Research projects
	SERPETT - ERP, employment and work transformations (European Social Fund, 2001-2002)

The research SERPETT is carried out with the support of the European Social Fund, within the framework of the programme 2000-2006 of Objective 3. It was also supported by Brussels Formation and the FOREM, both are public institutions for vocational training. The project studies the impact of Enterprise Resource Planning systems (ERP) on work organisation, skills and training. The research is carried out by Laure Lemaire, researcher, with Gérard Valenduc, research director.

Project description

The diffusion of ERP has been for a few years considerable, not only in large companies, but also within administrations and, more recently, in SME. However, ERP are powerful rationalisation tools of clerical work. They are sometimes perceived by employees like a threat.

The implementation of an ERP in a company involves significant changes in work organisation and in skills requirements, which have direct effects on employees.

• As regards employment and work transformations: the ERP systems, in particular SAP, allow to increase strongly the productivity of administrative tasks. Job destruction often occurs very quickly in the concerned departments, even if the company avoids laying off. The problems of adaptation, conversion or mobility arise for the workers whose employment is threatened by the ERP system.
  
  
• As regards qualifications and skills: ERP systems support a renewal of Taylorist work organisation, based on standardisation of procedures, coding, division of tasks, separation between design and execution. However, ERP systems give the end-users a significant responsibility as regards the definition of the functionalities of the system, the quality of the data collected and the data capture, the relevance of transmitted information, the capacity to exploit the data. This increased responsibility is even more significant for workers whose function allows a real access to the technical performances of the ERP and whose tasks are thus reasserted.
  

The research method includes three steps: a first step consists of an analysis of the socio-economic context of the development of ERP systems; a second step consists of case studies in private enterprises and public institutions, and interviews of persons in charge of training; the last step consists of analysis and recommendations as regards human resources management, training and organisation.

Results and publications

Book published (in French) in March 2003:

• Lemaire Laure, Systèmes de gestion intégrés: des technologie à risques ?, Editions Liaisons, Collection Entreprise et carrières, Paris, 2003

Article (in French) in February 2004:

• Lemaire L., Valenduc G., Entre rigidité et malléabilité, le double visage des ERP, dans Sciences de la société, Presses universitaires du Mirail, Toulouse, n° 61, 2004 (pp. 53-70).

Detailed information on these publications in the French page of the SERPETT project.