The relationship between knowledge management and innovation level in Mexican SMEs: Empirical evidence

The transformation of the current society from an industry-based economy to a knowledge management and innovation-based economy is changing the design and implementation of business strategies and the nature of the competition among the organizations which are mainly small and medium-size enterprises (SMEs). They struggle to survive in a market which is more demanding and competitive, so they seeknowledge management as one of the most effective strategies that may help to enable the innovation activities into the businesses. For these reasons, this research paper has as a main goal to analyze the relationship between knowledge management and innovation in Mexican SMEs. The empirical analysis used 125 manufacturing SMEs (each SME having from 20 to 250 employees) as a sample to be carried out. The obtained results indicate that knowledge management has a positive impact in products, process, and management systems innovation

Practices for strategic capacity management in Malaysian manufacturing firms

While the notion of manufacturing capabilities is a long-standing notion in research on operations management, its actual implementation and management has been hardly researched. Five case studies in Malaysia offered the opportunity to examine the practice of manufacturing managers with regard to strategic capability management. The data collection and analysis was structured by using the notion of Strategic Capacity Management. Whereas traditionally literature has demonstrated the beneficial impact of an appropriate manufacturing strategy on the business strategy and performance, the study highlights the difficulty of managers to set the strategy, let alone implementing it. This is partly caused by the immense pressure of customers in these dominantly Make-To-Order environments for SMEs. Current concepts for manufacturing capabilities have insufficiently accounted this phenomenon and an outline of a research agenda is presented

Fuzzy sequential model for strategic planning of small and medium scale industries

The use of strategic planning can be an alternative solution to improve industrial performance. In small and medium scale industries especially in apple chips industries, strategic planning helps to know the current industry situation and the steps that must be taken to overcome the existing problems. This study aimed to develop an improvement strategies using Fuzzy Sequential Modeling (FSM) model. FSM model was consisted a SWOT analysis, Root Cause Analysis (RCA), Bolden’s Taxonomy and fuzzy AHP. Based on SWOT analysis, the external factors of threats was the similar business competition and low purchasing power. RCA described the issues that needed to be fixed using Bolden’s Taxonomy as the reference for determining the action plans and produce four OIA (Open Improvement Area) there are old technology machines and equipment, difficulty of enterprise development, ineffective marketing media and low market share. The strategic planning was determined using Fuzzy AHP based on OIA and ABC enterprise needs to improve the low market share and ineffective marketing strategy

The determinants of Strategic Information System Planning (SISP) success: A proposed framework for Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs)

The growing importance of Information System (IS) to support business operation demands for adequate IS planning.Good IS planning enables organizations to closely align the IS and strategic business objectives.Such alignment ultimately ensures organizations to gain competitive advantages from IS-related investment.Despite extensive works to understand SISP practices in large organizations, works are still limited in the context of Small and Medium Enterprise (SMEs).This issue is worth further investigation in view of the increasing importance of IS to support many facets of the SMEs operation.More importantly, due to inherent resource constraints among SMEs to invest in IS, top management commitment as well as user participation in IS planning activities are getting more crucial.This study, therefore proposes a framework to assess the effect of top management commitment and user participation on SISP success. The findings are of relevance for firm’s top management in ensuring SISP success

THE USE OF ICTs AND ITS RELATION WITH THE COMPETITIVENESS OF MEXICAN SMEs

This empirical study was aimed to analyze the relationship between the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) and the competitiveness of manufacturing Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) in the state of Aguascalientes, Mexico, using size and age of the company as control variables. The scales in which the use of ICT and competitiveness were measured, were subjected to a first Order confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), through the Method of Maximum Likelihood, for which they have reliability and convergent and discriminant validity. When the survey was applied to managers or owners of 200 manufacturing SMEs, the results obtained through linear regression analysis by Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) under the stepwise method, allowed to infer that ICTs have a positive and highly significant relationship with the competitiveness of these types of businesses, finding no evidence that the size or age of these types of businesses influence over the impact on the competitiveness using ICT

THE USE OF ICTs AND ITS RELATION WITH THE COMPETITIVENESS OF MEXICAN SMEs

This empirical study was aimed to analyze the relationship between the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) and the competitiveness of manufacturing Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) in the state of Aguascalientes, Mexico, using size and age of the company as control variables. The scales in which the use of ICT and competitiveness were measured, were subjected to a first Order confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), through the Method of Maximum Likelihood, for which they have reliability and convergent and discriminant validity. When the survey was applied to managers or owners of 200 manufacturing SMEs, the results obtained through linear regression analysis by Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) under the stepwise method, allowed to infer that ICTs have a positive and highly significant relationship with the competitiveness of these types of businesses, finding no evidence that the size or age of these types of businesses influence over the impact on the competitiveness using ICT

