Abstract
Purpose. The purpose of this study was to determine to what degree (a) recognition; (b) achievement; (c) advancement; (d) personal growth; (e) responsibility; and (f) professional challenge are used as payoffs by the technology leader of the change in the adoption of the SAP™ Enterprise Resource Planning technology by public sector employees. The secondary purpose of this study was to determine if significant differences exist between the use of (a) recognition; (b) achievement; (c) advancement; (d) personal growth; (e) responsibility; and (f) professional challenge by the leader's gender, age, and years of service. Methodology. The descriptive research design was selected to determine to what degree Fredrick Herzberg's six motivational factors are used as payoffs by the technology leader to promote adoption of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) technology by public sector employees. Ex post facto was the research design selected to research the use of the motivational factors by gender, age, and years of service of the technology leader. Findings. Examination of quantitative and qualitative data from the eighty-two public sector technology leaders indicated there was no significant difference between the gender, age, or years of service groups regarding the use of the six Frederick Herzberg motivating factors when assisting public sector employees in adopting SAP™ ERP software, indicating that there is similar understanding of protocol among technology leaders regarding the implementation of SAP™ technology within a public sector agency. Conclusions. The data revealed the following common themes among the public sector technology leaders: emphasis on employee training, greater use of informal incentives (i.e., lunches), greater and more frequent communication with organizational employees, greater employee buy-in, and early adopters versus nonadopters. Recommendations. Further research to: (a) determine opportunities to review the public sector hierarchal structure to provide flexibility with job descriptions and potential incentive-based salary structures based on performance, (b) to survey the value of organized information workers, (c) to survey public sector agencies that implemented other ERP applications and determine if the experiences were similar to the agencies that implemented SAP™, and (d) to survey if technology adoption is challenging specific to ERP applications or is it challenging when any technology is introduced.