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To examine enterprise resource planning (ERP) adoption in Greek companies, and explore the effects of uncertainty on the performance of these systems and the methods used to cope with uncertainty.

This research was exploratory and six case studies were generated. This work was part of a larger project on the adoption, implementation and integration of ERP systems in Greek enterprises. A taxonomy of ERP adoption research was developed from the literature review and used to underpin the issues investigated in these cases. The results were compared with the literature on ERP adoption in the USA and UK.

There were major differences between ERP adoption in Greek companies and companies in other countries. The adoption, implementation and integration of ERP systems were fragmented in Greek companies. This fragmentation demonstrated that the internal enterprise's culture, resources available, skills of employees, and the way ERP systems are perceived, treated and integrated within the business and in the supply chain, play critical roles in determining the success/failure of ERP systems adoption. A warehouse management system was adopted by some Greek enterprises to cope with uncertainty.

A comparison of ERP adoption was made between the USA, UK and Greece, and may limit its usefulness elsewhere.

Practical advice is offered to managers contemplating adopting ERP.

A new taxonomy of ERP adoption research was developed, which refocused the ERP implementation and integration into related critical success/failure factors and total integration issues, thus providing a more holistic ERP adoption framework.

Increasing uncertainty of supply networks, globalization of businesses, proliferation of product variety and shortening of product life cycles have forced Indian organizations to look beyond their four walls for collaboration with supply chain partners. With a gross domestic product (GDP) of over US$474.3 biilion, the Indian industry spends 14 percent of its GDP on logistics. Considering this scenario, it is necessary to study the supply chain practices being followed by the Indian industry and to suggest areas for improving the same. This paper is based on a joint survey, covering 156 organizations, carried out by Management Development Institute, Gurgaon and KPMG India. The paper primarily focuses on the status of four major supply chain dimensions. The paper recommends that the Indian industry should align supply chain strategy with business strategy, streamline processes for supply chain integration, form partnerships for minimizing inventory and focus on infrastructure and technology deployment to build a India‐specific supply chain.

First this paper introduces the concepts of virtual manufacturing system (VMS). The host enterprise and the multiple numbers of supply and distribution enterprises that make up a VMS, and the hierarchical and horizontal relationship that exists between these enterprises are explained. The steps involved in formation and operation of a VMS are then analyzed in detail. Second, we present a three view based methodological approach to make a multi‐agent model of VMS. Finally, with the help of a testing prototype, we show how to develop an autonomous Internet based data collection system for operation of VMS in accordance with the proposed methodological approach.

Dynamic capabilities yield positive effects to firm-specific advantage formation. Paradoxically, the body of literature on capability diffusion is scarce. The purpose of this study is to focus, thus, on this dearth of literature with an emphasis on exploring the transferability function.

An integrative review of literature on the dynamic capabilities view covers the organizational context determining capability sharing, supported by strategic communication and business networking theories for the fashioning of global capabilities’ administration model (GCAM).

Individual motivations and formal modelling of capabilities’ transference have been overlooked in previous research. Largely with a top-down orientation, the current paradigm of their diffusion is profoundly shaped by the organizational structure and its global governance practices.

The GCAM’s architecture, based on transnational administration and hybrid transferability, opens horizons for multinational companies to develop their own capability management systems and is at the same time a new scholarly avenue in the field.

This study explores an untapped research gap and the formal modelling of a GCAM, while reconciling some of the weaknesses of academic research and industry practices.

The purpose of this paper is to present an integrative and detailed review of the critical factors that cause enterprise resource planning (ERP) implementation failures, based on an in‐depth literature review (1997‐2009).

Keywords relating to the subject of this paper were defined, and used to search web engines and journal databases for papers on ERP implementation failures. These papers were further analysed and classified into various categories.

Nine factors are found to be critical in the failure of ERP implementations: excessive customisation, dilemma of internal integration, poor understanding of business implications and requirements, lack of change management, poor data quality, misalignment of IT with business, hidden costs, limited training and lack of top management support.

The paper proposes the development of a framework to address each ERP implementation failure factor in its entirety based on the frequency of its occurrence in industry, as a topic for future research.

The paper contributes to research in the ERP domain by highlighting ERP implementation challenges from a critical failure perspective and proportion of the failures, as opposed to presenting critical success factors. Failure factors with examples provides a clearer visibility of the costly damages that can be introduced into organisations in the event that these failures are ignored.

This paper aims to automate the supply chain operations reference (SCOR) model as an enabler for process‐oriented supply chain business intelligence.

