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1. Introduction
Enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems have been applied by many firms of varying size around the world as a key part of their organisational architecture. ERP systems support day-to-day business operations and decision-making processes (Gattiker and Goodhue, 2005; May et al., 2013), and are expected to provide seamless integration of processes across functional areas (Mabert et al., 2003). However, these IT resources streamline and integrate internal business processes to improve efficiency only within a firm’s boundaries (Davenport, 1998).
Customer relationship management (CRM) systems have exploded on the enterprise space in recent years, and some studies claim that they are the ultimate solution to the information exchange problem among firms (Gartner, 2013; Extraprise, 2008; Chang et al., 2014). CRM extends the original value proposition of ERP, allowing firms to build interactive relationships with their customers and bring together their previously separated information at very low cost (Payne and Frow, 2006; Iriana and Buttle, 2006).
Research states that CRM systems encompass the external part of the extended enterprise, and ERP encompasses the internal part (Gartner, 2013; Extraprise, 2008; Alshawi et al., 2011). That is, while CRM applications extract customer information from customer facing processes, ERP applications leverage the information to configure product offerings, scheduling, and fulfilment processes (Hitt et al., 2002). As more firms realise that they need to know their customers very profoundly in order to compete or survive, integrating CRM with ERP becomes a critical topic (Payne and Frow, 2005; Ryals, 2005). Integrated CRM and ERP systems automatically communicate customer and process-related information to each other (Rai et al., 2006), increase interdepartmental connectedness, facilitate the dissemination of market intelligence amongst multiple departments and locations, and improve the entire organisation’s responsiveness to consumer demands (Liu et al., 2013).
Moreover, some researchers suggest that IT value is better captured when taking into consideration moderator relationships on the link between IT resources and business value (Liu et al., 2013; Mishra and Agarwal, 2010). Although few, some IS researchers have identified ERP and CRM integration as one of the most important fields for future IT value research (King and Burgess, 2008; Alshawi et al., 2011; Davenport, 1998; Kim et al., 2015; Willis and Willis-Brown, 2002; Liu et...