Eco-innovation practices’ adoption in the automotive industry

Eco-innovation is a construct that is gaining increasing interest from academics and researchers since it is commonly considered in the literature as one of the strategies that allow manufacturing companies not only to significantly reduce the negative impacts on the environment but also the generation of pollutants. However, little is known about the adoption of eco-innovation practices in manufacturing companies, particularly in the automotive industry. Therefore, this research has as main objective to fill this gap in the literature and explore the interdependence between eco-innovation of products, processes and management. The study is conducted through a research framework consisting of 3 measurement scales, 14 items and 3 hypotheses and an extensive review of the literature. A self-administered questionnaire was distributed to a sample of 460 companies in the automotive and auto parts industry in Mexico. Data were analyzed through Confirmatory Factor Analysis, Descriptive Statistics and Structural Equation Modelling. The results obtained show that product eco-innovation, process eco-innovation and management eco-innovation are good indicators for the adoption of eco-innovation practices for companies in the automotive and auto parts industry. The paper addresses a research gap in the academic literature in the eco-innovation field by providing evidence on the interdependence between eco-innovation of products, processes and management and the implementation of their practices in the automotive industry.N/

The relationship between supply chain management and competitiveness

The globalization of the markets and the new business environmental are forcing organizations, mainly the small and medium-sized enterprises, to improve their competitiveness significantly since to remain in the current market it is necessary to modify the managerial strategies to adapt them to the changes and the clients’ requirements. In this sense, supply chain management appears in the literature like one of the managerial strategies that are implementing in important number of firms to be able increase competitiveness.Therefore, the essential objective of this paper is to analyze the relationship between supply chain management and the competitiveness of small and mediumsized enterprises, using for it a sample of 305 firms of the Aguascalientes State. The obtained results show that supply chain management has a positive influence in competitiveness level, as well as in the financial performance, cost reduction and the use of technology of the small and medium-sized enterprises

Examining the effect of top management commitment and end user participation on strategic information system planning (SISP) success from SMEs perspective

Effective IS planning is crucial in line with the growing importance of Information System (IS) in most organizations.It ensures better alignment between the IS and strategic business objectives and ultimately lead to greater value of IS to an organization.Despite efforts to understand IS planning in large organizations, works needed to examine IS planning from small and medium enterprise (SMEs) perspective in view of its unique nature of operation and dominant roles played by its top management.Therefore, this research examines the effect of top management commitment and end user participation on IS planning success.Despite various attempts to improve the response rate, only 68 out of 1,500 Malaysian SMEs responded to the questionnaire survey distributed (4.7% response rate).However, only 31 firms reported IS planning activities which were later considered for hypotheses testing.Fitting the model using Partial Least Squares (PLS) demonstrates significant effects of both top management commitment and user participation on IS planning success with top management commitment reported stronger effect than user participation

Knowledge management as intellectual property: Evidence from Mexican manufacturing SMEs

© 2016, © Emerald Group Publishing Limited. Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between knowledge management and creation of intellectual property within the context of small and medium size manufacturing enterprises. Design/methodology/approach: A hypothesis was formulated and tested using structural equation modelling. Data were collected through an instrument that was developed based on key constructs adapted from the literature and that was first validated using Confirmatory Factor Analysis. A Cronbach’s alpha test was also conducted and the Composite Reliability Index was calculated to ensure reliability of the theoretical model. The instrument was distributed among manufacturing small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the Aguascalientes region of Mexico, from were 125 valid responses were obtained. Findings: In general, the results indicate that knowledge management has positive effects on the creation of intellectual property in manufacturing SMEs. This suggests that SMEs can create more intellectual property if they dedicate more efforts to the management of knowledge. Practical implications: The implication of this research and its findings may inform the strategies formulated by policy makers, and the managerial practices that manufacturing SMEs can adopt to protect their knowledge. Originality/value: Evidence suggests that studies focused on investigating the relationship between knowledge and intellectual property are limited. This paper provides a refined understanding of the relationship between knowledge management and intellectual property creation