OPEN INNOVATION IN SMALL BUSINESSES IN THE INDUSTRY AND CRAFT SECTORS

2019 ◽  
Vol 23 (04) ◽  
pp. 1950038 ◽  
Author(s):  
RONEN HAREL ◽  
DAFNA SCHWARTZ ◽  
DAM KAUFMANN
Keyword(s):  
Open Innovation ◽  
Small Businesses ◽  
Business Environment ◽  
Sources Of Information ◽  
Theoretical Contribution ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
Marketing Innovation ◽  
Internet Searches ◽  
Professional Information ◽  
Commercial Relationships

The study findings show that the utilization of open innovation (OI) tools is effective in promoting innovation in small businesses. The study differentiated between OI tools aimed at acquiring knowledge in a unidirectional manner from external open sources of information such as Internet searches for professional information or attending professional conferences, and OI tools aimed at obtaining knowledge by interacting with other factors in the business ecosystem. Interestingly, it was found that utilization of unidirectional OI tools contributes more to the level of product innovation, while utilization of networking and external collaboration contributes more to levels of process and marketing innovation, respectively. In addition, the study clarified that these businesses maintain connections to promote innovation mainly with entities in their closest business environment, based on commercial relationships with their suppliers and customers. The empirical study was conducted through face-to-face interviews on a sample of 202 small businesses in the industry and craft sectors. The theoretical contribution of the research stems from its focus on a group of businesses that has rarely been the focus of studies on innovation. The use of face-to-face interviews as a research tool facilitated the attainment of knowledge that is generally not readily accessible. The study may contribute in a practical manner to assisting small businesses in the development and implementation of appropriate OI tools for promoting innovation and enable them to reach beyond their closest business environment.

scholarly journals The Impact of COVID-19 on Small Businesses’ Performance and Innovation

2021 ◽  
pp. 097215092110391
Author(s):  
Ronen Harel
Keyword(s):  
Open Innovation ◽  
Small Businesses ◽  
International Markets ◽  
Industrial Sector ◽  
Economic Uncertainty ◽  
Trade Restrictions ◽  
Theoretical Contribution ◽  
Industrial Sectors ◽  
Work Strategies ◽  
The Impact

This study looked at the impact of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic on the revenues of small businesses operating in industrial sectors and at the extent to which these businesses changed or adjusted their business activity, or changed the extent to which they utilized open innovation tools and implement innovation promotion processes. The findings show that, despite COVID-19’s far-reaching impact in all areas of life, the revenues of most small businesses in industrial sector were not adversely affected by the pandemic, and most of them did not change or adjust their business activities or the extent to which they employed open innovation tools and engage in innovation promotion processes. The findings also indicate that small businesses, most of whose revenues derive from subcontracting work to other businesses business to business (B2B) and from long-term agreements, are likely to cope better during periods of economic difficulty and under conditions of economic uncertainty. The findings also show that businesses that are active in the international markets have succeeded in adapting that activity to the changing demands and various trade restrictions. This study’s theoretical contribution lies in its focus on small businesses in the industrial sector and its examination of how the subcontracting strategy and international operations help such businesses contend with problems and conditions of economic uncertainty. On the practical plane, the findings suggest that policymakers should foster programmes that assist small businesses with these work strategies, which can help them survive, enhance their stability and thereby also promote the economy’s ability to withstand crisis situations

scholarly journals The New SWOT for a Sustainable World

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 18
Author(s):  
Leandro Pereira ◽  
Miguel Pinto ◽  
Renato Lopes da Costa ◽  
Álvaro Dias ◽  
Rui Gonçalves
Keyword(s):  
Open Innovation ◽  
Swot Analysis ◽  
Business Environment ◽  
Short Term ◽  
The Core ◽  
Essential Tool ◽  
Management Positions ◽  
Forward Looking

