Aggregation and the Role of Trusted Third Parties in SME E-Business Engagement: A Regional Policy Issue

YesIt is against the background of low engagement by SMEs in e-business that this paper seeks to highlight the potential importance of aggregation and of the role of trusted third parties in facilitating higher levels of involvement. The paper is based on an ongoing SME e-business research programme and reports on some recent research on SMEs that were using high complexity e-business applications and explores the extent to which the research findings could address the core concern of low engagement. This qualitative case study based research includes analysis of data collected from 13 community intermediaries, acting as trusted third parties. It concludes that the role of community intermediaries appears to be central to the adoption of critical e-aggregation applications provided by service providers. For policymakers, this important role of critical e-aggregation applications in facilitating e-business engagement by SMEs has emerged as part of this research but there is limited evidence of policy initiatives that reflect this

SMEs and ICTs adoption : a new challenge to Regional Policies

Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) and their widespread have produced profound changes at economic and social levels. We are now in what is known as Information Society. The ways in which people, firms, institutions and governments deal with ICTs and understand their impacts is an important issue. One of the main characteristics of Information Society is the growing competition between agents through innovation. By innovation we mean the capacity to manage creatively the knowledge as an answer to changes in social needs and in technology. Hence, innovation occurs as a means of competitive advantage. The paper addresses this issue by highlighting the importance of innovation for Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), which are by far the most relevant actors in European Economy. It is argued that the access and use of information as well as the existence of interaction between agents are key factors for innovation. ICTs, if used in a correct and efficient matter, can play an important role by inducing and help SMEs to innovate. In spite of helping firms overcoming a wide range of barriers, the adoption and the search for efficiency in ICTs use can however become a problem. This is even more significant concerning SMEs and particularly those located in peripheral regions. In fact, acknowledging the existence of a regional digital divide and a digital divide by company size, the European Commission is developing several actions in order to face and overcome these problems. The paper addresses several initiatives undertaken by the European Commission since the Lisbon summit at March 2000. More recently, the European regional policies have changed from simply getting SMEs connected to the Internet to the effective integration of ICTs into business processes. As a conclusion, the authors argue that Digital Policies should take into account that ICT adoption and use by SMEs, cannot be regarded as a panacea to solve the problems of firms and regional development. Regional policies to help SMEs to adopt ICT must be integrated (in a coherent way) within broader regional strategies.

New directions for research on SME-eBusiness :insights from an analysis of journal articles from 2003-2006

Previous research which consolidates the growing body of academic literature on small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and electronic business (eBusiness) has taken the form of meta-analyses which focus on analysing adoption factors, pre-2000 articles and a small number of journals. This paper makes a valuable contribution to the analysis of SME-eBusiness research by addressing the limitations of past literature analyses because it presents an extensive literature review of 120 SME-eBusiness journal articles published between 2003 and 2006 in 53 journals. This paper is unique, when compared to meta-analyses of adoption factors, because it analyses the SME-eBusiness literature broadly on the basis of the data collection approaches used, countries and eBusiness technologies studied, and the primary research objective of each article. This approach to the analysis revealed a number of limitations in the existing research such as the tendency: to treat SMEs and eBusiness applications homogeneously rather than as highly diverse, complex entities; to repeat adoption factor studies which have now reached saturation point; and to focus on SMEs themselves without considering the complexity of relationships which many SMEs have with family, friends, other businesses and eBusiness solution providers. These limitations highlight the need for new research directions which move beyond identifying and evaluating adoption factors. The paper concludes by outlining a number of broad research directions which might help overcome the limitations with the existing body of SME-eBusiness research. <br /

Exploring the types of SMEs which could use blogs as a marketing tool : a proposed future research agenda

