• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.13 no.9
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• pp.99-104
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• 2015

The production management is one of the essential capabilities of the small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the information technology sector (IT). Therefore, this study empirically analyzed the effects of such important factors as external information network diversity and manufacturing capability on IT SMEs' production management capability. Based on the 310 data collected from Korean SMEs in the IT sector, the ordinary least squares regression results from this study by using the SPSS version 22 have empirically shown that IT SMEs' external information network diversity has a positive and significant effect on their production management capability and this effect is fully mediated by their manufacturing capability. These findings provide a meaningful implication that the positive impact of IT SMEs' external information network diversity is linked to their production management capability through their manufacturing capability.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.18 no.11
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• pp.61-67
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• 2020

Purpose: This paper aims to examine the interaction effect of customers relationship management (CRM) on the competitive advantage (CA) of small and medium-scale enterprises (SMEs) in Yemen. Research design, data and methodology: This study applied a quantitative approach in dealing with the interaction effect of CRM dimensions and SMEs' competitive advantage in Yemen. The research uses a sample of 247 manufacturing SMEs surveyed in Yemen. Results: The results indicate that only three dimensions of CRM, namely (TCM), (KM) and (CRMO), have a significant effect on SMEs' competitive advantage, but not that between (KCF) and SMEs' competitive advantage. Conclusions: The findings of this study offer important insights for owners and managers of SMEs, researchers and policymakers to further understand the effects of CRM on SMEs' competitive advantage. SMEs should also be encouraged to develop their CRM to improve their competitive advantage. Lastly, this study makes several contributions to the literature, the first of which is the provision of evidence concerning the major role of CRM as a dependent variable and competitive advantage as an independent variable. The second contribution pertains to its pioneering status in examining the direct relationship between CRM dimensions and the competitive advantage of SMEs in a Middle Eastern country.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.7 no.10
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• pp.959-968
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• 2020

Research underlined that Small and Medium Enterprises' performance is enhanced by different types of innovation capabilities. This research tends to present a comprehensive model to explain the relationship between innovation capabilities and SMEs' financial and operational performance. Specifically, this study tends to achieve three objectives: explores the set of product, process, organizational and marketing innovation capabilities possessed by owners/managers of SMEs and their impact on Chinese manufacturing SMEs' operational and financial performance dimensions, identify the determinants of innovation capabilities, and determine the contextual factors that moderate innovation capabilities and SMEs' performance. This research employed a qualitative research method using in-depth interviews with eight owners/managers of Chinese manufacturing SMEs. Research findings revealed that product and marketing innovation capabilities have a significant impact on SMEs' financial performance while process and organizational innovation capabilities positively influence SMEs' operational performance. The major determinants of innovation capabilities involved availability of sufficient organizational resources, entrepreneurial orientation, knowledge development and external networks. The contextual moderating factors on the relationship between innovation capabilities and SMEs' performance involved internal factors which are: SME size, SMEs' owner/manager work experience, entrepreneurial mindset; and external factors: market dynamism and cooperation strategies. This paper ends by drawing some concluding remarks and proposing future research avenues.

• Journal of Technology Innovation
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.14-35
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• 1999

This paper presents the relationship between the pace of structural change and the magnitude of employment growth in the manufacturing sector in OECD countries. To measure the pace of structural change, the compositional change index in value-added in manufacturing sector is introduced. For mid to long-term there seems to be a positive relationship between the pace of structural change and the magnitude of employment growth. In those countries with higher value of the compositional index, the employment growth in manufacturing sector was generally higher. To analyse the characteristics of structural change in manufacturing sector, this paper classifies manufacturing industries into groups: one based on technology, one on orientation, one on wages and one on skills. The international comparison of manufacturing sector's employment patterns based on above four classifications are presented. International comparison suggests that Korean manufacturing sector move into jobs with more skills and knowledge The structural change of SMEs and large firms are compared based on above four classification methods. It is shown that SMEs' employment in low value sectors, that is low-technology, labor-intensive, tow-wage, and unskilled sectors, have risen faster than SMEs' employment in high-technology, science-based, high-wage and skilled sectors. Large firms' employment have been mainly increased in high value sectors. However, the employment growth of both large and small firms have been concentrated on production worker-intensively-using sectors, i.e. unskilled sectors. This widened the wage differential of production workers by firm sizes and concurrently led to severe shortage of production workers for SMEs, which has little ability to pay high wage to production workers because they usually belong to low-wage sectors. Korea need to push SMEs forward to high value sectors. The premise of that is, however, to pull large firms out of production worker-intensively-using sectors.

