Small and Medium Enterprises’ Sector in an Adverse Business Environment of Ukraine: The Role of Cooperation

Author(s):  
Nina Isakova
2013 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 191 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zachary B. Awino

The Paper is the research findings on the role of strategic planning and competitive advantage of ICT Small and Medium Enterprises in Kenya. Literature suggests that the contemporary business environment in which organisations operate is increasingly becoming uncertain and unpredictable. Significant changes are mostly driven by technological changes, globalisation and trade liberalisation. As a result, like large enterprises, SMEs are facing new and unexpected challenges that threaten their competitiveness. While most countries acknowledge the critical role that SMEs contribute to their economies, both as an engine of growth and sustainable development, many questions still remain unanswered as to the determination of the critical challenges facing SMEs and how these challenges could be addressed to improve their competitiveness. These challenges have increased the need for empirical information which is essential for decision making in addressing issues that are likely to enhance SMEs survival and growth. It is noted that there has been no adequate research studies on the role of strategic planning and competitive advantage of SMEs. This study contributes to the need to address the research gaps and thus explored the role of strategic planning and competitive advange of SMEs in Kenya. The study population consisted of 238 ICT SMEs from Nairobi and its environs. A sample size of 146 firms constituting 61 per cent of the total population was selected through stratified sampling. The study aimed to collect data from 438 respondents from top, middle and lower management teams. Structured questionnaires with closed and open ended questions was used for data collection, 239 responses were received from 123 ICT firms a response rate of 55 per cent and 84.2 per cent respectively. Key characteristics of strategic planning including formality, environmental analysis processes both internal and external orientations, strategies adopted, and implementation and control were recorded. Data analysis was done using descriptive statistics, factor analysis, t-test, ANOVA, correlation, correlation matrixes and regression analysis. The key findings revealed that strategic planning has significant and positive influence in performance of SME’s. The test of hypothesis revealed that strategic planning has positive and significant influence on competitive advantage. The study demonstrated strategic planning as a learning tool and a strategic resource which is consistent with the underlying assumptions of resource based theory, systems theory, chaos theory and balanced score card model assumptions. It is envisaged that, this kind of research is likely to generate useful discussions on the role of strategic planning and performance, of SMEs. It is apparent that entrepreneurs of SMEs cannot ignore strategic planning as significant changes in competitive advantage is the result of change or effective application of strategic planning. Policy makers and academicians may need to address the capacity needs of SMEs and develop strategic planning model that address the challenges that SMEs encounter in a dynamic environment.


2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 102
Author(s):  
Nguyen Xuan Trung ◽  
Dang Thai Binh ◽  
Dang Thi Thuy ◽  
Dong Thi Thuy Linh

SMEs account for a large propotion and play an important role in the development of each country in the world, including India. The globalization will bring many advantages for enterprises however SMEs will face fierce competition at the local, national and international level. In order to maintain and promote the important role of SMEs in the context of increased competition, SMEs have to change and adopt new technologies. E-commerce and digital technologies are bringing opportunities to help SMEs improve their competitiveness, narrow the gap with big enterprises thanks to their fairness and flexibility of the digital business environment. According to UNIDO (2017), India is one of the countries successfully applying e-commerce to SMEs. Contributing to this success is the important role of the Indian government. Therefore, this paper focuses on researching the application of e-commerce to SMEs in terms of the role of government in promoting and creating ecosystem for SMEs and e-commerce development.


