Influence of Corporate Culture on the Performance of Technology Transfer in ERP Implementation Projects – A Case Study

Any ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) Implementation is a high-stake project which could also be viewed as a technology transfer (TT) project. TT happens from the ERP vendor to its client, within which the product and the knowledge getting transferred. The factors affecting success/failure of these projects differ from one project to another. This paper analyses a project undertaken by a leading multinational ERP company in Sri Lanka (referred to as XYZ company) who developed a customized ERP solution for one of its clients (referred to as PQR company), a leading multinational networking and telecommunication service provider. The results show that the project implemented has been unsuccessful and resulted in higher user dissatisfaction and lower level of TT. The major challenging factors identified were: contract governance; transferee’s adaptability; team composition; team collaboration; and transferee and transferor motivation. It was evident that the differences in two organizational cultures had affected all these challenges, except for the ‘transferee’s adaptability’. As a recommendation, this study proposes some safeguards to ensure a successful technology transfer, by combining with the stage-gate model and embedding safeguards into the XYZ implementation methodology.