Responding to external and internal changes: Organizational responsiveness pressures in institutionalising ERP systems

Organizational responsiveness is a critical factor for success of any business. It requires business organizations to understand and respond to changes in its external and internal environment. As a consequence, organizations are required to create a dynamic internal environment. This dynamism is built around exchanging information and ideas relating to business sustainability, progress, and growth. Enterprise technologies like ERP systems are becoming more popular among contemporary businesses. Implementation of these technologies is, therefore, engaged in conscious effort to develop internal capabilities, so as to use the same to address external challenges and to look similar to other evolving institutions. It is important that the organization continuously evaluates itself, to assess how it is going, what are the performance gaps (if any), how can it sustain its operations, and how should it grow both internally as well as externally. Being responsive, helps the organization to view every new technology investment as a mean to providing a coherent view of organizational information, allowing for informed decision making, and helping the organization to assess, learn, and grow. This paper, thus, opens up new research streams in institutional thinking by introducing organizational responsiveness as a new form of isomorphism among organization and other sub-institutions.