[AISWorld] [AJIS] New Section Published: Research on Small and Medium Sized Enterprises

[John Lamp]

The Australasian Journal of Information Systems has just published its latest Special Section at http://journal.acs.org.au/index.php/ajis.

Research on Small and Medium Sized Enterprises

A review of studies on information systems and SMEs in high ranked IS journals (2000-2014)
Craig M. Parker, Stephen Burgess, Nabeel Al-Qirim

This paper identifies novel approaches to future small and medium enterprise (SME) research from a review of articles, and then introduces the papers in this AJIS special section which evidence these approaches. More specifically, the paper makes an important contribution by reviewing 61 articles in high ranked IS journals (2000-2014) and introducing three new facets which are used to analyse research on SME adoption/use of IS (units of analysis, SME sizes and SME types) not considered in previous literature review studies. These facets provide the basis for proposing various future research opportunities. The editorial then introduces the four papers in this special section covering the research theme on SMEs, and highlights the contributions they make using the three facets.

Who Needs to be Informed? - Empirical Results From a Field Experiment on The Adoption of IOIS Among SMEs
Stanislav Kreuzer, Friedrich Born, Steffen Bernius

Inter-organizational information systems (IOIS) play a critical role in today's organizations and their relationships with business partners. While large organizations already began utilizing IOIS at the outset, small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) have subsequently been reluctant to adopt and use IOIS. As such systems are subject to high network effects, a firm thus has to reach out especially to its SME partners to achieve a critical mass of adopters among them. Prior research agrees that the provision of support in terms of circumstantial information and expertise can influence organizational adoption decisions. However, research in this direction has remained inconclusive. This study conducts a controlled field experiment at the organizational level to investigate the provision of support as a non-coercive persuasion strategy to foster the adoption of IOIS among 203 SME business partners of a large German organization. A cluster analysis is further conducted to identify distinct clusters of IOIS adopters showing significantly different adoption rates that result from informing them as a strategy. The results first offer evidence for the importance of informing SMEs as a viable strategy to foster IOIS adoption among them. Furthermore, the results provide empirical evidence for the presence of particular arrangements of characteristics describing the strategy and structure of analyzed organizations that ultimately interact with the effect of the provision of support as a persuasion strategy.

Knowledge Sharing in IT Consultant and SME Interactions
Adrian Bradshaw, Venkateswarlu Pulakanam, Paul Cragg

Many small and medium enterprises (SMEs) depend on consultants to overcome knowledge barriers, especially for IT projects. This paper aims to determine how IT consultants affect the IT knowledge of SMEs when IT consultants and SMEs interact. Data were collected using face-to-face interviews with both IT consultants and SME managers. The study is the first to identify what and how SMEs learn from consultants during an IT implementation project. Consultants help SMEs gain different types of knowledge, employing a broad range of knowledge sharing mechanisms. As consultants are an important part of the knowledge creation processes of SMEs, SMEs should strive to form long-term relationships with consultants and use these interactions to develop IT knowledge within the SME.

Moving from Evaluation to Trial: How do SMEs Start Adopting Cloud ERP?
Siti Aisyah Salim, Darshana Sedera, Sukanlaya Sawang, Abdulrahman Hamad E Alarifi, Maura Atapattu

The advent of cloud technology involving low subscription overheads cost has provided small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) with the opportunity to adopt new cloud-based corporate-wide systems (i.e., cloud ERP). This technology, operating through subscription-based services, has now provided SMEs with a complete range of IT applications that were once restricted to larger organisations. As anecdotal evidences suggest, SMEs are increasingly adopting cloud-based ERP software. The selection of an ERP is a complex process involving multiple stages and stakeholders, suggesting the importance of closer examination of cloud ERP adoption in SMEs. Yet, prior studies have predominantly treated technology adoption as a single activity and largely ignored the issue of ERP adoption in SMEs. Understanding of the process nature of the adoption and the factors that are important in each stage of the adoption potentially may result in guiding SMEs to make well-informed decisions throughout the ERP selection process. Thus, our study proposes that the adoption of cloud ERP should be examined as a multi-stage process. Using the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) and Ettlie's adoption stages, as well as employing data gathered from 162 owners of SMEs, our findings show that the factors that influence the intention to adopt cloud ERP vary significantly across adoptive stages.

IT and Fast Growth Small-to-Medium Enterprise Performance: An Empirical Study in Australia
Rui Bi, Robert M Davison, Kosmas X Smyrnios

Information technology (IT) is regarded as a facilitator for both small and large firms to speed up transactions between firms and their suppliers and customers, achieve real-time communication, lower transaction costs, and enhance speed and flexibility. However, understanding whether and how IT helps small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs) to create business value still remains unclear. Drawing upon resource-based view theory, source-positional advantage-performance framework, we develop and test a theoretical model to explore the interrelationships between IT resources (IT expertise, IT infrastructure), IT capability (IT integration), IT-enabled inter-firm partnership processes (activity integration, coordination, partnership enhancement), and organizational performance in the fast growth SME context. We propose that IT business value depends on how firms employ IT resources to develop IT capability which facilitates inter-firm partnership processes along value chains. Structural equation modeling is employed to test our theoretical conceptualization of 310 Australian fast-growth SMEs across different industrial sectors. Results show that IT contributes to fast growth SME performance through the development of IT capability and enhancement of inter-firm partnership activities. This research highlights the role of IT in business value creation and the ways in which IT is used by fast growth SMEs to foster core business competencies.

Cheers
John
@JohnWLamp
ORCID: 0000-0003-1891-0400
ResearcherID: A-3227-2008
ISNI: 0000 0003 5074 9223
Scopus AuthorID: 9840309500

Index of Information Systems Journals http://lamp.infosys.deakin.edu.au/journals/
Editor-in-Chief, Australasian Journal of Information Systems  http://journal.acs.org.au/index.php/ajis/

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Dr John Lamp
Associate Professor
Department of Information Systems and Business Analytics, Deakin Business School
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