No description available.

Access to financial resources is considered to be the most constraining feature for small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Many researchers describe networking as an essential factor for accessing a bank loan as SMEs seek to access to resources for development. Thus, the objective of this paper is, describe the network impact on accessing a bank loan in Iran and Sweden as well as the similarities and differences in the Iranian and Swedish lending process. Lack of literature in this field was the main reason for choosing one developed and one developing country. Based on the theory which is developed by the author, the impact of networking on accessing a bank loan is examining. Multiple case studies were implemented to gather the necessary information. By interviewing personnel in eight banks in Iran and Sweden and eight SMEs in both countries, this study was conducted. The results reveal that social and official networking could provide easier access to a bank loan in both countries. In addition, only in Sweden would networking with a manager of customer influence the outcome. Further, the results indicate that the principle of the lending process is the same in both countries. The main differences in the lending process are included the interest rate, the number of decision makers and supporting different sectors.

Internet of Things (IOT) has become the key theme of the world since 2009 and been considered as the third wave in the information industry after the waves of Computer, Internet and Mobile Radio Communication. It is expected to have a strong influence on small and medium companies (SMEs). However, little research on what and how the influence of IOT on the SME’s development can be found in the literature. The purpose of the thesis is to examine how IOT influences the organizational changes in SMEs. Finally, suggestions for strategy developments will be proposed to assist the SMEs in making their organization changes successfully. Two main models are applied for this part: change model (OD model) and business model. Moreover, the SWOT theory is adopted to identify the SMEs position in IOT era. We collect the primary data through launching the survey on internet. After data documentation, we apply “Approximation of the Probability Hypothesis Testing” Method to conduct data analysis. After researching, we found out the IOT brings “revolution” change to the Logistics of SMEs while only “adapting” change for Manufactures’ business development. Compare to logistic industry, the manufacturing SMEs seldom adopts IT technologies for their selling channel because they are lacking of resources and knowledge for the new technologies. We suggest the logistic SMEs should establish logistic network between the logistic companies to enhance information and resource integration. For the manufacturing SMEs should apply knowledge management and change the companies into learning organizations. In future, IOT will bring radical changes for manufacturers, which are the biggest area with application of IOT technology. Nevertheless, the logistics industry might go out of fashion. In other words, logistics industry may die out or change to other functions.

The SME sector of Jiangsu Province of China contributes quite a big percentage to the GDP and solves the unemployment problem. Moreover, the import-and-export industry has been the pillar industry that boosts the development of the economy ofJiangsuProvince. With the take-off ofJiangsu’s economy, problems have also appeared; the import-and-export-oriented SMEs have been influenced by many internal and external factors, and some of the factors are: Yuan appreciation, inflation, industrial structure, skilled employees, and CRM, etc. Therefore, the thesis is going to analyze the internal and external factors that influence the development ofJiangsuimport-and-export-oriented SMEs by researching the books and articles, and make qualitative case studies to observe how these factors have influenced the case companies. In order to make the qualitative case analysis, the authors have travelled back toJiangsuprovince and interviewed with different SME managers with selective questions.

This thesis explores the issues around the process of brand management in SMEs. Most of conventional principles prescribed in the brand management literature are invalid to be applied to the SMEs’ marketing problems, but there are some relevant researches regarding some proposed branding policies for small businesses.   The purpose of this thesis is to find an effective and practical brand strategy for SMEs, which means I expect to generate a framework for the SME branding process. After I developed a conceptual model, some proposed branding guidelines were examined through a case study. Qualitative interviewing was used to collect data within a Swedish SME –HastaAB.   The empirical findings indicate that the SME branding policies are highly influenced by these factors: brand awareness, marketing strategies, brand recognition and resource etc. Based on the empirical findings, my conceptual model was adjusted by assessing the effect of proposed policies. In conclusion, I came up with a final model of brand management in SMEs which helps SMEs to build and develop their brands. The model involves some executable branding policies for SMEs.

