IMPACT OF DEMOGRAPHIC FACTORS GENDER AND NUMBER OF YEARS OF ERP POST IMPLEMENTATION OPERATIONS ON USER PRODUCTIVITY: AN EMPIRICAL STUDY IN HIGHER EDUCATION SETTINGS, IN INDIAN CONTEXT

Motivation and Background: The findings from review of extant literature indicated that the actual impact of ERP is generally seen and felt by an organizations during its post implementation stage. It is in this stage that the organizations commence on their journey of using the ERP systems, and start relating to its utility for the activities and processes being carried out by the employees. It is therefore, essential for the organizations to effectively manage the performance of the ERP system in the post implementation stage to deliver expected benefits to the business. Accordingly, it is important to study and understand various influences prevailing upon the ERP system during the post implementations stage and use the knowledge to ensure better managing the deliverables of ERP systems, therein. Evidence from the past studies suggest that the different business settings have varied notable influences on the ERP implementation across phases. The Higher Education Sector in India is growing at a pace, seen never before, and the need to respond to competition pressures, student acquisition, renewed needs of students, and other stake holders, regulatory impositions by the government, globalization. These are few of the many reasons prompting the Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) to consider and implement solutions to help them respond to these changing needs so as to better deliver stakeholder's expectations and satisfaction. Productivity of users in the ERP post implementation stage plays an important role in ensuring performance and success of the ERP systems. Guided by the above observations, this paper, through an empirical study, investigates the influence of gender and the period of ERP operations post its implementation, on the productivity of users, across higher education institutions, in an Indian context. Method: A factorial design of ANOVA coupled with a descriptive analysis, was used to study the research problem. A variety of journals were explored using appropriate key words extracted in the review of literature, during the initial stage. A study of abstracts of articles in the subsequent reviews, resulted in focusing on a select few studies, whose detailed examination, helped in determining the gaps. Choosing a purposive sampling method, a survey was administered on the target respondents. The survey included 101 respondents from four HEIs, in an Indian context. The hypotheses associated with the research problem were then analysed using the primary data applying the factorial design of ANOVA, to study the influence of individual factors as well as a combination of factors, on the user productivity, during the ERP post implementation stage. Conclusion: The study revealed that the factors, namely Gender & Period of ERP operations after implementation, considered individually, and in combination, significantly influenced, the productivity of users during the ERP post implementation stage. A descriptive study further helped to understand and explain the variations in the mean ratings, across factor group.