=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-3293/paper101
|storemode=property
|title=Critical Success Factors and Enterprise Resource Planning Implementation in Central Macedonian Agricultural Processing Companies
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-3293/paper101.pdf
|volume=Vol-3293
|authors=Asimina Kouriati,Christina Moulogianni,Thomas Bournaris,Eleni Dimitriadou
|dblpUrl=https://dblp.org/rec/conf/haicta/KouriatiMBD22
}}
==Critical Success Factors and Enterprise Resource Planning Implementation in Central Macedonian Agricultural Processing Companies==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-3293/paper101.pdf
Critical Success Factors and Enterprise Resource Planning
Implementation in Central Macedonian Agricultural Processing
Companies
Asimina Kouriati 1, Christina Moulogianni 1, Thomas Bournaris 1 and Eleni Dimitriadou 1
1
Department of Agricultural Economics, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, University Campus, 54124
Thessaloniki, Greece
Abstract
Enterprise resource planning (ERP) system helps many companies to integrate all the business
functions using a common database and shared information. The parameters that have an
important impact on the success of that system (ERP) are known as Critical Success Factors
(CSFs). Understanding Critical Success Factors (CSFs) and how they affect Enterprise
Resource Planning (ERP) implementation leads to the provision of useful enterprise guidance.
The investigation of the relationship between CSFs and ERP implementation in companies
evinces deep interest in literature but it is believed that such an investigation has never taken
place in Greek agricultural processing companies by now. Facts that are the reason for this
paper to make an effort to investigate this research object by using Correlation Analysis.
Keywords 1
Enterprise Resource Planning, Critical Success Factors, Agricultural Processing Companies,
Central Macedonia
1. Introduction
The framework regarding the investigation of the relationships between critical factors and the
successful implementation of ERP systems in companies [1 – 5], evinces deep interest. Studies
concerning Greek agriculture are related to farm management and farm decision making [6 - 8]. ERP
and critical success factors’ investigation in the sector of agriculture has never been implemented in
Greece, apart from some literature aspects which concern a general study of the Information Systems
(IS) adoption and implementation in the agricultural processing and food sector [9, 10].
The above facts led present study’s authors to make a corresponding analysis in Central Macedonian
(Greek) agricultural processing companies. In order for the fulfillment of this literature gap, it was
decided that this study should be based on paper of [11], who defined 37 ERP critical factors through a
content analysis implementation. Therefore, in the case of this study, Critical Success Factors (CSFs)
are taken into account individually, as features of the implementation and the system in order for their
relationship with ERP success, to be studied. Based on this, a management version of this Information
System (IS) is presented, aiming for its success in Central Macedonian (Greece) agricultural processing
companies. So as for relevant data to be collected, a special questionnaire was used. After the data
collection present study’s authors used the Correlation Analysis method in order to identify the
relationships between ERP implementation success and each one of the critical factors’ importance [1,
2, 12].
Proceedings of HAICTA 2022, September 22–25, 2022, Athens, Greece
EMAIL: kouriata@agro.auth.gr (A. 1); kristin@agro.auth.gr (A. 2); tbournar@agro.auth.gr (A. 3); edimitri@agro.auth.gr (A. 4)
ORCID: 0000-0002-4306-8553 (A. 1); 0000-0002-1364-4214 (A. 2); 0000-0001-9540-7265 (A. 3); 0000-0002-7363-0703 (A. 4)
©️ 2022 Copyright for this paper by its authors.
Use permitted under Creative Commons License Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0).
CEUR Workshop Proceedings (CEUR-WS.org)
503
2. Research Methodology
In order for the fulfillment of the present study’s aim, a research was conducted on Central
Macedonian (Greece) agricultural processing companies, with the use of an electronic questionnaire
which is related to the critical factors and ERP success. The questionnaire was formatted on Likert scale
[13, 14] questions in order to be pointed out the respondents' preferences for the importance degree of
critical factors (1=Not Important to 5=Very Important) and ERP success degree (1=Not at all to 5=Very
much). Once the questionnaire was ready, it was sent to Central Macedonian agricultural processing
companies’ corporate email addresses. This research, specifically, was directed to all companies’
members who are involved in the implementation of ERP system [15], i.e. top managers, general
managers as well as other employees. Present survey was lasted four months (October 2019-February
2020). After the data collection, Correlation Analysis was used in order for the relationships between
implementation success and critical factors to be identified.
