A multi-country study of the adoption of ERP systems

Studies on the adoption of innovations by companies generally include micro-level and meso-level variables in order to explain a company's receptiveness to innovations. This study adds to the literature by investigating the role of macro-level variables (i.e. national culture) to explain differences in innovation penetration levels and adoption decisions by companies across national cultures. A large-scale empirical study was carried out in 10 European countries concerning the adoption of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software by mid size companies. Results indicate variables describing national cultural to have a strong, significant influence on the innovation penetration and adoption. In addition, we find adoption models including micro-, meso- and macro-level variables to perform significantly better in explaining innovation adoption across countries than adoption models that only include micro- and meso-level variables.