Measuring business process learning with enterprise resource planning systems to improve the value of education

Abstract

Enterprise Resource Planning Systems (ERP) are very large and complex software packages that run every aspect of an organization. Increasingly, ERP systems are being used in higher education as one way to teach business processes, essential knowledge for students competing in today's business environment. Past research attempting to measure learning business processes with ERP has been inconclusive and lacking in rigor. This paper reports on a comprehensive research study that uses a critical realist approach to measure business process learning from experiential ERP. Using a business simulation game as a proxy for understanding business processes, students from a US undergraduate program in three separate classes, one using ERP experientially, are assessed both quantitatively and qualitatively. The data analysis uncovers a causal mechanism for learning, complemented by an understanding of the factors that trigger or suppress that mechanism in particular cases. The results validate the efforts of those using ERP in the classroom, and reaffirm other educational business school endeavours to teach business processes, with educational implications as follows. First, before attempting to learn business processes, students must have an understanding of core business concepts. Second, hands-on experience of ERP systems indeed helps students understand business processes. Third, students are showing that they can use the knowledge gained in university classes and apply it to making business decisions. Fourth, students should be encouraged to use all information possible for making business decisions instead of relying on their personal understanding of today's current market or on their own business intuition.

ERP based business learning environment as a boundary infrastructure in business learning

“…This is a domain that needs improvement in the practice enterprise model (Krauskopf and Frei 2012). This also supports the earlier research (Graziano 2003;Monk and Lycett 2016;Pasin and Giroux 2011) that the low-performing students benefit from an infrastructure of several concrete boundary objects & An explanation for the improvements in learning: the holistic learning environment acts as a boundary infrastructure. The practice enterprise model forms the abstract discourse, while the ERP system concretizes it by bringing standardized forms and processes and the simulation constructs into a narrative that ties the boundary objects together.…”

“…This also suggests some improvements in the long-term learning. This concurs with earlier research indicating that the ERP systems and simulations benefit the lower performers (Monk and Lycett 2016;Pasin and Giroux 2011).…”

“…Combining ERP-simulation with the practice enterprise model seem to improve the poor and average students' cognitive learning. This finding supports earlier research that low-performing students benefit from IT in the learning situations (Monk and Lycett 2016;Pasin and Giroux 2011). In order to understand why this improvement happened, we decided to analyze the situation through the concept of boundary object (Star and Griesemer 1989).…”

“…ERP systems are often used in teaching business operations, integrating different disciplines and increasing the business process understanding (Jewer and Evermann 2015;Monk and Lycett 2016;Springer et al 2007;Zabukovšek et al 2018). The main learning objectives are ERP system skills and integrating information technology to business (Hepner and Dickson 2013).…”

“…However, if hands-on learning focuses on executing tasks and ERP technical skills, the value is limited (Wang and El-Masry 2009). Especially in the large, complex ERP, the students struggle to understand the links between information, business processes, and managerial decisions (Monk and Lycett 2016). When learning is carried out with pre-planned cases (Bradford et al 2003) or point-and-click exercises (Angolia and Pagliari 2016) learning situations tend to be static and predictable.…”