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Top1. Introduction
Organizations strive to continuously adapt to the rapidly changing external environment, while ensuring internal integration of necessary processes (Edgar Schein et al., 1965). Dawson (1992) suggested the three major sources of change with in an organization’s external environment such as, ‘the constituent parts in the environment are not static’, ‘there can be changes in the patterns of interactions between the constituent parts in the environment’, and lastly ‘there can be changes to constituent parts of the environment as a result of the power and influence of the organization on the environment and vice versa’. Strategists endorse the need for the senior leaders to adapt to the external business environment and change agents support each other for adequate internal development (Ajmal et al., 2012). Change agent is either an external consultant or an internal party (senior managers/employees) who takes up the task of initiating and managing change within an organization (Ottaway, 1983; Holten & Brenner, 2015). Change agent is any individual who strives to initiate a new business process or improve an existing business process (Raju, & Rajagopal, 2014). The present study defines the change agent as the one who has spearheaded or been a core team member of an ERP implementation effort in organization.
Organizational changes are either planned or emergent. Planned changes are incremental and orderly and emphasize the managers’ deliberate intentions to change, with a clearly defined start and an end point for the change (Livne-Tarandach & Bartunek, 2009). Emergent changes are unplanned, minor changes that occur during the natural course of doing business (Dunphy & Stace 1988). Some of the popular change management initiatives are with regard to ERP implementation, organizational culture and structure and performance management processes (Altamony et al., 2016).
The rate of organizational level transformations has gained momentum during the last decade, as the average organization has implemented around five enterprise level changes in the past three years (Gartner, 2019). As the enterprise level changes cut across the various levels of organization, the implementation failures tend to be very costly. Change management initiatives typically fail due to high employee resistance, fear of unknown, lack of employee participation, which in turn puts the organizational effectiveness at risk (Will & Pies, 2018; Falkowski et al., 1998). Organizations and their change agents need to evaluate the perceptions and readiness of their workforce using various assessment instruments, as the successful change is only possible with individual cooperation (Vakola, 2014). Unsuccessful change initiatives are often characterized by the following being too top-down, too big picture, too linear and too insular.
Many medium and large organizations in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have been implementing ERP software packages of various vendors (SAP is widely used), to improve their overall business performance (Nkasu, 2020). Module specific ERPs are currently on demand soon after the introduction of VAT in 2018. For instance, financial statements of the non-listed companies need to adhere to any accounting standards and tax authorities did not have any control on them before 2018 (Chen, 2012). UAE is among the fastest growing markets in the Middle East, with its robust IT infrastructure and very few research studies have been done on its ERP implementation related experiences (Nkasu, 2020; Chen, 2011; Albadri and Abdallah, 2009). Hence, our research has taken UAE as the study context, in order to understand the effect of change agent’s leadership style on ERP implementation and firm performance.