Correlation Analysis evaluates the degree of association of two variables and determines the
direction of the relationship that exists between them [16]. Due to the fact that the importance of factors
and the degree of the ERP system’s success are expressed as hierarchical (ordinal) variables, the
correlation coefficient of Spearman is used [16]. Spearman correlation coefficient results from two
variables (X, Y), whose observations’ ranking is achieved in ascending or descending order. Based on
that, correlation coefficient is calculated through the equation [16]:
𝟔 ∑𝒎
𝒊=𝟏 𝒅𝒊
𝟐
(1)
r=𝟏 − 3
𝑚 −𝑚
Where:
di express the difference between rxi - ryi, rxi: the degree of value xi, ryi: the degree of value yi
and m: the number of sample’s observations. The coefficient values are in the range of -1 and +1 and
the higher their absolute value is, the stronger the correlation becomes [16]. Negative coefficient values
indicate that when variable x increases, y decreases, and vice versa, while zero value indicates a lack of
correlation. Through the above properties, the direction of the relationships between two or more
variables (positive or negative) is specified. The following equation was used to identify whether the
Spearman correlation coefficient (ρ) is statistically equal to zero -or not– or, even, to statistically
confirm the relationships between two variables [16]:
𝒎−𝟐 (2)
t = r√𝟏−𝑟𝟐
If the value t corresponds to probability less than the significance level (p˂0.05 or p˂0.01), then the
null hypothesis (ρ=0 for correlation lack) is rejected [16].
3. Results and Discussion
A total of 227 members of Central Macedonian companies, which operate in the agricultural
processing field (olive, milk, fruit, vegetables, meat, nuts, wheat, cereals, bee products, tea as well as
coffee) [17, p. 6] participated in the present survey. The ERP systems used by the majority of the
participated companies provide various capabilities such as financial monitoring, accounting,
warehouse, sales and purchasing management [18-21]. After the collection, data were properly
processed and entered the statistical package of SPSS in order for the implementation of Correlation
Analysis [1, 2, 12]. Present study’s research hypotheses arose from [11]s’ theoretical framework
regarding the identification of 37 ERP Critical Success Factors.
Taking into account the importance values of the factors [11], these research hypotheses can be set
as:
Η1-37: Critical factor’s importance is significantly related to the degree of ERP system’s
implementation success.
504
The hypotheses are considered as alternatives, while the null hypothesis, which is defined for each
case, is set as:
H01: Critical factor’s importance is not significantly related to the degree of ERP system’s
implementation success.
From Correlation Analysis implementation, it emerged that 24 out of 37 critical factors are
significantly related to the successful ERP implementation (Table 1).
Table 1
Correlation analysis results (1)
Correlations
3. Business plan
Communication
Organizational
management
management
5. Change
support
culture
4. BPR
1. Top
2.
6.
Correlatio
n Coef.
.241** .181** .148* .207** .222** .189**
ERP Success Degree
Sig. (2-
tailed)
0 0.006 0.026 0.002 0.001 0.004
Spearman's rho
N
227 227 227 227 227 227
Correlations
12. Project management
achievement timeframe
9. Communication plan
8. Well defined Budget
10. External pressure
7. Implementation
11. Controlled ROI
strategy / Goals
Correlatio
n Coef.
.210** .262** .143* .255** .187** .179**
ERP Success Degree
Sig. (2-
tailed)
0.001 0 0.031 0 0.005 0.007
Spearman's rho
N
227 227 227 227 227 227
505
Correlations
qualifications, reward &
Monitoring, Evaluation
characteristics, skills &
17. Software testing,
18. Accuracy, Data
14. Recognition of
13. Performance
customization &
troubleshooting
stakeholders’
involvement
& Feedback
15. Users &
capabilities
motivation
16. Users’
Integrity
Correlatio
n Coef.
