Determinants of computing in very small businesses

This article focuses on computing in very small businesses (VSB). We have defined a business to be very small if it has less than 50 employees. They have been ignored in the mainstream MIS literature. However, given that small businesses constitute a significant portion of the U.S. economy and that computers are making widespread inroads into small businesses, a serious investigation is warranted. A model is proposed for computing in VSBs and the parameters are investigated in an empirical study that identifies relationships between business characteristics, individual characteristics, and the degree of computing. On an a priori basis, it is assumed that the most important factors related to VSB computing are: size of the business, age of the business, general education of the owner/manager, the computer knowledge of the owner/ manager, and the profitability of the business. The results generally support the assumptions. The model therefore provides a descriptive understanding of VSB computing; it can also be used in a prescriptive mode to induce desired changes in VSB computing

Computer Literacy In Undergraduate Business Education: The Case For The Adult Fast Track Programs

Industrialized nations have invested a great deal of public and private resources to facilitate access to information technologies (ITs) and to adjust their cultures and societies to them. These efforts are commonly associated with the idea of expanding computer literacy from higher education institutions to business organizations. Computers have fundamentally altered how we live and work, as well as how we learn and have transformed the world into a global community. Moreover, business organizations have struggled to train and to turn their workforce into a computer literate group that keeps a breast of changes in computing and information technologies, since most of the work does not rely on standardized literacy levels to perform well. This paper presents an examination on current computer literacy skills between groups of adult students enrolled in accelerated undergraduate business programs in the USA and in Germany. Special emphasis is granted to the discussion of the similarities and differences found in computer literacy skills and the implications associated with having literate and illiterate groups in the workplace