11,663 research outputs found
An Organizational Change Perspective of SMEs Web Presence Involving Strategies
Firms are constantly evolving their Web presence. The premise of this study is that monitoring the behaviour of Web sites gives insights into the actual evolving strategies and motivations behind Internet investments in organizations. A variety of models have been utilized to study the progression of adoption of Internet technologies from different perspectives (e.g. Stages of Growth models). However, from the organizational change perspective there is little research to explain why and how organizations continually evolve their Web presence. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to present a framework to characterize and model the evolution of the Web presence of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the UK and undertake its preliminary validation by monitoring the evolution of a sample of Web sites. A total of 185 Web sites from SMEs were collected and monitored over an 18- month period in order to study the process and content of their change. In addition, 25 telephone interviews were undertaken to ascertain the drivers of the change and complement the previous quantitative observations
Knowledge assimilation processes of rapidly internationalising firms: longitudinal case studies of Scottish SMEs
<p>Purpose – The accumulation of knowledge and learning by firms has been identified as being critical to their internationalisation. This paper aims to explore the knowledge assimilation processes of rapidly internationalising small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).</p>
<p>Design/methodology/approach – This is a qualitative enquiry in two stages. First, four case studies were selected from firms that were participating in an internationalisation programme run by Scottish Enterprise, the regional development agency. Data collection involved semi-structured interviews with chief executive officers (CEOs) and programme providers, and archival data. Second, two focus groups were held with six CEOs participating in the programme.</p>
<p>Findings – The findings indicate that knowledge sharing is important for rapidly internationalising SMEs and that firms adopted high levels of formality in assimilating knowledge. Two key aspects of formality were identified as important; formal planned events to share explicit and tacit knowledge and the codification of tacit to explicit knowledge. Knowledge may be assimilated less formally by the retention of tacit knowledge as tacit, while utilising elements of formality. The paper finds that learning for internationalisation can be transferred to support domestic growth.</p>
<p>Practical implications – It is important for firms to develop appropriate knowledge assimilation processes within their management systems to support internationalisation. The CEO and management team need to take the lead in marshalling commitment to learning processes and in cultivating an organisational culture that is supportive of learning.</p>
<p>Originality/value – This research contributes to international entrepreneurship by providing insights into the knowledge assimilation processes employed by rapidly internationalising SMEs to manage the tensions between the need for greater formality to be efficient at learning, and informality to enable speedy decision making.</p>
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The sustainable clothing market: pragmatic strategies for UK fashion retailers
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The Potential of Critical E-Applications for Engaging SMEs in E Business: A Provider Perspective
YesAgainst a background of the low engagement of SMEs in e-business this paper investigates the emergence of, and potential for, critical e-applications defined as `an e-business application, promoted by a trusted third party, which engages a significant number of SMEs by addressing an important shared business concern within an aggregation.¿ By a review of secondary data and empirical investigation with service providers and other intermediaries the research shows that such applications can facilitate the e-business engagement of SMEs. There are three key findings, namely: the emergence of aggregation specific e-business applications; the emergence of collaboratively based `one to many¿ business models; and the importance of trusted third parties in the adoption of higher complexity e-business applications by SMEs. Significantly this work takes a deliberately provider perspective and complements the already considerable literature on SME IT adoption from a user and network perspective. In terms of future research the importance of a better conceptual understanding of the impact of complexity on the adoption of IT by SMEs is highlighted
Refining the PoinTER “human firewall” pentesting framework
PurposePenetration tests have become a valuable tool in the cyber security defence strategy, in terms of detecting vulnerabilities. Although penetration testing has traditionally focused on technical aspects, the field has started to realise the importance of the human in the organisation, and the need to ensure that humans are resistant to cyber-attacks. To achieve this, some organisations “pentest” their employees, testing their resilience and ability to detect and repel human-targeted attacks. In a previous paper we reported on PoinTER (Prepare TEst Remediate), a human pentesting framework, tailored to the needs of SMEs. In this paper, we propose improvements to refine our framework. The improvements are based on a derived set of ethical principles that have been subjected to ethical scrutiny.MethodologyWe conducted a systematic literature review of academic research, a review of actual hacker techniques, industry recommendations and official body advice related to social