Performance impact of enterprise systems capabilities and improvisation capability

Facing turbulent environments, firms need to develop improvisation capability to respond to unexpected opportunities and threats. Drawing on recent advances in organizational routine theory, this study investigates how organizations develop improvisation capability by enhancing ostensive as well as performative aspects of its routines. We suggest that ES analytics and ES collaborative capabilities embody both aspects of the routines due to their capacity in making effective use of an organization's declarative memory and procedural memory. Based on a sample of 56 Taiwanese manufacturing companies, a model with four hypotheses is empirically tested using PLS analysis. Our preliminary results indicate that ES analytics capability positively affects improvisation capability, which further contributes to firm performance. In addition, ES collaboration capability positively moderates the impact of ES analytics capability on improvisation capability. Implications and future research directions are discussed.