Narrow Results

This study examines the dynamics of sustainable economic growth in 15 developing Asian economies spanning from 2005 to 2020, utilizing the Cross-Sectional Augmented Autoregressive Distributed Lag technique. It highlights the significant role played by Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in promoting green growth and emphasizes their crucial contribution to fostering environmentally conscious development. The findings indicate a positive relationship between SMEs’ numbers, revenues and green growth, underscoring their essential role in advancing environmental sustainability. The study also notes the limited impact of government-provided SME loans on green growth, suggesting a reassessment of loan programs. In contrast, the effects of Foreign Direct Investment absorption, electricity consumption and digital transformation on green growth vary, providing valuable policy insights. Particularly noteworthy is the significant influence of SMEs’ revenues, highlighting the importance of their financial success in promoting sustainable development. Recommendations include incentivizing Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiatives to strengthen SMEs’ commitment to sustainability and formulating policies that incorporate emerging technologies such as cryptocurrency to enhance environmental responsibility.

This study examines the factors influencing environmental investment in Small- and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) within the Chinese art industry, using data from 50 listed companies between 2015 and 2021. It analyzes the effects of carbon emissions, stock prices, workforce expansion and energy expenditure on environmental investment decisions. The results show a positive correlation between carbon emissions and environmental investment, where a 1% increase leads to short-term gains of 0.18% and long-term gains of 0.34%. Stock prices also have a significant impact, with a 1% increase resulting in short-term gains of 0.43% and long-term gains of 0.67%. In contrast, workforce expansion has a negative effect, with a 1% increase causing short-term reductions of 0.07% and long-term decreases of 0.12%. Higher energy expenditure encourages environmental investment, leading to short-term gains of 0.25% and long-term gains of 0.48%. Based on these findings, the study proposes practical policies for promoting green growth in China’s art industry SMEs, such as tax credits or subsidies for eco-friendly practices and technologies, and programs to raise awareness and provide training on sustainable practices.

This paper investigates the impact of digitalization on entrepreneurship capacity in developing economies using a sample of 20 countries from 2009 to 2021. Findings reveal a significant positive correlation between digitalization indicators, such as internet and mobile phone users, and entrepreneurship capacity, emphasizing digitalization’s role in enhancing communication, information dissemination and market access for entrepreneurs. However, factors like patent applications and trade liberalization show insignificant correlations with entrepreneurship empowerment. Additionally, higher inflation rates are associated with decreased entrepreneurship capacity, while urbanization emerges as a significant motivator. To foster entrepreneurship capacity for SMEs, governments should prioritize digitalization and ICT diffusion policies, promote digital literacy, support patent registration and develop smart cities to create conducive environments for entrepreneurial activities.

In the current digital age, technological innovation is rapidly transforming work methods and employee expectations for work–family balance. This study aims to explore how digital innovation, through Green Human Resource Practices (GHRPs) and Leader–Member Exchange (LMX), promotes sustainable transformation in small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) while effectively supporting employees’ work–family balance. Using empirical analysis on 357 employees from 10 digitized SMEs, the study constructs a comprehensive model based on Resource Dependence Theory (RDT), Social Exchange Theory (SET) and Planned Change Theory (PCT). The findings reveal that digital innovation plays a critical role in adjusting work–family boundaries and enhancing employee satisfaction and organizational performance, with GHRPs and LMX serving as important mediators in this process. Additionally, the study emphasizes the key role of effective change management strategies in achieving sustainable organizational growth. This research provides a framework and strategies for SMEs to implement GHRPs in the digital context, helping to improve organizational performance and facilitate sustainable organizational transformation.

The goal of this paper is to identify the factors that precede and may cause sudden changes in the pace of growth of high-growth SMEs or gazelles. A retrospective longitudinal case study of seven high growth SMEs that had undergone a total of 14 sudden shifts in growth reveals that a number of events caused the changes of pace. Some were triggered by the entrepreneur's decisions while others resulted from events beyond his/her control. Management's motivation for growth was an important element and this motivation changed over time, being influenced by both success and problems associated with actual growth. The success of growth strategies also appears to depend on the firm's proximity to its client base and its ability to obtain the information required for sound decision-making. Lastly, the availability of tangible and intangible resources was found essential in allowing the company to seize growth opportunities and proximity to the business milieu may help accessing these resources.

In this paper is we attempt to construct and validate a typology of innovation strategies among family SMEs applying the Miles and Snow's configurational model. We also try to extend the scope of the model testing the fit between entrepreneurial, managerial and governance characteristics and innovative posture of the firm. Research has been carried out on a representative sample of small and medium family firms of the Italian region Friuli Venezia Giulia. Results indicate that significant differences in the mentioned contextual variables exist among different strategic typologies of family firms, however some questions remain unanswered and more effort is needed to develop the configurational approach in the field of family business.