In today’s complex and changing business environment the concern with sustainability has gained more notoriety. However, companies still do not have a sustainable perspective, but a short-term one, where their values are constantly forgotten and this concept is no longer welcomed. This research demonstrates the need for companies to adapt and to start acting in this direction. Following a set of interviews conducted with professionals with management positions of high responsibility, findings reveal that although sustainability is on the management mind, strategies and tools need to be adapted to be at the core of the organization’s strategic formulation. To support this process, a new SWOT analysis to fit a forward-looking sustainable world is proposed. Furthermore, due to the aggregative nature of the model, it represents an essential tool for an open innovation. “SWOT i” integrates the concern with sustainability as one of its pillars, placing the values and impacts that each decision can have at the center of the strategic formulation, allowing their performance to leverage.

scholarly journals The value of in-person banking: evidence from U.S. small businesses

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Song Zhang ◽  
Liang Han ◽  
Konstantinos Kallias ◽  
Antonios Kallias
Keyword(s):  
Interest Rates ◽  
Interpersonal Communication ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Financial Services ◽  
Small Businesses ◽  
Business Owners ◽  
Soft Information ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
Treatment Effect Models ◽  
The U.S

AbstractWe produce the first systematic study of the determinants and implications of in-person banking. Using survey data from the U.S., we show that firms which are informationally opaque or operate in rural areas are liable to contact their primary bank in-person. This tendency extends to older, less educated, and female business owners. We find that a relationship based on face-to-face communication, on average, lasts 17.88 months longer, spans a wider range of financial services, and is more likely to be exclusive. The associated loans mature 3.37 months later and bear interest rates which are 11 basis points lower. For good quality firms, in-person communication also relates to less discouraged borrowing. These results are robust to multiple approaches for endogeneity, including recursive bivariate probits, treatment effect models, and instrumental variables regressions. Overall, our findings offer empirical grounding to soft information theory and a note of caution to banks against suppressing channels of interpersonal communication.

scholarly journals Higher Education Response in the Time of Coronavirus: Perceptions of Teachers and Students, and Open Innovation

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 43
Author(s):  
Santiago Tejedor ◽  
Laura Cervi ◽  
Ana Pérez-Escoda ◽  
Fernanda Tusa ◽  
Alberto Parola
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Open Innovation ◽  
Educational Process ◽  
Knowledge Flow ◽  
Convenience Sample ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
Assessment Tests ◽  
Positive Elements ◽  
Teachers And Students ◽  
Training Resources

The COVID-19 pandemic has transformed training processes. The transition from face-to-face to virtuality has affected the entire educational process favoring one of the open innovation key features in the higher education institutions: the ability to manage knowledge flow. Open innovation in this crisis situation will encourage universities to deal with difficulties and embrace opportunities to enhance knowledge production. In this regard, the main objective of this work is to analyze how universities have managed knowledge flow during lockdown situation. The research presents a comparative study between three countries highly impacted by the coronavirus (Spain, Italy and Ecuador) based on perceptions from teachers and students on a convenience sample of 573 individuals. The study, of a descriptive and exploratory nature, applied surveys between March and April 2020 to students and teachers of Journalism, Communication. The survey had 2956 responses, collecting 65,032 pieces of evidence from students and 6468 from teachers. Teachers and students show their preference for being present, but they recognize the justification for the change of scenery and identify positive elements in virtuality. According to the findings obtained, the absence of presence has not generated an increase in the meetings between teachers and students. In addition, the tutorials have been shorter and sporadic. Added to this is a scant commitment to the variety of resources and options offered by the Internet. The predominance of textual material collides with the demand from students for a mixture of training resources, a greater role for the podcast and, especially, a typology of assessment tests that pass the traditional exams.

