ERP systems in universities: Rationale advanced for their adoption

This chapter outlines the significance ofenterprise resource planning (ERP) systems and analyses the rationale used for their adoption. This study is structured around a theory of the motivations for investment in information technology (IT) to support core business operations. The data used for the study are documents published electronically on the Internet by universities. A content analysis was applied to this data. The chapter employs frequent use of quotes from the sources selected to assist the reader to understand the context and to verify the analysis. The findings are that the main reasons for adopting ERP are the modernization of systems, greater usability and flexibility, integration of data and systems, business process reengineering, an increase in the degree of electronic data interchange including the provision of Web-based interfaces to application systems, reduced maintenance and risk avoidance.