Effectiveness of HRD for developing SMEs in South Asia

Today South Asia is host to a large youth bulge which is entering the labor market every year posing challenging questions for the national governments in the context of employable skills, space for entrepreneurship, innovation and economic freedom. SME sector provides an opportunity for the young to exercise their ideas and ideals. However a prerequisite for the young to be innovate is the how countries produce and retain a high end human capital. This study provides a review of national socio-economic policies in South Asian region - which answer such challenges.human resource development, small and medium enterprises, economic growth, competitiveness

Regional construction sector: sector implementation plan (SIP)

This Sector Implementation Plan (SIP) forms an integral part of the Regional Economic Strategy (RES), acting as a high level plan for the region’s construction sector, and providing an overview of the strategic actions and interventions which will deliver the outcomes required to achieve progress against each key challenge

Past, present and future of information and knowledge sharing in the construction industry: Towards semantic service-based e-construction

The paper reviews product data technology initiatives in the construction sector and provides a synthesis of related ICT industry needs. A comparison between (a) the data centric characteristics of Product Data Technology (PDT) and (b) ontology with a focus on semantics, is given, highlighting the pros and cons of each approach. The paper advocates the migration from data-centric application integration to ontology-based business process support, and proposes inter-enterprise collaboration architectures and frameworks based on semantic services, underpinned by ontology-based knowledge structures. The paper discusses the main reasons behind the low industry take up of product data technology, and proposes a preliminary roadmap for the wide industry diffusion of the proposed approach. In this respect, the paper stresses the value of adopting alliance-based modes of operation

Promoting environmentally sustainable enterprises: some policy options

Governments around the world are taking an increasing interest in promoting environmentally-sustainable economic activity. They have developed a variety of policy approaches in an effort to address environmental issues that range from localised pollution incidents to global climate change. This chapter examines the kinds of intervention tools that are being used to improve the environmental performance of SMEs, and to guide entrepreneurial energies towards more environmentally-benign goals. The chapter aims to: (1) outline the main options available to policy-makers; (2) compare specific intervention tools, noting their strengths and limitations; and (3) discuss the case for adopting more holistic approaches to address the pervasive, complex and often deeply-rooted challenges of sustainable development. Key lessons are that policy makers need to select appropriate combinations of tools based on careful reviews of the evidence, and that well-integrated, context-sensitive policies are likely to prove the most effective

The supply side of innovation diffusion - A UK SME broadband adoption perspective

Recent research suggests that the majority of the Small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) e-business research focusses primarily on studying innovation diffusion within the SMEs themselves with limited research into the supply-side of innovation diffusion This study examines the supply side of innovation diffusion to SMEs in south east United Kingdom (UK). It aims to examine and provide an indepth view of the broadband diffusion process to SMEs in UK by exploring the views and activities of the various groups involved in the process with a particular focus on the supply side. Innovation diffusion and social construction of technology theory are applied to extend a framework with a view to address some of the issues not covered in previous literature. Our research results suggest that even though the various social groups are working towards the same goal, both sides have a very different view of what the expectations are from the supply side of innovation diffusion. We believe that our results are useful to providers looking to diffuse broadband as well as other IT innovations to SMEs

Understanding the adaptive capacity of Australian small-to-medium enterprises to climate change and variability

Abstract Small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs) comprise 96 per cent of all private businesses in Australia. The SME sector is the economy’s largest employer and the largest contributor to GDP. Moreover, SMEs play a significant role within socio-economic systems: they provide employment, goods and services and tax revenue for communities. Climate change may result in adverse business outcomes including business interruptions, increased investment and insurance costs, and declines in financial indicators such as measures of value, return and growth. After natural disasters, SMEs face greater short-term losses than larger enterprises, and may have lower adaptive capacity for various reasons. This study examines the underlying factors and processes shaping adaptive capacity of Australian SMEs’ to climate change and associated sea level rise. Specifically, the research asks the following questions: 1) How have SMEs considered and integrated adaptation into business planning? 2) What are the key underlying processes that constrain and influence the adaptive capacities of SMEs? and 3) What types of support are required to promote SME business continuity under a changing climate? The study adopts theories from Political Ecology and draws on literature on vulnerability and hazards to understand the processes that mediate the adaptive capacity of SMEs. The empirical research involved an online survey targeting SMEs, attending business engagement events hosted by chambers of commerce, 30 semi-structured interviews with secondary stakeholders, five case studies involving SMEs and secondary stakeholders, and finally a stakeholder workshop which brought together participants from both groups. The central conclusion of this study is that underlying contextual processes are critical to enhancing the adaptive capacity of SMEs. These processes include: the social relationships between SMEs and support organisations; the relationships within support organisations themselves; the agency of SMEs to direct resources toward building resilience into business continuity; SMEs’ perceptions of climate risks; and power struggles between support organisations. Unfavourable combinations of these processes have the potential to limit the adaptive choices that SMEs can adopt in order to overcome climate change and other related stresses on business continuity. These processes generate vulnerability and often occur at scales external to the SMEs;including relationships between different tiers of government as well as between various support organisations working with SMEs. These contextual processes have been largely overlooked in formal programmes that aim to build business resilience. The programmes have tended to be reactive and have tended to focus on business recovery during and after disasters rather than on altering the vulnerability context of SMEs through anticipatory prevention and preparedness or adaptation planning. This study suggests that the success of efforts to build the adaptive capacity of SMEs to future climate and related stresses will depend on how they address these underlying processes to facilitate the ability of SMEs to exercise their agency in pursuing adaptive choices that they value