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PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to understand how people from different national cultures; France, Canada and Germany, define and perceive information systems success.Design/methodology/approachThis is exploratory research that used a grounded theory approach to analyze qualitative data that were collected using an open interview data collection technique. Grounded theory helps to develop new concepts and new theory.FindingsThe findings confirm the divergence thesis. The authors found that people from different national cultures define information systems differently. The authors developed models that groups information systems success as they are defined in France, Canada and Germany.Research limitations/implicationsThere are many limitations in this research. First, the findings concern only one single multinational organization. The authors' aim was analytical and not statistical generalization. Second, although the number of respondents was sufficient to develop a partial theory, the authors could not meet with a larger number of people to get more insights.Practical implicationsThere are many practical implications. Multinational organizations that seek to standardize their information systems need to be aware that the implementation as well as long term success of the standard system will not be homogenous. Moreover, the results of the study reveal that information quality and other systems based concepts are not defined the same way in all cultures. Finally, the study proposes a tool that would help the case organization measure IS success in these three cultures.Originality/valueThis study is unique in a sense that not only does it claim that culture does impact IS success, but it also goes a step further and defines what IS success is in different national cultures.

The objective of this study is to explore how IS success is defined and perceived by a group of people in France. The results show that culture does influence IS success perception. The study has many implications for both academic and practice communities. The results are especially important to multinational organizations that standardize IS in different cultures, including France. The research case is a multibillion dollar Canadian multinational organization which decided to standardize an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system in all its worldwide subsidiaries.