Author(s):  
Danjuma Tali Nimfa

The purpose of this study is to investigates the effect of organisational culture on the sustainable growth of SMEs; mediating role of innovation competitive advantage. The electrical products small and medium enterprises was the realm of this study. The partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) via SmartPLS was employed to test the hypotheses. Finding of this study revealed that organisational culture has a direct positive significant effect on sustainable growth of SMEs and innovation competitive advantage. Moreover, the study confirmed that innovation competitive advantage has a direct positive significant relationship with sustainable growth of SMEs. Furthermore, the findings established that innovation competitive advantage has fully mediates the relationship between organisational culture and sustainable growth of electrical manufacturing SMEs in Nigeria. This study sets out purposeful measures to encourage owner-mangers of the electrical manufacturing SMEs to maintain as well as installing innovative organisational culture that enhance efficient sustainable growth of SMEs and embedding innovation competitive advantage as a viable strategic mechanism in the enterprise. This study is distinctive because it tries to fill the small and medium enterprises gaps through encouraging managers of the electrical manufacturing SMEs to always strategize for better sustainable growth in the rapidly changing business environment. Keywords: Organisational culture, Sustainable growth of SMEs, Innovation competitive advantage, PLS-SEM (SmartPLS).


Author(s):  
Muhammad Khalique

The aim of this chapter is to shed light on the concept and application of intellectual capital in the food industry in Kuching, Malaysia. There is no doubt that intellectual capital is a most important strategic asset for the success of organizations. In a competitive business environment, intellectual capital has been a vital element of success, particularly in Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). The purpose of this study is to examine the role of intellectual capital in order to enhance the business performance of SMEs operating in the food industry in Kuching, Malaysia. In this chapter, three components of intellectual capital, namely human capital, customer capital, and structural capital, are employed to examine the role of intellectual capital in SMEs. A structured questionnaire with a five-point Likert Scale was used to gather the data from the targeted respondents by using a convenience-sampling technique. A total of 200 questionnaire sets were distributed to the targeted respondents. From the total distributed questionnaires, a total of 194 respondents gave their feedback. Four research hypotheses were addressed to find the objectives of this study. To test the proposed research hypotheses, multiple regression technique was used. The findings of this study show that the three components of intellectual capital collectively and individually have positive and significant relationships with the business performance of baking SMEs. Subsequently, the four hypotheses of this study were supported. This chapter is a preliminary study about the baking SMEs operating in the food sector in Malaysia.


Author(s):  
نغم حسين نعمة ◽  
حمزة باسم الورد

This research presents a statement of the importance of entrepreneurship in the United Arab Emirates, where interest has increased in entrepreneurship at the present time, due to technological progress and the competitive environment for local and global projects that have had a major impact in the business environment. Entrepreneurship is important in the growth of the country's economy at the macro level And on the growth and expansion of projects and their access to financial and financial resources, in order to gain customer satisfaction and increase profitability and market shar,، Small and medium enterprises can only flourish in a society where there is a spirit of Entrepreneurshi,، a passion for self-employment، a willingness to take risks، adopt new ideas and understand the mechanisms of competition in the global market.


2018 ◽  
Vol 56 ◽  
pp. 04003
Author(s):  
Aamir Iqbal Umrani ◽  
Satirenjit Kaur Johl

Small and medium enterprises are vital components for economic growth globally. Similarly, the Malaysian manufacturing SMEs has contributed greatly in developing Malaysia’s economy. However, higher failure rate of the Malaysian SMEs is a great concern among researchers and government bodies. Currently, the industry 4.0 has changed the business environment globally. Therefore, this study attempts to investigate the relationship of ownership structures on firm performance with a mediating role of innovation. Baron and Kenny approach of mediation analysis was used on the sample of the Malaysian manufacturing SMEs. The results revealed that, majority SMEs prefer traditional business methods, which causes the higher failure rate in the industry.


2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (0) ◽  
pp. 379-390
Author(s):  
Mira Rochimi Mutiara ◽  
Ina Primiana ◽  
Joeliaty Joeliaty ◽  
Martha Fani Cahyandito

