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Communication Dans Un Congrès Année : 2016

The fragmentation of theoretical contributions in ERP research : an exploratory study

Résumé

Theorizing is an essential endeavor in IS research, and top-ranked journals require their publications to include substantial theoretical contribution. In this paper, we seek to analyze and understand whether ERP research has been successful in building theory and developing a cumulative tradition. Our working hypothesis is that the profusion of theoretical contributions is hindering the cumulative construction of knowledge, and is impeding the emergence of robust theories in certain IS domains. Furthermore, we believe that replication is rarely considered when research is designed and published, thus indirectly contributing to the publication of yet more theoretical proposals. To explore and test this hypothesis, we develop an analysis framework and apply it in the ERP research field to a set of papers published in two leading European IS journals. Our findings confirm our hypothesis and show that it is difficult to build stable theories in ERP research as the theoretical corpus is fragmented; researchers tend to propose new theoretical contributions rather than test and confirm existing theories. We discuss the possible reasons behind this state of affairs and make a series of recommendations. This paper contributes to a better understanding of the theorizing process in ERP research and is of interest for researchers engaged in theory building.

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Domaines

Autre [cs.OH]
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Dates et versions

hal-01299503 , version 1 (07-04-2016)

Identifiants

Citer

Saïd Assar, Redouane El Amrani. The fragmentation of theoretical contributions in ERP research : an exploratory study. HICSS 2016 : 49th Hawai'i International Conference on System Sciences, Jan 2016, Kauai, Hawaii, United States. pp.4707 - 4716, ⟨10.1109/HICSS.2016.583⟩. ⟨hal-01299503⟩
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