The impact of Enterprise Resource Planning Systems (ERPS) on the management accounting (information) systems of an organization

The general aim of this research is to study the impact of these "new" information systems on the role of management accounting in the organization. Therefore the effects of these systems on organizational decision making, power relations within the organization and the role of the management accountant will be investigated. Therefore, the scope of this study is not to investigate the reasons for the actual change, but rather what is affected by this change. First of all, the reasons for implementing such ERPS will be discussed. They vary from strategic incentives such as the reduction of uncertainty, the integration of information along the entire value chain due to for instance the current globalization, the introduction of new accounting systems, … to the more practical day-to-day motivations such as the faster delivery of information, the possible cost reduction, the urgent upgrade of the outdated (and mostly inflexible) legacy systems, etc. These latter problems are more professional and not the goal of this study, but they constitute the environment that creates the need for these information systems. The management control implications as well as the organizational and behavioral changes associated with the introduction will also be discussed here. In order to study these various issues we can draw upon a rich variety of previous studies and theoretical perspectives. First of all, there is of course the diverse management accounting and control literature, the innovation-diffusion-adoption literature, the organizational change and decision making literature and the various implementation studies. But apart from the literature that is grounded in the various management accounting theories, the MIS theories and literature also offer us a good starting point to develop viable hypotheses. To develop or extend theory [following Keating (1995)] regarding these ERPS, an exploratory case study in a single organization - in order to gain sufficient in-depth information before carrying out a more extensive survey - will be conducted (in cooperation with a large consultancy firm).