The purpose of this thesis is to study how two small and medium sized Swedish apparel firms internationalize their business activities.The international business activities are more frequent now than ever because cross border trade barriers are much less today. The companies internationalize their business operations for several reasons. High saturation in the local market, cheap supply line, hunting for resources and potential opportunities in the international market are the driving factors for internationalization. The small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) have no exception from such motives. Generally (SMEs) have fewer resources than big multinationals therefore internationalization is more difficult and challenging for (SMEs). The existing internationalization theories highlight several ways for internationalization. The internationalization process model depicts that companies extend their business activities from less to far psychic distance countries and gradually increase their commitment in the international market based on experiential knowledge i.e. knowledge learned by doing. The revised model argued that companies involve in internationalization by utilizing domestic or international network. The psychic distance concept argued that companies face two types psychic distance i.e. inter – country and inter – firm psychic distance. We developed our interaction process model for internationalization. According to the interaction process model when firms start interaction within network these have higher psychic distance level and lower trust and commitment because firms initially interact occasionally. With the passage of time as the interaction of firms within network gains some pace the psychic distance level started to reduce and trust and commitment builds upward. Finally a stag arrives when psychic distance level reached at least stage and inversely trust and commitment at higher level and this result into international opportunity. Thus firms by hunting international opportunity gets involve in internationalization. Inversely, international opportunity can also be developed at initial or middle stage and interaction process start at later stages. But in such situation psychic distance level is comparatively high and trust and commitment will be low because there is no or lesser interaction among firms. The internationalization in such a way will be more risky.

This study strives to investigate why some small and medium enterprises (SMEs) from Northeast Italy internationalize at inception and some internationalize gradually. The main literature regarding both, Born Globals and Stage-Models, were reviewed. In face of a high degree of fragmentation in the Born Global literature the study was developed through an abductive logic of reasoning. This basically means that we started by clustering already accepted internal and external factors, working then, towards a unified explanation. A qualitative study was developed with four SMEs. The main results show that no factor can singularly drive a company to internationalize at inception. Instead, the interaction of internal and external factors determines how SMEs internationalize. The findings provide empirical insights on the internationalization behavior of SMEs and redress the apparent theoretical gap in this field.

Research on community management conducted in the past has used primarily examples and case studies within large corporations. Small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) also need to be included in community management, exploring the ways in which they deal with community management and if the large company theories on the subject can be applied to them. In an attempt to respond to this gap in community management we respond to the question of how do small and medium-sized companies utilize communities to communicate successfully to their consumers? During our work, we noted that SMEs were facing two phases when dealing with community management. A strategic step, where the company has to define its goals, its targets, the means it will invest and the tools it will use to deal with community management. The second phase being an operational step includes the creation of communities and the management of them. In the strategic step, we pointed out questions which companies have to address before starting community management including the benefits that the company expects from the community, the amount it will invest in it and the tools the company will use. In the operational step, five main principles were highlighted as commonly used by SMEs to communicate through communities: (1) promotion of an Ideal, (2) uniting around shared interests, (3) the use of the myth as a gathering factor, (4) the importance of the community involvement in the company, and (5) the physical interaction between community members and the brand. Additionally, we found that SMEs have two main advantages when it comes to collaborating with customers/fans that large businesses did not have: proximity and flexibility. However, we found that it was difficult for small companies to find competent people working in the community management field. This lack of knowledge within SMEs appeared to be the primary reason why most brand communities failed. Therefore, in this thesis we aimed to point out good habits in terms of community management in order for SMEs to possess a basic knowledge, thus enabling them to benefit from their advantages of proximity and flexibility, which are a result of by their size and is essential for community management.

