Information Systems and User performance: An Empirical Study of the Impact of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Systems on User Performance in Higher Education

Abstract

The growth of information systems coupled with the needs for innovation and sustainability have increased the need and pace for high quality and efficient performance in organizations. Indeed, information systems have been sought after and recognized by modern organizations since they offer a remarkable potential for improving performance. Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems have been one of the most significant systems of recent times and play a large supporting role in most of the major industries including airlines, telecommunications, transport, education, government, etc. They are implemented with the belief that they will lead to bettter performance by facilitating organizational operations and supporting various organizational goals to achieve increased efficiency and effectiveness. ERP systems certainly help (in principle) to address the problem of fragmentations of information or "islands of information" in business organizations. However, debate still exists regarding the various contribution of ERP systems to performance, especially at the user level, where the core values of information systems are represented, because users utilize the systems and assess the actual benefits and impacts of these systems.