We contacted ERP software providers (domestic and international) in order to obtain a list of the
enterprises in Greece that have bought and installed an ERP software package. Questionnaires were
mailed to those enterprises that had adopted an ERP for at least one year and no more than seven years
(prior to the mailing of the questionnaire). The questionnaire survey was conducted from September to
December 2010. 15 organizations took part in the pilot study of the questionnaire. As far as the pilot study
is concerned, some questionnaires were completed via email or fax and some were administered and
completed in our presence. The feedback gained from pilot testing was used to refine the format of the
questionnaire items by rephrasing some questions as necessary.
A quantitative approach was adopted in terms of the collection and analysis of the data. The
questionnaire was sent to an initial sample of 420 companies. As far as each company is concerned we
asked one IT professional as well as one accountant to complete a questionnaire. After a follow-up mailing
to non-respondents (one month later), a total of 302 completed questionnaires were received from 212
companies. The final sample was reduced to 193 companies because 31 questionnaires were returned
with insufficient content. Thus, the response rate was 45.95%. Dillman (2007) points out that for surveys
addressed to a company, the average response rate is 40%. Thus, the response rate of our study seems to
be above average. The participants were 271 (175 accountants and 96 IT professionals). As mentioned
in Section 2.2 of this paper, IT professionals in Greece tend to have accounting knowledge and skills.
Nevertheless, in the instance when a particular IT professional did not have sufficient knowledge to