.223** .176** .210** .153* .158* .173**
ERP Success Degree
Spearman's rho
Sig. (2-
tailed)
0.001 0.008 0.001 0.021 0.017 0.009
N 227 227 227 227 227 227
Correlations
23. Use of consultants
support/Maintenance
implementation audit
& further training
22. Implemented
19. ERP pachage
24. ERP vendor
21. System
selection
selection
20. Post-
modules
Correlation
.250** .142* .184** .311** .144* .156*
Coef.
ERP Success Degree
Sig. (2-tailed)
Spearman's rho
0 0.033 0.005 0 0.03 0.018
N
227 227 227 227 227 227
**. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).
*. Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed).
Correlation Coefficient values are not close to the unit (1), which is something that proves that there
is no large degree correlation. Nevertheless, the values of line Sig. are less than 0.05, which leads to the
acceptance of the research hypotheses, concerning the 24 factors of Table 1, and concludes that the
emphasis that is placed on these factors has an impact on the ERP implementation success.
Moreover, all factors that are mentioned in the Table 1 show a positive (due to the sign) correlation
506
with the successful implementation of the system. 13 out of 37 factors did not meet the specifications
mentioned above, as it can be seen in the following results (Table 2).
Table 2
Correlation analysis results (2)
Correlations
balanced project team
30. Project champion
33. IT Infrastructure
26. National culture
28. Company-Wide
34. System Quality
37. Service Quality
and adequate role
decision-makers
29. Capable and
31. Empowered
27. Knowledge
customization
36. Processes
35. Minimum
management
expectations
25. Realistic
32. Training
alignment
Support
Correlation
Coefficient
0,1 0,1 0,08 0,056 0,07 0,07 0,07 0,08 0,1 0,1 0,1 0,1 0,1
ERP Success Degree
Spearman's rho
Sig. (2-
tailed)
0,1 0,08 0,1 0,4 0,2 0,2 0,2 0,1 0,06 0,09 0,08 0,08 0,052
N 227 227 227 227 227 227 227 227 227 227 227 227 227
**. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).
*. Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed).
To be more precise, the values of Sig. line are above 0.05. This fact leads to the rejection of the
hypotheses, which concern the 13 factors, and to the acceptance of null hypothesis (H01) respectively.
Thus, it is concluded that the emphasis that is laid on these factors has no impact on the ERP
implementation success.
3. Conclusions
The framework regarding the investigation of the relationships between critical factors and
successful implementation of ERP systems in companies evinces deep interest. Therefore, in the present
study, a corresponding analysis in agricultural processing industries which are located in Central
Macedonia’s prefecture, was selected to be implemented because it is believed that such an
investigation has never taken place in Greece again. In order for this investigation to be carried out, 37
research hypotheses were created by taking into account the critical factors as individual features of the
implementation and the system and they are tested through the use of Correlation Analysis.
Through the answers given by the Correlation Analysis method, it was determined whether the
importance that is shown to critical factors is related to the degree of ERP success. Based on the above
fact, useful guidelines are created in order for agricultural processing companies’ managers to
understand which CSFs can be taken into account so as for the successful implementation of ERP
system to be feasible. To be precise, Correlation Analysis results (Tables 1 and 2) showed that the
importance of 24 CSFs is positively related to the degree of ERP system’s successful implementation.
That indicates that these factors are considered as the most critical in ERP implementation of Central
Macedonian agricultural processing companies. For that reason, a holistic focus could be suggested on
the characteristics of these 24 factors because a partial one can limit their positive effect to ERP success
[22].
507
Unfortunately, in the case of this study, there was an inevitable limitation. That one concerns the
values of correlation coefficients, which are not close to the unit and, thus, a small degree correlation
is indicated [16]. Furthermore, a corresponding research approach is proposed to be implemented in
other Greek prefectures as well, in order for more answers regarding the Critical Factors and ERP
systems’ implementation in agricultural processing industries, to be received.
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