Utilizing a case study methodology, this study investigates ways in which fast growth small-to-medium enterprises (FGSMEs) measure firm performance. This investigation, involving 21 interviews with 18 companies, revealed that FGSMEs seem to adopt a multi-level approach involving different sources and contexts to performance measurement. Apart from the application of standard financial performance measures such as profits and growth, FGSMEs also utilize measures of customer satisfaction, attainment of industry awards, receipt of client reports, website popularity, number and quality of successful innovations adopted, objective employee performance indices, and staff retention. Founders highlight the importance of providing employees with flexible environments and career opportunities as a way to reduce churn. These organizational characteristics signal non-financial benefits and incentives of working in these firms to potential employees and customers. These findings are in accord with extant literature and the balanced scorecard perspective, advocating associations between performance measurement systems and management strategies.

The rationale of this study was to gain meaningful insights into SME awareness, practices and the assumed impacts associated with environmental issues. Supported by the theoretic interpretation of stakeholder theory, the study employed a mailed survey to gain data from SMEs operating nationally across Australia. The findings flag a diversity of results across industry groups and also firm size, particularly in relation to their awareness of environmental and social issues. The results also identified the areas of business activity where firms focus their efforts to be environmentally responsible, together with the types of environmental costs they incorporate into their internal information system. The results also revealed their view on the impact flowing from adopting environmental responsibility.

Currently, innovation is a major challenge in emerging economies such as Tunisia. Although the influence of leadership seems evident in the implementation of innovations, few studies have investigated this impact; especially for SMEs in the ICT sector. For this purpose, we propose to highlight the impact of leadership on the implementation of innovations in SMEs through exploratory qualitative study of five small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the high-tech sector in Tunisia, to understand the management styles of the chief executive officers (CEOs) and their motivations towards innovative activities. The results of this investigation show that the style of leadership in the ICT sector is both participative and transformational. Only organizational innovation has been detected. Collaborative work and group cohesion are the major cultural aspects of innovation. Items from this exploration allows us to clarify aspects of three basic concepts that make up our conceptual model (leadership, culture of innovation, and innovations) for testing later under a quantitative study by the method of structural equation modeling.

Substantial research exists on quality management practices in context to large organisations with plethora of studies in manufacturing organisations while exiguously aiming service sector SMEs. As more and more organisations strive to remain competitive, the concepts and practices of quality management have received increased attention by Indian industry. The contribution of service sector in Indian economy has increased at a faster rate in comparison with other sectors. Considering the pressing need this research explores the literature for a near exhaustive list of practices in quality management by deploying qualitative and descriptive approach. Thereafter, twenty service organizations were surveyed for comprehending their adoption of the type of quality management practices. On the basis of their prioritization or apportioning weight to those practices, a descriptive pattern analysis has been deployed to detect perceived level of adoption/implementation of quality management practices. The findings represent that out of twenty one quality management practices; thirteen practices substantially have been ranked on priority while others require phenomenal acclimatization towards implementation in the Indian scenario. Analysis also reflects that the strength of service SMEs lies with customer focus, management leadership and customer feedback. Further with the integration of contextual factors, as supported by theory, a conceptual framework has been proposed exhibiting relationship between quality management practices with performance and growth. The methodological approach led to the emergence of unique dimensions culminating into new findings with both managerial and entrepreneurial implications. Directions for future scope of research and suggestions for improvement have also been recommended.

This study increases knowledge on SMEs as extended enterprises, particularly from the viewpoint of stakeholder involvement in firms’ R&D activity. Previous research holds that stakeholder involvement benefits firms’ R&D performance, but tends to approach stakeholder involvement by focusing on one or two stakeholder groups at a time. This paper explores the roles and intensity of involvement of different stakeholders in the R&D processes of SMEs and presents a 360-degree model based on prior research to empirically profile the SMEs to see where their gaps in the stakeholder potential are. The study was conducted with multiple qualitative case studies and contributes to the debates on SMEs’ R&D processes and stakeholder perspective on business. This research offers a synthetizing view of the involvement of different stakeholders’ in R&D, an approach that enables to consider SMEs as extended enterprises.

This paper explores different Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solutions that may be adopted by SMEs in Mauritius. The Mauritian government has the ambition of increasing the contribution of SMEs to the overall GDP of Mauritius from 40 to 65% by year 2025. CRM is about building and enhancing relationships so as to increase long term profitability of the company. The aim of the research is to consider different Social CRM strategies that may be adopted by SMEs to achieve the national exports strategy. This research shows that SMEs consider websites and social media marketing more important as compared to other digital tools. In addition, SMEs are careful about some negative aspects of social media marketing such as negative comments and lack of social metrics. However, most SMEs believe that Social CRM is of great importance for being successful. The research ontology that has been adopted is that the use of CRM may be of great use for SMEs to improve their overall marketing capability.

Despite a growing scholarly interest in performance measurement systems (PMS) for collaborative networks, the literature highlights the success of co-operation from the buyer’s perspective, with far less attention given to the supplier’s perspective (Yeniyurt et al., 2014). In addition, only limited empirical research has been conducted on PMS in small and medium-sized enterprise networks (Bititci et al., 2012). This study investigates how information sharing and supplier integration in a buyer-supplier relationship (BSR) affect suppliers’ performance in the context of small firms. Information sharing includes both providing information (to a buyer) and receiving information (from a buyer). According to the results, neither BSR integration nor information sharing are associated with suppliers’ overall or financial performance. However, BSR integration showed a positive association with suppliers’ non-financial performance. Moreover, information sharing (both providing and receiving) in the innovation perspective showed a positive association with suppliers’ non-financial performance.

