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Enterprise resource planning (ERP) applications are information systems (IS) packages that are engineered to institutionalize the sharing of organizational data resources (Klaus, Rosemann, & Gable, 2000). These systems are designed to address the problem of fragmentation as they integrate and streamline internal processes by providing a suite of software modules that cover all functional areas of a business (Koch, Slater, & Baatz, 2001). Since the emergence of ERP packages in the late 1990s, they have become popular among practitioners and IS researchers alike (Ifinedo, 2011). However, despite such interests globally, industry reports and academic studies have indicated that many adopting organizations have come to realize that the deployments of such systems were not as effective as expected (Ifinedo, 2011; Peslak, 2012; E. Wang, Shih, Jiang, & Klein, 2008; Zhu, Li, Wang, & Chen, 2009). Although ERP systems can bring potential benefits such as productivity and quality improvements in key areas, the high failure rate is a major concern (Davenport, 1998). The failure rate of these projects has been estimated at between 60% and 90% (Chang, Cheung, Cheng, & Yeung, 2008; Kwahk & Lee, 2008). These projects are, on average, 178% over budget, took 2.5 times longer than intended and delivered only 30% of promised benefit (Zhang, Lee, Huang, Zhang, & Huang, 2005).
These statistics imply that ERP implementation is a difficult and risky task. To avoid such costly failures and helping organizations better make use of their resources, much effort has been done by researchers. Some researchers have provided valuable insights into the process of ERP implementation (Mandal & Gunasekaran, 2002; Parthasarathy & Anbazhagan, 2007; Soja, 2008; Subramanianh & Hoffers, 2005; Yusuf, Gunasekaran, & Abthorpe, 2004) and others identified a variety of critical factors affecting on the success or failure of the system (Al-Hinai, Edwards, & Humphries, 2013; M Al-Mashari, 2003; Amid, Moalagh, & Zare Ravasan, 2012; Hanafizadeh, Gholami, Dadbin, & Standage, 2010; Nah & Delgado, 2006; Nah, Zuckweiler, & Lau, 2003; Somers & Nelson, 2004; Umble & Umble, 2002). Many factors contribute to the success or failure of ERP projects, but just a few of them are technology-related factors. Many others belong to different areas such as human resources, strategies, project management, management, structure, communication and financial issues (Hanafizadeh & Zare Ravasan, 2011). However, there are various obstacles or challenges that must be overcome in the process of the successful implementation of an ERP system by an organization.
Vast and complex number of success or failure factors affect on the implementation of ERP systems (Dawson & Owens, 2008; Farzaneh, Vanani, & Sohrabi, 2013; Khattak et al., 2013; Rouhani & Zare Ravasan, 2013; Sternad, Bobek, Dezelak, & Lampret, 2009; Umble, Haft, & Umble, 2003). But most of researchers are interested in working on critical success factors (CSFs) as one of the most frequently used keywords in ERP systems publishing (Kayas, McLean, Hines, & Wright, 2008) and fewer numbers intended to investigate Critical Failure Factors (CFFs). Studies indicates that just six percent of all articles that were published by prestigious journals and conferences in ERP topics from 1998 to 2007 were assigned to CSFs (Z. Huang, 2010). But in the same period, the number of published papers on ERP CFFs was less than one percent. Since the review and analysis of ERP failure experiences in the form of research projects is very valuable for avoiding the past mistakes (G. Pan, Hackney, & Pan, 2008), studying ERP projects’ CFFs can be expressed as an interesting research topic.