Enhancing client citizenship behavior in enterprise system service of China: the role of enterprise system benefits and guanxi^*

The implementation of enterprise systems (ES) is an IT-enabled collaboration between vendors and clients. This collaboration contributes to the economy of developing countries by offering high added value with low resource consumption. Researchers and practitioners in the ES service industry believe that the citizenship behavior of clients is critical to the success of such a collaboration. However, despite this recognition, current knowledge on how to improve the citizenship behavior of clients through the benefits provided by ES remains unclear. The present study uses social exchange theory in proposing a model for examining the effects of ES benefits (i.e. ES task efficiency and ES coordination improvement) on client citizenship behavior in China through guanxi (i.e. renqing and ganqing). The data collected from 112 client firms of a focal ES vendor support most of the hypotheses. ES task efficiency and ES coordination improvement positively affect renqing, which in turn influences client citizenship behavior. ES coordination improvement positively influences ganqing and sequentially client citizenship behavior. Implications and suggestions for future research are provided.