business process knowledge (Cronan and Douglas, 2013), find it useful to their jobs (Garaca, 2011), achieve higher salaries (Cronan and Douglas, 2012), and are satisfied with their learning experience (Alshare and Lane, 2011). Notwithstanding the positive overall impact that ERP learning has on students, educators still find it challenging to make students utilize software packages to their full capabilities knowing that students are driven by the short-term benefits of learning such software (Alshare, 2009). Students are expected to learn and utilize different software packages during their study; however, they may not utilize and exert the effort in learning such software, because they may feel that the software packages are imposed on them (Alshare, 2009). It becomes very important for instructors to understand how they can motivate and encourage their students in exerting effort at learning and utilizing the required software and tools. The significance of ERP systems in information systems research is reflected in the vast relevant literature. Still, only a small portion is devoted to the integration of ERP systems in education. Moreover, very few articles examine the factors that influence student effort when using ERP systems as learning tools. Those articles examine the impact of factors such as self-efficacy (Shivers-Blackwell and Charles, 2006), teaching methods (Ayyagari, 2011; Seethamraju, 2011; Leyh, 2012), career relevance (Alshare, 2009), and course structure (Alshare and Lane, 2011). Yet, no research has looked at the cultural aspects that could impact students' attitude and effort at learning ERP systems. The use of ERP systems as a learning tool has spread worldwide. …