Civilekonomuppsats i företagsekonomi, Ekonomihögskolan vid Linnéuniversitet, 2011 Författare: Emelie Birgersson och Camilla Svensson Handledare: Magnus Willesson Examinator: Sven-Olof Yrjö Collin Titel: Små och medelstora företags relation till CSR- kommunicering Bakgrund och problem: Tidigare har större företag ansetts vara normen för forskning kring CSR- kommunikation. Forskning om SMEs relation till CSR- kommunicering är endast i sin begynnelsefas, vilket gör att vår studie som vill undersöka hur relationen ser ut mellan svenska SMEs och CSR- kommunicering, kan bidra till nya empiriska fynd då studien dels har en utgångspunkt i att söka samband som kan förklara varför och hur svenska SMEs kommunicerar CSR, samt antar ett helhetsperspektiv, vilket är något som inte gjorts i forskningen tidigare. Syfte: Syftet med studien är att kartlägga svenska SMEs relation till CSR- kommunicering, genom att med hjälp av olika faktorer förklara hur och varför svenska små och medelstora företag väljer att kommunicera CSR. Metod: Studien utgår från en kvantitativ metod där empirin samlades in genom web-enkäter. Ett proportionellt stratifierat urval av 649 små och medelstora företag, resulterade i svar från 142 respondenter. Hypoteser formulerades för att kunna testa och ge svar på om det fanns samband mellan faktorerna som skulle kunna bidra till att förklara SMEs relation till CSR. Slutsatser: Studiens resultat visar att CSR- kommunikation även är något som tillämpas av SMEs, vilket kan bidra till den teoretiska och praktiska utvecklingen kring CSR- kommunikation. Studien visar att samband finns mellan SMEs relation till CSR- kommunicering och de tre teorierna som berör intressenters påverkan, legitimitet samt nätverk och relationer. Studien kan bidra till det forskningsgap som finns, genom att förklara SMEs val av att kommunicera CSR med hjälp av deras relationer till framförallt kunder och samhället. Genom att en tydligare bild av SMEs relation till CSR- kommunikation har skapats, kan även nya styrningsverktyg för de mer vardagliga kommunikationskanalerna Internet och personligt bemötande som i praktiken används av SMEs, utvecklas. På så sätt kan SMEs få ett annat perspektiv på CSR- kommunicering och själva kunna anpassa kommunikationen på ett sätt som specifikt passar just deras verksamhet. / Master Thesis in Business Administration, School of Business and Economics at the Linneaus University, 2011 Author: Emelie Birgersson and Camilla Svensson Supervisor: Magnus Willesson Examiner: Sven-Olof Yrjö Collin Title: Small and medium-sized enterprises relation to communicating CSR Background and problem: In the past, large companies were considered to be the norm for research on CSR communication. Research on SMEs relation to communicating CSR is only in its initial phase, our study that would examine how the relationship looks like between Swedish SMEs and CSR communication, can contribute to new empirical findings as the study has a starting point in searching relations which may explain why and how SMEs communicate CSR, and adopt a holistic approach, which is something that hasn´t been done in the past. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to identify SMEs relation to CSR communication, by using different factors to explain why and how Swedish small and medium-sized enterprises choose to communicate CSR. Method: The study is based on a quantitative method using empirical data gathered through a survey study. A proportional stratified sample of 649 small and medium-sized enterprises resulted in responses from 142 respondents. Hypotheses were created to test and reveal if there were correlations between the factors that could contribute to explain SMEs relation to CSR. Conclusions: Our results show that CSR communication also is something that SMEs applies, which may contribute to the theoretical and practical developments surrounding CSR communication. The study shows relationships between SMEs relation to CSR communication and the theories involving stakeholders influence, legitimacy and networks and relationships. The study may contribute to the gap of research, by explaining SMEs' choice of communicating CSR through their relations with customers and society. A clearer picture of SMEs relation to CSR communication is created, which can help to develop new management tools for the communication channels, Internet and word of mouth that is effectively used by SMEs. In this way, SMEs could have a different perspective on CSR communication and be able to adapt communication in a way that specifically fits them.

Strategic change projects allow companies to align their strategy to the turbulent external environment in today’s marketplace and are therefore crucial for retaining the competitive advantage of the firm. The identification of the critical success factors for these projects has become increasingly important, because of the reported high failure rates in the implementation of such projects. The important role of SMEs for the social and economic development of a country is well-known. However, SMEs as an area of study are not often discussed by researchers and an appropriate set of critical success factors for them is lacking. Therefore, it is vital to identify the critical success factors for the implementation of strategic change projects in SMEs to ensure the success of their efforts. This study, which seeks to determine the critical success factors for the implementation of strategic change projects within the context of SMEs makes use of a multiple-case study strategy. The cases are based in two companies where semi-structured interviews were conducted in order to obtain the primary data required. The information retrieved from the selected cases was analysed using a qualitative approach. For the elaboration of the conclusion, an iterative process was followed, moving from the data collected, to the theoretical background and to the development of theory. At the end of the study it was possible to identify a set of eleven critical success factors that answers the research question of this thesis. In addition, a conceptual model was derived from the theoretical and empirical studies of this work, outlining three dimensions that are considered to influence strategic change project success in the SME-setting. The present study would be beneficial to the practitioners of SMEs as the identified set of critical success factors can be used as a checklist of points to concentrate on when implementing strategic change projects. This will assist them in ensuring that the crucial factors and issues are addressed during implementation. For academics, the study contributes new knowledge to the field and offers a common language for discussing the critical success factors of strategic change projects in SMEs.