Blogs appear to be gaining momentum as a marketing tool which can be used by organisations for such strategies and processes as branding, managing reputation, developing customer trust and loyalty, niche marketing, gathering marketing intelligence and promoting their online presence. There has been limited academic research in this area, and most significantly concerning the types of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) for which blogs might have potential as a marketing tool. In an attempt to address the knowledge gap, this paper presents a future research agenda (in the form of research questions) which can guide the eBusiness research community in conducting much needed studies in this area. This paper is particularly novel in that it aims to demonstrate how the heterogeneity of SMEs and their specific business uses of eBusiness technology such as blogs can form the central plank of a future research agenda. This is important because the existing eBusiness literature tends to treat eBusiness collectively rather than focusing on the specific business uses of different eBusiness technologies, and to treat SMEs as a homogeneous group. The paper concludes with a discussion of how this research agenda can form the basis of studies which use a range of different research methods, and how this &quot;big picture&quot; agenda approach might help the eBusiness research community build theory which better explains SME adoption and use of eBusiness.<br /

New directions for research on SME-eBusiness: insights from an analysis of journal articles from 2003 to 2006

Previous research which consolidates the growing body of academic literature on small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and electronic business (eBusiness) has taken the form of meta-analyses which focus on analysing adoption factors, pre-2000 articles and a small number of journals. This paper makes a valuable contribution to the analysis of SME-eBusiness research by addressing the limitations of past literature analyses because it presents an extensive literature review of 120 SME-eBusiness journal articles published between 2003 and 2006 in 53 journals. This paper is unique, when compared to meta-analyses of adoption factors, because it analyses the SME-eBusiness literature broadly on the basis of the data collection approaches used, countries and eBusiness technologies studied, and the primary research objective of each article. This approach to the analysis revealed a number of limitations in the existing research such as the tendency: to treat SMEs and eBusiness applications homogeneously rather than as highly diverse, complex entities; to repeat adoption factor studies which have now reached saturation point; and to focus on SMEs themselves without considering the complexity of relationships which many SMEs have with family, friends, other businesses and eBusiness solution providers. These limitations highlight the need for new research directions which move beyond identifying and evaluating adoption factors. The paper concludes by outlining a number of broad research directions which might help overcome the limitations with the existing body of SME-eBusiness research

Small firm e-business adoption : a critical analysis of theory

Purpose &ndash; The paper critiques a range of theories and evaluates their ability to provide a lens for explaining the idiosyncratic nature of small firms and their e-business adoption decisions.Design/methodology/approach &ndash; This literature review firstly summarises the existing research evidence that shows that small firms are idiosyncratic when it comes to e-business adoption. It then critiques theories commonly used in the literature in this field to examine the extent to which they take this small firm idiosyncrasy into account when explaining e-business adoption decisions.Findings &ndash; The critical analysis shows that no commonly-used theory adequately explains small firm adoption of e-business because each omits important aspects of small firm idiosyncrasy. The analysis suggests that an integrated theoretical framework is needed. Preliminary ideas on this framework are provided.Originality/value &ndash; Existing research generally applies a small number of selected theories and formulates research models of adoption factors. However, there is no systematic analysis of theories in this field and no consensus about theoretical frameworks. This paper addresses this limitation of the literature by critically evaluating the commonly used theories in terms of their individual suitability as lenses for explaining small firm e-business adoption. <br /

Assessing the Impacts of Ecological Conditions on Consumer Acceptance of E-Banking in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan

The pace of eBanking accepting is very slow in Pakistan, which is also one of the most debated issues among researchers of eBusiness in Pakistan generally and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) in particular. This paper focuses on the perceived security effects of eBusiness on acceptance of eBanking, and the role of local environmental conditions i.e. attitude, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral factors towards acceptance in of eBanking in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in comparison of these factors in the Punjab province. This study is based on the information gathered from the (300) sample respondents i.e. individual banking customers in the provinces of KP and Punjab. The regression analyses were used. Findings of the study suggest that customer perceived non-repudiation; trust relative advantage, internet experience and banking needs as the most significant factors that shape and reshape the acceptance in KP, while in comparison, the internet experience and banking needs were found with significant impacts on eBanking acceptance in the Punjab province. Keywords: eBanking, Security, Trust, Internet Experience, Banking Needs, Ecological Conditions, KP, Punjab and Pakista