Establishing and Verifying a Risk Ontology for Surfacing ERP Post-Implementation Risks

This chapter aims to establish and verify a risk ontology for the post-implementation of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems. The risk ontology was initially constructed through the process of a critical literature review. It consists of 40 ERP exploitation risks related to diverse operational, analytical, organization-wide, and technical aspects. This theoretical risk ontology can be used as the basis for identifying and assessing ERP post-implementation risks within different organizational and national contexts. In order to illustrate the discussion, a previous ERP study in China is presented as an example. The study adopted a mixed-methods design, which involved a questionnaire survey and a follow-up case study. The questionnaire examined the suitability of the established risk ontology in the context of Chinese State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs). The follow-up case study then further explored and validated the questionnaire findings. By integrating the quantitative and qualitative findings, the original ontology was verified, revised, and extended.