The existence of globalization concept absolutely brings consequences for business environment. Based on international literature, cultural orientation was required on business management in the globalization era. Nevertheless, there have been few numbers of cross-cultural entrepreneurship research. Previous research tended to focus on discussing cultural dimensions or using them in entrepreneurship. Therefore, this study proposes a different perspective which is to explore the cultural dimensions for the formation of entrepreneur competencies. Thus, this study aims at suggesting conceptual models and providing empirical evidence concerning national and individual cultural orientation including its role in influencing the formation of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) entrepreneur competencies in facing the globalization era. For this purpose, the survey questionnaire was distributed to 129 SMEs entrepreneurs in the fashion sector in West Java – Indonesia, which was then tested by using VSM 1994 Formula, SPSS method and Partial Least Square (PLS) method. The findings and originality of this study were the novelty of national and its individual cultural values for Indonesia. Moreover, this study discovered that Cultural Orientation significantly influenced the form of entrepreneur competencies. Thus, the role of cultural orientation cannot be ignored in enhancing the ability of SMEs entrepreneurs to face the globalization era.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (13) ◽  
pp. 7156
Author(s):  
Kyoung Jun Lee ◽  
Yu Jeong Hwangbo ◽  
Baek Jeong ◽  
Ji Woong Yoo ◽  
Kyung Yang Park

Many small and medium enterprises (SMEs) want to introduce recommendation services to boost sales, but they need to have sufficient amounts of data to introduce these recommendation services. This study proposes an extrapolative collaborative filtering (ECF) system that does not directly share data among SMEs but improves recommendation performance for small and medium-sized companies that lack data through the extrapolation of data, which can provide a magical experience to users. Previously, recommendations were made utilizing only data generated by the merchant itself, so it was impossible to recommend goods to new users. However, our ECF system provides appropriate recommendations to new users as well as existing users based on privacy-preserved payment transaction data. To accomplish this, PP2Vec using Word2Vec was developed by utilizing purchase information only, excluding personal information from payment company data. We then compared the performances of single-merchant models and multi-merchant models. For the merchants with more data than SMEs, the performance of the single-merchant model was higher, while for the SME merchants with fewer data, the multi-merchant model’s performance was higher. The ECF System proposed in this study is more suitable for the real-world business environment because it does not directly share data among companies. Our study shows that AI (artificial intelligence) technology can contribute to the sustainability and viability of economic systems by providing high-performance recommendation capability, especially for small and medium-sized enterprises and start-ups.


2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 477-494
Author(s):  
Ali Idrus ◽  
Ade Maman

One of the solutions proposed by Badan Amil Zakat Nasional is to form Lembaga Pemberdayaan Ekonomi Mustahik which has the task of improving the quality of life of mustahik through its programs. So, the purpose of this study is to find out how the role of Lembaga Pemberdayaan Ekonomi Mustahik Badan Amil Zakat Nasional in improving the economic welfare of mustahik. This study uses qualitative research methods that produce descriptive data. Where this research is based on observations made by the author and then explained according to what the author observed in the field. The data collection that the researchers did was using the method of observation, documentary interviews, and other data. When the data has been collected, the researcher conducts an analysis and then draws conclusions from the analysis. The results of this study are Lembaga Pemberdayaan Ekonomi Mustahik BAZNAS plays a role in the development of micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) and focuses on potential creative businesses, empowers by providing business development capital assistance, in accordance with the budget draft proposed by mustahik, and approved by LPEM BAZNAS. Keywords: The Role of LPEM BAZNAS, Mustahik's Economic Welfare


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Qiang Lu ◽  
Jinliang Chen ◽  
Hua Song ◽  
Xiangyu Zhou

Purpose The purpose of this study is to examine how cloud computing assimilation reduces supply chain financing (SCF) risks of small and medium enterprises (SMEs). This study also investigated the mediating roles of internal and external supply chain integration between cloud computing assimilation and the SCF risks of SMEs, as well as the moderating role of environmental competitiveness. Design/methodology/approach Data was collected from surveys of SMEs located in China. Multiple regression analysis was used to validate the proposed theoretical model and research hypotheses. Findings The findings show that cloud computing assimilation could reduce the SCF risks of SMEs directly. The results also indicate that both internal and external supply chain integration mediate the relationship between cloud computing assimilation and SCF risks. Furthermore, environmental competitiveness inhibits the effects of cloud computing assimilation on SCF risks. Originality/value To our best knowledge, this is the preliminary study to explore the role of cloud computing assimilation in reducing the SCF risks of SMEs. Also, this study attempted to investigate the process by which cloud computing assimilation affects the SCF risks of SMEs.


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