This study examines the effects of playfulness and anxiety as perceived by users in relation to SAP enterprise resource planning (ERP) system on users’ learning of business processes and users’ skills to use the system. Data was collected from a survey of college students who took a course on business process integration with ERP system where students used SAP ERP system to complete course works on business processes. System playfulness is found to have a small positive effect on user learning and skills without any control but the positive effect disappears after controlling for gender and prior experiences. System anxiety is found to have a large negative effect on both user learning and skills. These results suggest that enhancing the playfulness of SAP ERP system can help improve the user’s learning of business processes and the user's skills to use the system, but that reducing the anxiety of the system is far more important in improving the user’s learning of business processes and the user’s skills to use the system.
Support for travel expenses pertaining to this study was provided by the Institute for International Business of the Stillman School of Business at Seton Hall University for Sung J. Shim. We highly appreciate the reviewers’ insightful and helpful comments on our earlier manuscript.
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