Characteristics of the ERP Systems Designed for Managing Small Businesses

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Petar Hlebarov
Keyword(s):  
Small Business ◽  
Small Businesses ◽  
Business Environment ◽  
Business Organizations ◽  
Erp Systems ◽  
Small Organizations ◽  
Business In Society

This article mainly aims to introduce the particular charactersitics of the ERP systems, used for managing small businesses, by answering several basic questions related to this topic: What do we generally understand by ERP systems? What is the essence of ERP for small business? What is the role of ERP for small business? What do we understand by small business? What are the characteristics of small business? What is the role of small business in society? What are the basic problems of small business? What is today’s business environment? In this respect, the report introduces the essence and the role of the ERP systems used for managing small business organizations in a structured and summarized way. It shows how the specific characteristics of small business and today’s business environment affect the ERP configurations, compared to those used in large organizations. At the end of the paper, a summary is provided of the characteristics of the ERP systems used for managing small organizations.

scholarly journals The Use of Official Statistics in Self-Selection Bias Modeling

2016 ◽  
Vol 32 (4) ◽  
pp. 887-905 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luciana Dalla Valle
Keyword(s):  
Selection Bias ◽  
Small Businesses ◽  
Real Data ◽  
Sources Of Information ◽  
Quality Of Data ◽  
Official Statistics ◽  
Step Method ◽  
Development Education ◽  
Self Selection ◽  
Available Information

Abstract Official statistics are a fundamental source of publicly available information that periodically provides a great amount of data on all major areas of citizens’ lives, such as economics, social development, education, and the environment. However, these extraordinary sources of information are often neglected, especially by business and industrial statisticians. In particular, data collected from small businesses, like small and medium-sized enterprizes (SMEs), are rarely integrated with official statistics data. In official statistics data integration, the quality of data is essential to guarantee reliable results. Considering the analysis of surveys on SMEs, one of the most common issues related to data quality is the high proportion of nonresponses that leads to self-selection bias. This work illustrates a flexible methodology to deal with self-selection bias, based on the generalization of Heckman’s two-step method with the introduction of copulas. This approach allows us to assume different distributions for the marginals and to express various dependence structures. The methodology is illustrated through a real data application, where the parameters are estimated according to the Bayesian approach and official statistics data are incorporated into the model via informative priors.

scholarly journals Does the environment matter, a closer look at the environmental approach by small businesses in Africa developing countries.

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (9) ◽  
pp. 43-54
Author(s):  
Bobo Chazireni
Keyword(s):  
Developing Countries ◽  
Small Businesses ◽  
Business Strategy ◽  
Business Owners ◽  
Bottom Line ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
Chambers Of Commerce ◽  
Sustainability Strategy ◽  
Strategy Alignment ◽  
Mixed Approach

Environmental Social Responsibility (ESR) is a notion, where business integrates environmental concerns in their operations and the interaction with stakeholders, without compromising profit. To this day, ESR studies are limited to areas of ethics, society and employees while literature is blunt on its impact on societies, consumer behaviour and governments. SMEs in developing countries are not spared their approach to ESR as a sustainability strategy. SMEs’ approach seems to digress from leverage on loyalty which emanates from their nearness to communities who in turn are potential customers. This paper takes a closer look at SMEs’ approach to ESR driven by SME business owners’ perception towards ESR. The paper will take account of SMEs’ behavioural response towards ESR and establish whether they regard ESR a strategic sustainability approach with long-term positive bottom-line benefits. Results were attained through assessing perceptions of SMEs towards ESR; assessing impact practice of ESR by SMEs; exploring factors that undermining practise of ESR by SMEs. A mixed approach was adopted where data was obtained using face to face interviews. Results showed that the majority of SME business owners had a negative approach towards the practice of ESR. SMEs believe ESR was mainly for large corporations since their operations were hideously affecting the environment. As new knowledge, recommendations from this paper will be shared with Chambers of Commerce in Africa developing countries. Some of the recommendations were that the chambers of commerce, local authorities must proactively support SMEs to practise ESR through awareness workshops, train and share the ESR strategy alignment with business strategy.

scholarly journals Information and genetic counselling for psychiatric risks in children with rare genomic disorders

