Is COVID-19 enough? Which underestimated conditions characterise the adoption of complex information infrastructures in small and medium-sized enterprises

Paolo Roffia; Lapo Mola

doi:10.1016/j.jbusres.2021.12.083

Is COVID-19 enough? Which underestimated conditions characterise the adoption of complex information infrastructures in small and medium-sized enterprises

J Bus Res. 2022 May:144:1249-1255. doi: 10.1016/j.jbusres.2021.12.083. Epub 2022 Feb 28.

Authors

Paolo Roffia¹, Lapo Mola²

Affiliations

¹ University of Verona, Italy.
² University of Verona, Italy and SKEMA Business School Université Côte d'Azur (CREDEG), France.

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic crisis has forced firms to leverage information and digital technologies to resist its disruptive effects. The shift to digital, however, requires the availability of information infrastructure, such as enterprise resource planning (ERP), that can enable effective digitisation of processes and practices. This paper investigates the role of the pandemic crisis on boosting intentions to adopt ERP systems in SMEs by mitigating the barrier factors that hinder their adoption. To investigate the impact of the pandemic on ERP adoption decisions, we ran a quantitative study among 147 SMEs in the Veneto region in Italy and applied a fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis model to study them. Our results show that the pandemic crisis has boosted this adoption, shaping the configuration of conditions that characterise ERP adoption.

Keywords: COVID-19; ERP; Information infrastructures; SMEs; UTAUT.