Abstract:
The general objective of the study was to determine the factors affecting the adoption of ERP systems (A case study of Mumias Sugar Company). The study was guided by three specific objectives that sought to establish the role of perceived ease of use (PEOU) of ERP in its adoption, to evaluate the effect of perceived usefulness (PU) of ERP on its adoption and to determine the effect of individual attitude towards the adoption of ERP. A case study research design was undertaken, focusing on users of ERP in Mumias Sugar Company. The population of interest was 200 employees of the company who are current users of the SAP ERP, drawn from the three categories of staff as presented in the organizational structure - Heads of departments, Managers and Supervisors, Primary data was collected with the aid of semi-structured questionnaires that were administered by hand delivery. The data was analyzed by employing descriptive statistics, percentages and means. Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) was used in the analysis. The responses indicate that perceived ease of use was a key factor in determining adoption of ERP in Mumias Sugar Company. The employees embraced change of technology with anticipation for better performance, which further enhanced the adoption of SAP ERP in the company. In line with perceived ease of use, the other factors that influenced the adoption of SAP ERP in Mumias Sugar Company include the perceived feeling of comfort when using SAP ERP, the user friendliness of SAP ERP, the speed with which SAP ERP processed transactions and the ability of the users to get support when using SAP ERP. The findings also show that Perceived Usefulness is an important factor in determining the adaptation of innovations. The higher the perceived usefulness of the ERP system, the higher the chances that it would be adopted. Moreover, the degree to which an individual believes that using a particular system would enhance his or her job performance enhances the chances of adopting the system and the more the suitable the system is to the work ethic of the users the higher the acceptance rate. Further, the findings show that attitudes are a significant predictor of behavior. In addition, though individual attitude is necessary in determining adoption of new technologies, it is not sufficient condition for success. Certainly attitude may not strongly determine the intentions of an individual at the workplace regarding performance when additional factors e.g. usefulness are taken into account independently. The conclusions made from the findings were that Perceived Ease of Use, Perceived Usefulness and Individual attitude affect the adoption of ERP in Mumias Sugar Company. From the above conclusions, the key recommendations were that the employees should be prepared to adopt new ways of doing things so that resistance to change in adoption of the new technology is minimized; before new technologies are introduced, the organization should ensure that the proposed technologies have a competitive edge over the technology to be replaced, the new technologies should be well suited with the organization's internal procedures and processes; the new technologies should be understandable and user friendly.