The aim of this article is to assess the current state of research on open innovation in SMEs to understand why and how SMEs do open innovation. Stemming from a systematic literature review of 73 articles published in peer-reviewed journals, from 1983 to 2017, we identify five main research focuses on open innovation in SMEs. Directions for future studies on open innovation in SMEs are provided in this article.

The purpose of this study is to clarify the factors that affect the ability of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to create innovations that promote firm growth. Studies regarding the relationship between research intensity and growth have typically produced mixed results, revealing a modest or non-existent influence of innovations on sales growth. These studies have typically used patents as indicators of innovation. We directly asked firms whether their innovations had affected their growth, and we regressed the results over several variables, covering a wide range of dimensions related to (1) personal factors, (2) firm-related factors (including questions that reflect a firm’s innovation strategies), and (3) regional factors. Our analyses of Finnish SMEs revealed that trust, innovation activities and networking are essential components of firms’ ability to create innovations that contribute to high firm growth. A multinomial logistic regression analysis also provided support for the assumption that age, technological level and firm location affect firm performance.

In today’s competitive business environment, family and non-family small and medium enterprises (SMEs) strive to survive despite many challenges. Market knowledge and marketing efforts are crucial for them to sustain and enhance business with limited resources. In this paper, we examined three constructs (i) market orientation, (ii) marketing capabilities and (iii) marketing practices impact on the SMEs’ service sector performance. The interaction effect of ownership type (family and non-family firms) was also observed in the model. Data was collected from 240 SMEs in three major metropolitan cities. This study found positive relationships of each construct (market orientation, (ii) marketing capabilities and (iii) marketing practices) on firm performance as hypothesised. The interaction effect of ownership type i.e. family and non-family, evident on marketing capabilities and SMEs’ performance. Non-family businesses are open for adopting new ideas and personnel into decision making. Family firms should be more adaptable to compete with non-family firms. The managerial and theoretical implications discussed in family and non-family firms’ perspective.

The purpose of this paper is to determine the psychological profile of the Tunisian SMEs founder amid the COVID-19 crisis. The results of this research demonstrated that their psychological profile in times of COVID-19 crisis is quadridimensional and that each of these four dimensions (tolerance for ambiguity and uncertainty, attitude towards risk, self-confidence and locus of control) are unidimensional. This research was conducted in three Tunisian industries (textiles and clothing industries, agro-food industries and industries of ceramic and glass building materials) via the administration of a questionnaire via LinkedIn (between March, 15 and May, 15 2020) to more than 400 SMEs’ founders. The critical contributions of this research are the clarification of the role of psychological factors in the field of entrepreneurship, which remains unclear, by enriching previous research on entrepreneurial personality. The main findings of this study: (1) the four key psychological traits correspond to the “specific traits” of an entrepreneur; (2) these “specific traits” are more suitable to study the profile of the SME’s founder profile at the time of crisis than the more “stable traits” — the Big Five traits; (3) the psychological profile of the SME’s founder in a hyper-turbulent environment (namely the COVID-19 crisis) correspond to the psychological entrepreneurial profile.

There is fair consensus regarding the importance of creating a supportive internal environment within organizations to encourage entrepreneurial mindsets and behavior. The majority of extant studies have involved large-sized organizations in the Western context. This study aims to extend the understanding of well-established antecedents of corporate entrepreneurship (CE) to small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) in the Indian context, propose a new variable, and test its influence on CE. Partial least square structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was applied to a sample of 185 respondents belonging to various managerial levels across different Indian SMEs. The results show a positive and significant relationship between management support, rewards and recognition and organizational values for fostering CE in Indian SMEs. SMEs play a significant role in socio-economic development, and this study can help understand how the benefits of CE can be leveraged to increase SMEs’ innovativeness and competitive advantage.

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Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) around the world engage in e-commerce and e-business to support business operations as well as to enhance revenue generation from nontraditional sources. Internet and e-business technologies (IEBT) are the pillars of e-commerce and e-business. Despite the universal appeal of IEBT, it has been reported that the adoption of such technologies by SMEs is influenced by contextual imperatives. The objective of this research is to investigate factors impacting the adoption of IEBT in SMEs based in the Maritime region of Canada. A research model based on the diffusion of innovation (DIT) and the Technology–Organization–Environment (TOE) frameworks was used to guide the discourse. Such factors as relative advantage, compatibility, complexity, management support, organizational readiness, external pressure, and government support were used to develop relevant hypotheses. Questionnaires were mailed to key informants in SMEs. Data analysis was performed using the partial least squares (PLS) technique. Predictions related to relative advantage, management support, and competition's pressure were confirmed. The study did not support the constructs of compatibility, complexity, government support, customers' and partners' pressures as significant predictors of IEBT adoption by the SMEs in the region.