MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING
UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY
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Phan Thi Bao Quyen
A DEVELOPMENT OF
ENTERPRISE RESOURCE PLANNING SUCCESS
MODEL FOR ACCOUNTING PROFESSIONALS
Major: Accounting
Code: 9340301
A DOCTORAL THESIS SUMMARY
Ho Chi Minh City, 2020
A doctoral dissertation is submitted for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in
Accounting at the University of Economics Ho Chi Minh City.
Supervisors:
Associate Professor, Dr. Vo, Van Nhi
Dr. Nguyen, Thi Kim Cuc
Reviewer 1: ..............................................................................................
Reviewer 2: ..............................................................................................
Reviewer 3: ..............................................................................................
This thesis is accepted by the School of Accounting and School of UEH
Graduate in partially fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor
of Philosophy in Accounting:
Date
Dean of the School of Accounting
Date Dean of the School of UEH Graduate
ABSTRACT
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system is commercial software that
automates and integrates many or most of a firm’s business processes. It
allows to access to integrated data cross the entire enterprise according to real-
time (Davenport, 1998). Therefore, ERP system is expected to increase
productivity via processes standardization, to improve decision-making ability
via information integration throughout the whole enterprise, to enhance
cooperation between organizational entities by connecting them smoothly, and
the most important, to maintain competitive advantage once these benefits are
satisfied (Davenport, 1998). These promises are possibly a close explanation of
its increasing popularity. Namely, Fortune 500 companies are trusting ERP
system1 and it is also a solution that large-sized organizations in Vietnam
select and adopt more growingly2.
Nevertheless, instead of achieving impressive benefits from their ERP systems,
some firms have faced difficulties in gaining the benefits they expected.
Therefore, as suggested by Markus and Tanis (2000), for both researcher and
executives, one of the initial interested-questions is whether investments in
ERP will pay off. Several organizational-level econometric studies conducted
(M. C. Anderson, Banker, & Ravindran, 2003; Hitt, Wu, & Zhou, 2002) give
an answer that it is likely yes – on average. However, the impacts vary from
enterprise to enterprise, even from module to module (Nicolaou, 2004a) in
which accounting-related modules are in charge of changed-focuses. Kanellou
and Spathis (2013) perform the relevant literature and conclude that ERP
implementation has a considerable impact on accounting department of the
business organizations. Hence, the executives’ next questions are probably to
be, how can I maximize the positive impacts on accounting department? Is
there some way to predict what the ultimate impacts of ERP systems on
accounting professionals will be in order to achieve a goal of enhancing
organizational performance?
1 This information is quoted from website http://fortune.com/2017/09/13/amazon-microsoft-
google-sap-cloud/
2 This information is quoted from Vietnamese E-commerce Indicator Report in 2018.
These questions are worth addressing. In attempting to do so, the author draws
on D&M IS success model (DeLone & McLean, 1992), IS-continuance theory
(Bhattacherjee, 2001) and the principle “fitness for use” (J. M. Juran, 1988) to
develop the ERP success model for accounting professionals in order to make
them more productive, which in turn improves performance of implemented
organizations. The theoretical and empirical results indicate that organizational
performance is, indeed, influenced by the extent to which accounting experts
effectively utilize ERP systems in the adoption and ongoing context.
This study makes an original contribution to both of theory and practice
through forming and validating the ERP success model for accounting
professionals only. In a little more detail, it provides empirical evidence
regarding Hunton’s accounting value chain (2002). In addition, it discovers
and proves effective use as the most appropriate system-use concept so far.
Moreover, it makes an effort to investigate outcomes of accounting benefits
perceived from ERP system, which related-studies are much further under-
researched. Last but not least, the research provides valuable implications for
organization management on how they can successfully manage accounting
department as well as accounting professionals in an attempt to maximize
ERP’s impacts on organizational performance, which executives have paid
much attention to for recent years but have not yet found out the answer so far.
Key words: ERP success model, accounting professionals, perceived
accounting benefits, system use, the principle "fitness for use"
1
CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Chapter introduction
The purposes of this chapter are to describe a broad overview of the research.
1.2 Background of research
This study is conducted in the context, which the ERP system has already been
one of the most popular business-management-applications in organizations all
over the world and begins to be increasingly adopted in Vietnam.
1.3 Motivations for research
1.3.1 Motivation 1 - ERP research
Huang and Yasuda (2016) summarize that a field of critical success factors is
one of the most mentioned ERP-related topics. The CSF researches have
typically addressed several different issues. In most cases, typical CSF studies
have consistently identified a set of core factors critical to the success of ERP
implementations. However, the few researchers are interested in building ERP
success models as untypical CSF studies. Finney and Corbett (2007) lament the
fact that most of recent ERP CSF research (both typical and untypical CSF
type) has generally taken from a macro perspective or a view of multiple top
mangers, the perspectives of key or single stakeholders are often missing. For
these reasons, a call for developing a model measuring ERP success from
stakeholders’ perspective has been established for recent years.
1.3.2 Motivation 2 – Behavioral Accounting Research (BAR)
Behavioral accounting research (BAR) is defined as the study of accounting
professionals’ behavior or non-accountants’ behavior influenced by accounting
functions, and/or report system, and/or creating accounting information
(Hofstedt & Kinard, 1970). This thesis focuses on “study of accountants” due to
its increasing concern in BAR literature; the more growingly intertwined
relationship between accountants and ERP system; and their valuable
contributions in IS-adopting business organizations.
1.3.3 Combination of ERP research and BAR
Because of its accounting benefits, ERP requires accounting expertises to change
their role in order to make broader contribution to the company, such as