Understanding ERP adoption and family involvement in UK's retail small family businesses

• Main Author: Lasisi, M. O.
• Published: University of Salford 2018
• Subjects: 658
• Online Access: https://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.758210

Despite the theoretical suggestion that adopting an ERP system could bring about competitive advantage to Family Businesses within a highly competitive market such as the retail industry, a high level of family involvement appears to be a hindrance to the successful adoption. This study focused on understanding how family involvement might influence ERP adoption within UK’s retail Small Family Businesses (SFBs). The study is important because some studies posit that family involvement in business could be leveraged for a successful adoption of technology, but others suggest that family involvement could as well be a hindrance to adopting an ERP system. This is a qualitative study done in two stages; Firstly, through the exploration of the experience of ERP experts (consultants) for retail SMEs to understand ERP adoption and its possible contributions to UK’s retail SFBs. Secondly, the findings the characteristics and processes within UK’s retail SFBs were investigated through observations and family manager interviews. Although, some of the cases studied were yet to adopt an ERP system, findings from comparing SFB cases with and without an ERP system shows that the business characteristics and processes might benefit from a successful adoption of the technology in a range of ways such as Managerial, Operational, Strategic and Organisational benefits. Despite the heterogeneity of the families and their businesses, the family managers appear to be the key decision makers and for ERP to be adopted the technology may need to be positively perceived in terms of its contribution to business and family interests. It was also found that due to family cohesion and trust, the business stakeholders irrespective of family affiliation tend to commit to the adoption of an ERP system if the family manager decides the business needs to adopt the technology. While this study is based on evidences from few ERP consultants and cases of UK retail SFBs, the study has extended existing ERP knowledge in Family Businesses by showing that family involvement can be leveraged in some UK’s retail SFBs to successfully adopt the ERP system. The study shows that the technology is capable of effectively benefiting both the business and family interests. A framework was also developed to show how family involvement might bring about ERP adoption in UK’s retail SFBs. The study also shows that methodically using expert interviews and case studies is an efficient way to explore family involvement in ERP adoption within SFBs.