factors that managers need to address with great care especially in today’s global
environment. Enterprises worldwide race to implement Enterprise Resource
Planning (ERP) systems to streamline business processes and increase flexibility in
the last 10 years (O’Leary, 2000). Usually, management may want to assess the
business benefits or performances of ERP systems (Shang and Seddon, 2000). In
this paper, we try to analysis the relationship of ERP continuous investment and
technical efficiency through two stages.
In the first stage, we will utilize one output-variables, gross sales, and two
input-variables, capital stock and labor expense, to measure technical efficiency
scores in BCC model in order to identify the best benchmark performers in our
sample firms who have implemented ERP. In the second stage, we will utilize the
Tobit regression to investigate the relationship between efficiency scores and ERP
continuous investment, which the concept is based on total costing ownership (TCO)
of technology assets, include percentage of IT budget spent on average annual ERP
maintaining expense, percentage of IT budget spent on average annual personal salary
of ERP maintaining staff and percentage of IT budget spent on average annual
training expense of ERP staff. On the other hand, we classify our samples by system
vendors to global and local brand to analyze the cultural impact of ERP system in
technical efficiency.
The result shows that:
1.ERP maintain expenses identified as debugging and system update whether on
line or on the scene, has a favorable impact on firm’s technical efficiency.
2. ERP personnel salary identified as back-filled staff’s salary and maintains
staff’s salary that has a favorable impact on firm’s technical efficiency.
3. ERP staff training expenses identified as the cost to provide training to ERP
specialists and end users, has no significant impact on firm’s technical efficiency.
However, we have discussed the no significant reason with ERP consultant, the reason
that the firms education system is mentoring but not consultant no matter old or new
employee.
4. The local brand of ERP systems shows higher technical efficiency in our
samples in Taiwan. The implies that a one-size-fits-all or one-business-model-
fits-all approach is unlikely to be successful. As the statistic evidence, Developers
and consultants need to adapt their products and services for different cultural
markets.

i
Abstract
The management of information technology (IT) has become one of the key
factors that managers need to address with great care especially in today’s global
environment. Enterprises worldwide race to implement Enterprise Resource
Planning (ERP) systems to streamline business processes and increase flexibility in
the last 10 years (O’Leary, 2000). Usually, management may want to assess the
business benefits or performances of ERP systems (Shang and Seddon, 2000). In
this paper, we try to analysis the relationship of ERP continuous investment and
technical efficiency through two stages.
In the first stage, we will utilize one output-variables, gross sales, and two
input-variables, capital stock and labor expense, to measure technical efficiency
scores in BCC model in order to identify the best benchmark performers in our
sample firms who have implemented ERP. In the second stage, we will utilize the
Tobit regression to investigate the relationship between efficiency scores and ERP
continuous investment, which the concept is based on total costing ownership (TCO)
of technology assets, include percentage of IT budget spent on average annual ERP
maintaining expense, percentage of IT budget spent on average annual personal salary
of ERP maintaining staff and percentage of IT budget spent on average annual
training expense of ERP staff. On the other hand, we classify our samples by system
vendors to global and local brand to analyze the cultural impact of ERP system in
technical efficiency.
The result shows that:
1.ERP maintain expenses identified as debugging and system update whether on
line or on the scene, has a favorable impact on firm’s technical efficiency.
2. ERP personnel salary identified as back-filled staff’s salary and maintains
staff’s salary that has a favorable impact on firm’s technical efficiency.
3. ERP staff training expenses identified as the cost to provide training to ERP
specialists and end users, has no significant impact on firm’s technical efficiency.
However, we have discussed the no significant reason with ERP consultant, the reason
that the firms education system is mentoring but not consultant no matter old or new
employee.
4. The local brand of ERP systems shows higher technical efficiency in our
samples in Taiwan. The implies that a one-size-fits-all or one-business-model-
fits-all approach is unlikely to be successful. As the statistic evidence, Developers
and consultants need to adapt their products and services for different cultural
markets.

26
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