The implementation of enterprise systems has yielded mixed and unpredictable outcomes in organizations. Although the focus of prior research has been on training and individual self-efficacy as important enablers, we examine the roles that the social network structures of employees, and the organizational units where they work, play in influencing the postimplementation success. Data were gathered across several units within a large organization: immediately after the implementation, six months after the implementation, and one year after the implementation. Social network analysis was used to understand the effects of network structures, and hierarchical linear modeling was used to capture the multilevel effects at unit and individual levels. At the unit level of analysis, we found that centralized structures inhibit implementation success. At the individual level of analysis, employees with high in-degree and betweenness centrality reported high task impact and information quality. We also found a cross-level effect such that central employees in centralized units reported implementation success. This suggests that individual-level success can occur even within a unit structure that is detrimental to unit-level success. Our research has significant implications for the implementation of enterprise systems in large organizations.
Technology-mediated learning methods are widely used by organizations and educational institutions to deliver information technology training. One form of technology-mediated learning, e-learning, in which the platform is the tutor, is quickly becoming the cost-effective solution of choice for many corporations. Unfortunately, the learning outcomes have been very disappointing. E-learning training makes an implicit assumption that learners can apply a high level of self-directed learning to assimilate the training content. In contrast, based on perspectives from social cognitive theory, we propose that instructional strategies need to persuade learners to follow self-regulated learning strategies. We test our ideas with participants who were trained through e-learning to design a website. Our findings indicate that participants who were induced to follow self-regulated learning strategies scored significantly higher on learning outcomes than those who were not persuaded to do so. We discuss our findings, and suggest that the interaction among information technology features, instructional strategies, and psychological learning processes offers a fruitful avenue for future information systems training research.