engineering techniques. To meet our requirements to have an ethical human pentesting framework, we compiled a list of ethical principles from the research literature which we used to filter out techniques deemed unethical.FindingsDrawing on social engineering techniques from academic research, reported by the hacker community, industry recommendations and official body advice and subjecting each technique to ethical inspection, using a comprehensive list of ethical principles, we propose the refined GDPR compliant and privacy respecting PoinTER Framework. The list of ethical principles, we suggest, could also inform ethical technical pentests.OriginalityPrevious work has considered penetration testing humans, but few have produced a comprehensive framework such as PoinTER. PoinTER has been rigorously derived from multiple sources and ethically scrutinised through inspection, using a comprehensive list of ethical principles derived from the research literature
Commercialisation Strategies of Technology based European SMEs: Markets for Technology vs. Markets for Products
This paper focuses on European small-medium "serial innovators" at the beginning of the 1990s and provides an empirical basis to answer the following questions: who are the upstream specialized small-medium technology producers? How are they distributed across countries? Are there technologies in which they show a relative advantage? By focusing on firms? history, activities, and the description of events obtained by different data sources, we also investigates if technology based SMEs choose to implement a strategy based on the commercialisation of their technologies or if they invest in the complementary assets of production, marketing and distribution becoming micro-chandlerian firms. Through this analysis we are able to propose a taxonomy of technology based SMEs? strategies in the market for technology, in the market for embedded technologies and in the market for products.SMEs, Technology Strategies, Licensing.
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Development of a change framework to study SME web site evolution
This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.It has been suggested that the adoption of e-commerce by Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) follows a sequence of stages with each representing increasing complexity and benefits. These models imply a development of their web sites in successive iterations or redesigns from
basic use of the Internet (as a marketing tool) to the most advanced level of sophistication and integration. The EU and the UK government appear to believe such models and have used them in their e-commerce adoption encouragement policies for SMEs. However, recent research in Europe reveals that e-commerce initiatives in SMEs in most cases are still in their initial stages, which do not exceed the use of email and simple information-based web pages. This failure of SMEs to engage in the more advanced stages of adoption suggest that our understanding of the implementation and management of SME web sites over time is too limited. Thus, the main aim of this research is to establish an enhanced understanding of the dynamics of SME web site transformations over time to better support SME e-commerce progression. The specific objectives of this research are to (1) examine the literature that explain or guide the evolution of web sites and internet strategies, particularly in the context of SMEs, (2) develop a
multidimensional framework that combines three dimensions of organisational change (extent, content and drivers) to characterise and model the evolution of the web presence of SMEs and (3) undertake a study of the types and characteristics of actual changes on a sample of SME web sites over time to demonstrate the relevance and applicability of the dimensions of the
framework. This study employs both quantitative and qualitative techniques. The quantitative part of the study includes the collection and observation of the sample of SME web sites to study the extent of the changes and the content of the changes incorporated. The qualitative part of the study involves telephone interviews to seek additional information about the drivers for web site redesigns and complement the previous observations. It is argued that a research framework that combines three different dimensions of organisational change offers an alternative approach to e-commerce Stage Models in understanding the evolution of SME web sites over time. The developed framework is useful to academics by providing multiple perspectives that enable more insightful study of SME web
site evolution, and avoid over-simple, a priori theory, e. g. staged approach. The framework is also argued to be useful for SME managers seeking to make the most of their limited resources in this context
A preliminary meta-analysis of SME ebusiness journal publications: current trends and future research opportunities moving beyond adoption factor studies
Previous meta-analyses of SME-eBusiness journal research focuses on analysing adoption factors, pre-2000 articles and a small number of journals. This paper departs from this research by analysing 100 articles published between 2003 and 2006 in 41 journals on the basis of the research approaches employed, countries and eBusiness technologies studied, and research objectives focused upon. The paper presents preliminary insights into current major research trends based on this analysis, such as the predominant focus on adoption factor by many studies. It also identifies future research opportunities, and proposes a research agenda which aims to progress SME-eBusiness research beyond adoption factor studies by outlining research objectives to help SMEs overcome barriers and exploit drivers.<br /
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