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Cuthbert ◽  
Aimee Challenger ◽  
Jeremy Hall ◽  
Marianne BM van den Bree
Keyword(s):  
Genetic Counselling ◽  
Online Survey ◽  
Genomic Medicine ◽  
Genetic Diagnosis ◽  
Single Nucleotide Variants ◽  
Full Spectrum ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
Professional Information ◽  
Genomic Disorders ◽  
Psychiatric Manifestations

AbstractPurposeGenomic medicine has transformed the diagnosis of neurodevelopmental disorders. Evidence of increased psychiatric comorbidity associated with genomic copy number and single nucleotide variants (CNV and SNV) may not be fully considered when providing genetic counselling. We explored parents’ experiences of genetics services and how they obtained information concerning psychiatric manifestations.MethodsParents of children diagnosed with genomic variants completed an online survey exploring, (i) how they experienced the genetic diagnosis, and (ii) how they acquired information about psychiatric, developmental and physical manifestations.ResultsTwo-hundred and 86 respondents completed the survey. Thirty percent were unsatisfied with receiving genetic diagnoses. Satisfaction was predicted if communication was by geneticists (p = 0.004); provided face-to-face (p = 0.003); clearly explained (p < 0.001); and accompanied by support (p = 0.017). Parents obtained psychiatric information from non-professional sources more often than developmental (ϕ 0.26, p < 0.001) and physical manifestations (ϕ 0.21, p = 0.003), which mostly came from health professionals. Information from support organisations was more helpful than from geneticists (odds ratio [OR] 21.0, 95% CI 5.1 – 86.8, p < 0.001); paediatricians (OR 11.0, 1.4 – 85.2, p = 0.004); and internet sites (OR 15.5, 3.7 – 64.8, p < 0.001).ConclusionA paucity of professional information about psychiatric risks after genetic diagnosis may impede early diagnosis and intervention for children with high genotypic risks. Planned integration of genomic testing into mainstream services should include genetic counselling training to address the full spectrum of developmental, physical and psychiatric manifestations and timely provision of high-quality information.

scholarly journals THE EVALUATION OF THE EXPEDIENCY’S DEVELOPMENT AND SUPPORT OF SMALL INNOVATIVE ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN RUSSIA

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 309-313 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anzhela Litvinova ◽  
Denis Paleev
Keyword(s):  
Small Business ◽  
Russian Federation ◽  
Small Businesses ◽  
Business Processes ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Business Environment ◽  
Government Support ◽  
The Russian Federation ◽  
The Government ◽  
Business Entities

This article analyzes the situation of innovative approaches to building business processes and interaction between universities, the government,  and representatives of the business environment. A methodology is proposed by the authors for calculating the feasibility of government support for small innovative enterprises (SIEs) as independent small business entities organized at higher educational institutions of the Russian Federation, the activities of which are aimed at research, development, implementation, and commercialization.The importance and role of small innovative entrepreneurship in the economy of the country and large cities is becoming the main world trend. Russia is trying to match its innovation strategy in small business, but the success is, unfortunately, still negligible. On the part of the government, millions of rubles are allocated to support small innovative entrepreneurship, as well as the construction of technology parks, the creation of business incubators, technological laboratories, and platforms being organized at universities in order to ensure the implementation of innovative projects. In accordance with the Federal Law of the Russian Federation No. 217-FL of August 2, 2009, universities were able to register small innovative enterprises on their territory as independent small businesses in the sphere of innovative development, whose activities are focused mainly on the commercialization of intellectual property objects and their active promotion in the market.Nevertheless, the implementation of new technologies and know-how is associated with greater risks of SIEs and needs a methodical approach to assess the appropriateness of providing government support to such enterprises. We are going to consider and calculate the indicator of the feasibility of government support for a small innovative enterprise in the amount of 50 million rubles for a period of five years for its development and will prove the increase in the efficiency of the enterprise and the possibilities for its development through the government support mechanisms for innovations.

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