The necessary soft skills for corporate IT governance system — Based on students’ opinions in Hungarian higher education in economics

Download This Article

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Abstract

Today, soft skills are undoubtedly just as important to employees and employers as hard skills. Research in information technology (IT) is increasingly showing that hard skills are not enough to do a job well. Our paper presents the results of a study conducted in 2023–2024 with the aim of analysing which soft skills are necessary to work successfully as a user in SAP S/4HANA. The authors explored what soft skills are needed to perform specific IT activities in complex enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. Although studies on hard and soft skills among ERP users have been conducted previously (Boyle & Strong, 2006), these studies did not focus on SAP S/4HANA systems. This research was carried out with students at Budapest Business University, who learn SAP S/4HANA sales and distribution and material management modules from a beginner level. The authors conducted a questionnaire-based quantitative study with 215 students. Results were analysed using SmartPLS 4 and the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) 28. To analyse the hypotheses, the authors performed single and multiple variable mean and variance analyses and used a structural equation modeling (SEM) model to show how the individual elements of the examined issue are interrelated. The results reflected that learners were confident in having sufficient soft skills to operate the system at the end of the course. There are skills that vary in strength between genders and have a significant impact on the ability to operate the system. Examples include diligence, personal development, and reliability. Context- and performance-related soft skills have a significant impact on an individual’s ability to successfully complete SAP S/4HANA tasks. The results proved that soft skills are also necessary for the proper operation of SAP S/4HANA.

Keywords: SAP S/4HANA, Employment, Soft Skill, SAP S/4HANA Activity, IT

Authors’ individual contribution: Conceptualization — T.J. and K.I.; Validation — T.J. and K.I.; Formal Analysis — T.J. and K.I.; Investigation — T.J. and K.I.; Writing — T.J. and K.I.

Declaration of conflicting interests: The Authors declare that there is no conflict of interest.

JEL Classification: J00, J08

Received: 25.03.2025
Revised: 25.06.2025; 14.07.2025; 24.10.2025
Accepted: 28.11.2025
Published online: 02.12.2025

How to cite this paper: Juhasz, T., & Inczedy, K. (2025). The necessary soft skills for corporate IT governance system — Based on students’ opinions in Hungarian higher education in economics [Special issue]. Journal of Governance and Regulation, 14(4), 369–381. https://doi.org/10.22495/jgrv14i4siart13