The hypothesis is the following: SCOR model automation is possible using data that is directly extracted from integrated enterprise systems. To test the hypothesis, an alignment product that allows the SCOR model to be automated with information that is directly extracted from the Oracle E‐Business Suite was developed.

In order to achieve the full benefits from the SCOR model, effective business process management and the SCOR key performance indicators (KPIs) must be implemented and used. Unless data collection to support KPI construction is automated, it is difficult to institutionalize the SCOR model as a measurement and benchmarking framework. We have demonstrated that automated support for KPIs is feasible and achievable.

The E‐Business Suite is a single enterprise solution, but we assert that the same procedures could be followed with other enterprise solutions or even applied in a legacy system environment.

The developed solution described in the paper can immediately be applied to the design, development, and deployment of corporate performance management systems.

Over the past decades, mainstream studies have generally indicated that new ventures could improve entrepreneurial performance by adopting strategic alliances (SAs). However, recently an increasing number of new ventures appear to not realize this objective using SAs at all times and may, rather, even be stuck in the survival trap. This dilemma indicates that the causal relationship between SAs and entrepreneurial performance in new ventures is not simply linear and rather a further complex nonlinear relationship. To handle this debate, this study attempted to reveal the nonlinear relationship of two types of SAs (technology alliances and market alliances) in new ventures with entrepreneurial performance (organizational growth and customer value). In addition, the moderating effect of transactive memory system (TMS) in the entrepreneurial team under the nonlinear relationship was explored.

This study established a research model by considering technology alliances and market alliances as two independent variables, organizational growth and customer value as two dimensions of entrepreneurial performance, and TMS as the moderators. The survey data collected from 207 Chinese new ventures was subjected to the hierarchical linear regression method for testing the proposed hypotheses.

The results revealed that there is an inverse U-shaped relationship between technology alliances and organizational growth, while the relationship between technology alliances and customer value was U-shaped. In addition, the relationship between market alliances and organizational growth was U-shaped, while an inverse U-shaped relationship was observed between market alliances and customer value. Finally, TMS was observed to positively moderate the U-shaped relationship between technology alliances and customer value as well as the U-shaped relationship between market alliances and organizational growth.

This study concluded that a nonlinear relationship between SAs and entrepreneurial performance existed in new ventures, which contributes to resolving the debate on whether new ventures could adopt SAs to improve entrepreneurial performance at all times. Specifically, the findings of this study would enrich the existing literature on the outcomes of SAs in new ventures through an evaluation of the effect of the inverse nonlinear relationship between technology alliances and market alliances on entrepreneurial performance (e.g. organizational growth and customer value). In addition, the findings of this study would extend the discussions about the conditions of the above causal relationship by introducing the TMS as the core moderator.

This paper has the purpose of investigating the effect of organizational and individual characteristics on corporate intranet utilizations measured in terms of utilization modes, utilization for decision support and utilization for knowledge sharing.

The study employed a positivist case study approach conducted at four corporate organizations operating in Malaysia. About 700 questionnaires were administered to intranet users yielding 359 usable responses.

Four organizational characteristics, namely top management support, technical user support, functional integration and social norm, were found to be significantly related to intranet utilization variables. Likewise, four individual characteristics, namely web efficacy, personal information technology innovativeness, length of service and intranet experience, were also found to be significantly related to intranet utilization variables.

Only four organizational and individual characteristics were explored. In addition, data were collected employing a cross‐sectional design instead of longitudinal design. The perceptual measures used in the questionnaires could also contribute to biasness.

The study contributes to the body of knowledge by developing an empirical‐based framework that depicts the determinants of intranet utilization at user‐level perspective.

This paper seeks to establish a design for cross‐organizational workflow based on logical channels of communication. A set of scenarios is established which can be used to test the effectiveness of future architectures.

Starting with scenarios based on cross‐organizational business transactions, designs a set of sequence diagrams, analyzes these diagrams, and then deduces the need for certain system capabilities.

Current approaches to web services focus on just one channel – that of invocation. In order to handle the full gamut of cross‐organizational workflow, channels devoted to flow, monitoring, negotiation, and interpersonal interaction are also necessary.

Extensions to this research might include designs for integrating these multiple channels. Such designs can be tested against the scenarios discussed in the paper. In particular, research related to the semantic web might extend the ideas raised here.

Companies implementing web services may want to augment the current technology with enhancement of their own in order to avoid inadvertently reducing their channels of communication with trading partners. A properly constructed monitoring channel has the potential to change the nature of complex workflow.

Those designing and implementing web service technology may find value in the articulation of a set of complex scenarios which can be used to test alternative designs and implementations. The discussion of cross‐organizational monitoring is new, and has broad implications for business.