Growth strategies in small businesses - Dissertation Example

Running Head: GROWTH STRATEGIES IN SMALL BUSINESSES Growth Strategies in Small Businesses of the of the Growth Strategies in Small Businesses Introduction Over the past decades, the rapid developments of the Internet and the information technologies have profoundly impacted every aspect of organisational and social activities. Many business organisations, including small and medium- sized enterprises (SMEs), have started to adopt business process digitalisation (hereafter "BPD") as a strategy to grow and to gain market and operational efficiency (Johnston, Wade & McClean, 2007, 360).

Business process digitalisation, in this study, is defined as an enterprise-wide information system based on the technological foundation of the Internet. To date, the majority of research on SME’s BPD has focused on the antecedents of SMEs engaging in one or few specific types of e-business practice or process (Wymer & Regan, 2005, 442). While these studies provide good understanding of the antecedents and the financial consequences of BPD, how BPD affects SME’s development is still unclear.

As a key indicator of firm innovation, organisational growth is crucial to the survival and success of business and enterprise, including SMEs (Huang, Soutar & Brown, 2002, 32). Aims and Objective This study aims to understand how SMEs can use BPD as their growth strategy. Building upon insights from the knowledge based view and the organisational learning theory, the central thesis of this study is that the extensive use of BPD enhances the firm’s knowledge-base resources and improves its organisational learning, therefore contributing to SME’s further growth.

Research Question How Business process digitalisation can be used as a growth strategy for SMEs? Methodology Sample and Data Collection The initial sample will be consisting of 414 small and medium-sized manufacturers in engineering, electronics, computer and software industries of the UK. Only small manufacturers in these industries will be selected based on their capacity for innovation and intensive and extensive use of electronic and non-electronic environments to link with customers, suppliers, employees and others in the value chain.

To be qualified to be included in the sample, it will be a must that firms (1) have less than 500 employees, and (2) annual sales between $5 million and $1 billion. These criteria are consistent with previous research (BarNir et al., 2003, 795). Telephone survey will be made to the CEO or the President of the company to collect data about the firm and their e-business strategies. In addition to providing background information on the company and themselves, respondents will be asked to evaluate their use of the Internet with customers, suppliers, employees and others.

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