It is our contention that the implementation of an ERP system provides new opportunities
to acquire knowledge from external sources, develop common cognitive structures
among employees from different functional areas, and implement new routines and processes
to significantly increase the level of a firm’s absorptive capacity related to business
process innovation. ERP systems make new external knowledge available to an organization
through the ‘‘best practices’’ embedded in the system as well as knowledge from vendors
and consultants involved in system implementation and support. Moreover, the
deployment of an ERP system requires concerted energies throughout the organization,
and intensity of effort (the amount of energy expended by organizational members to solve
problems) is one of the important elements contributing to the development of absorptive
capacity (Cohen and Levinthal, 1990; Kim, 1998). Furthermore, these enterprise systems
cut horizontally across the organization, establishing new connections between organizational
units that may have been siloed in the past and creating opportunities for increased
absorptive capacity of functional groups as knowledge that was local becomes more
widely shared.