The impact of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) education in Zambia
This socio-technical study describes and explains the impact of an ERP course, introduced at the University of Zambia. Zambia lacks local ERP expertise required for the implementation and support of ERP systems in organisations. The research investigated the impact of this ERP education on the postgraduate students that went through the course and the resultant potential impact on organisations in Zambia. The research paradigm used to answer the research question was interpretivism and the research has three-parts. Study 1 used a deductive approach and Sen's Capability Approach to explain how student choices and personal, social, and environmental conversion factors impact student capabilities and functionings enabled by ERP education. The Zambian context which restricts higher salaries and employment prospects is evident. Study 2 inductively investigated the course outcomes of ERP education and the contextual factors that impact ERP education course outcomes. The impact of the teaching model and the course limitations on course outcomes were explained and a richer understanding and impact of the Zambian context, in which foreign expertise is preferred over local expertise is presented. Study 3 inductively investigated the ERP challenges experienced by organisations in Zambia and the potential impact of ERP education on organisations and on the outsourcing of ERP expertise from outside Zambia. Multiple potential benefits of ERP education on organisations were described and challenges that reduced the impact of ERP education on environmental, project-related, and organisational challenges were explained. The contribution to practice is an ERP education explanatory model that can be used to foster collaboration between industry and academia, to assist universities in appropriately integrating ERP systems into university curricula, and to assist organisations in maximising their benefit from graduates with ERP education. The contribution to theory is a description of the Zambian ERP context and a holistic explanation of how contextual factors impact and are impacted by ERP education. The study underscores the importance of contextual factors when incorporating new information systems' courses into university curricula.
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