Experiential Learning Spaces for Enterprise Resource Planning Courses in Business Schools

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems have experienced mainstream adoption as a comprehensive solution for business function integration and end-to-end process management. To meet industry demand, many business schools offer academic courses in ERP strategy and technology to train students to be proficient in the use of ERP systems. The extant literature on ERP education highlights the need for additional research about pedagogical techniques that can help business schools in their efforts. To be effective in the delivery of ERP courses, instructors require a deeper understanding of how they can teach ERP systems in a meaningful way and consequently foster higher levels of student engagement. This paper provides an overview of the current state of ERP academic programs and teaching practices. This is followed by a review of experiential learning theory (ELT) which is later used in this paper as a basis for pedagogical practice suggestions towards the improvement of ERP training. A pedagogical model comprising of various course activities and teaching practices is proposed. The proposed practices are justified in terms of their efficacy towards developing experiential learning spaces for students to cultivate theoretical and applied knowledge of ERP systems.