• International Journal of Quality Innovation
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.35-45
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• 2007

This paper describes the development of a scale for measuring top management commitment towards continual quality performance improvement in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). A set of self-assessment questions of the ISO 9004: 2000 Standard was used to assess the adoption status of quality management practices. This paper investigates the inter-item reliability and the content validity of the Quality Management Principles Scale (QMPS) in an integrated improvement process in SMEs. An empirical study was conducted to acquire senior management views on the use of the QMPS in manufacturing sectors in Trinidad and Tobago. Based on 328 responses from 110 SMEs, statistical software packages were used to analyse the empirical data and determine the reliability and validity of the QMPS. The paper contributes to develop a self-assessment scale that can be used to measure top management commitment. It is anticipated that the findings would provide practical insights for evaluating the levels of maturity on performance improvement in SMEs.

• International Journal of Quality Innovation
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• v.6 no.3
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• pp.153-172
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• 2005

This study develops an exploratory model to evaluate the relationship between origins of corporate competencies and business performance, which targets small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Taiwan, analyzes 36 competence items in four functional dimensions: marketing, product design and development, manufacturing, and human resources management. The results from 760 valid samples from managers of Taiwan's SMEs reveal that in marketing competence and manufacturing competence were ranked high by Taiwan's SMEs managers. Elements contributed to manufacturing competence regarding reducing the number of suppliers has not been emphasized by Taiwan's SMEs managers. At the very top of the prevailing management competitive priority list are: (1) product or service quality, (2) timely delivery, (3) quality control improvement during the process, (4) increasing reliability of transportation, (5) introduction of new concepts and continuous improvement, and (6) improving after-sale services. The four competence dimensions are found highly correlated to business performance, which reflects the policy adjustments that Taiwan's small and medium-sized enterprises have made in the changing business environment to respond to the global market.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.13 no.12
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• pp.55-62
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• 2015

IT SMEs' product planning, product design, and manufacturing capabilities are of importance to creating their sustainable competitive advantages in the context of digital convergence. However, there have been few empirical studies investigating the relationships among them, which has made this research attempt to model the relationships and empirically test them. Especially, this study divided IT SMEs' product design capability into the product exterior and interior design capabilities and focused on the mediating effects of the product exterior and interior design capabilities between the product planning and manufacturing capabilities. By analyzing the 310 samples of Korean IT SMEs with the ordinary least squares regression analysis, this study has empirically revealed that IT SMEs' product exterior and interior design capability jointly and fully mediate the positive relationship between their product planning and manufacturing capabilities.

• International Journal of Quality Innovation
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• v.6 no.3
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• pp.190-203
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• 2005

This paper empirically determines the extent to which ISO 9001 certified small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) were able to attain the eight quality management principles on which the ISO 9004:2000 Standard is based. It employs the Analytic Hierarchy Process approach in determining the percent weightings of these principles and the self-assessment questions which form part of the ISO 9004:2000 Standards. Of particular interest is a weakness of these enterprises in formulating policies addressing the needs and expectations of shareholders and the society in terms of the community and the public affected by the organisations or its products. This paper makes a contribution to the body of knowledge in the field of quality management in Trinidad and Tobago where such work is limited. It adds value by empirically measuring TQM implementation through determining the extent to which its criteria are implemented in ISO 9001 certified SMEs.

• IE interfaces
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.276-282
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• 2012

Earned value management(EVM) based progress management was designed to systematically manage large or huge projects with budget based criteria. For this reason, existed methods of EVM based progress management have a practical difficulty to apply to small and medium enterprises(SMEs) not possessing enough human resource, time, and cost. In other words, SMEs have performed simultaneously many small-sized projects emphasizing more project delivery than project budget. This study focuses on the area of project management applying to many small-sized projects simultaneously conducted by SMEs. Thus, the method proposed in this study is to manage only the progress of projects after removing cost factor in order to reduce man powers required for allocating the budget of projects to their all activities in detail in the stage of project planning. This study reveals that SMEs are able to manage progress of many projects easily and intuitively using the proposed method.

• Asian Journal of Innovation and Policy
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• v.7 no.3
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• pp.461-488
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• 2018

This paper explores the relationship between network cooperation, innovation, internationalization and economic performance of manufacturing small and medium enterprises (SMEs) of engineering goods industry located in Bangalore city, India. At the outset, it is observed that SMEs receive the maximum assistance in the realm of product specifications. Moreover, they do not resort to manufacturing new products as much as they resort to product modifications or process improvements. Further, it is found (using Chi-square test of independence) that higher the network assistance received from an external network, greater is the innovation performance of SMEs. Subsequently, using analysis of variance (ANOVA), export intensity (proxy for internationalization performance) of SMEs is found to have a significant positive association with both the degree of their network cooperation and of their innovation performance. Lastly, it is observed that higher the degree of each of network cooperation, innovation performance and internationalization performance, better is the economic performance (measured by total sales turnover) of SMEs. These results have significant implications for the policy makers of the country to give due attention to network cooperation, innovation and internationalization as the means of enhancing the economic performance of SMEs.