Mažos ir vidutinės įmonės – dinamiškiausia, nuolat besikeičianti įmonių grupė, vidurinioji ūkio sandaros grandis, turinti lemiamą įtaką ekonominiam augimui ir socialinių santykių stabilumui. Mažos ir vidutinės įmonės (toliau - MVĮ) sudaro gausiausią Lietuvos įmonių grupę, todėl jų skatinimas kurtis, veikti ir plėtotis tampa prioritetine Lietuvos ekonomikos plėtros kryptimi. Lietuvos valdžia įvairiais būdais stengiasi remti MVĮ, kad šios galėtų vystyti savo veiklą bei numato vis daugiau paramos priemonių. Pagrindinis darbo tikslas - išanalizuoti valstybės paramos smulkiam ir vidutiniam verslui įgyvendinimo sistemą Lietuvoje bei pateikti tobulinimosi kryptis. Darbe analizuojama smulkaus ir vidutinio verslo rėmimo politika vykdoma Europos Sąjungoje, kurios pagrindu bus pateikiamos tobulinimosi gairės valstybės paramos SVV teikimui Lietuvoje. / Small and medium sized business is the middle structure link of national economy, which has decisive impact to the economy development and social relation stability. Small and medium sized enterprises (further – SME) are amount the biggest part of all Lithuanian enterprises. Thus, governments promotion is requested for business enterprises. Yearly Lithuanian government take about SME and sets supports forms in national market. Thus this becomes the economy development priority in Lithuania. The government, according to instruments of support for SME, attempts to engage people to take part actively in the small and medium business. The main purpose of this work is describing and studying the instruments of government supports for SME and to reveal, which instrument of existing national supports system should be further developed as well as possible to propose ways, how they can be achieved hereafter. Also there are discussed about the main directions of businnes stimulations, which are used in European Union countries and which may be used in Lithuania. It is necessary to mention governments promotion for SME forms, like the creation of business infrastructure net, the establishment of business incubators, tax concessions, municipalities support and etc. Goverment is responsible for financial and non-financial support. It gives the support according to small and medium business programs. The promotion of government for SME could raise not only the development of the... [to full text]

Although literature reveals that significant efforts have been made to study ICT adoption and diffusion, the diversity of research in terms of theory and methodology is very low. Most studies have relied on traditional adoption theories (e.g., TAM and DOI) and these theories are not capable of providing rich explanantion on how the adoption and post-adoption develop over time. It is argued here that ICT adoption involves multi-dimensional and complex issues. These issues range from how various roles played by actors in emerging ICT are accounted for to ensuring successful adoption. Therefore, this research aims to advance our understanding of emerging ICT adoptions in SMEs from a dynamic process perspective. The specific objectives of this research are to: establish the stages of the dynamic process, identify the key actors and their roles, explore the critical factors affecting the emerging ICT adoption process, identify the challenges and provide recommendations and implications for stakeholders in promoting future adoption and diffusion in UK SMEs. The research adopts a social-technical approach that challenges the ideas of the mainstream thinkers. More specifically, it adopts Actor Network Theory (ANT). The key ANT concepts that influenced the empirical investigation are inscription, translation, framing and stabilisation. The research adopted a qualitative method using face to face interviews. Two rounds of data collection were undertaken. The first round started with a theoretical review, the analysis of relevant literature, and unstructured interviews mainly with small business managers. Eleven interviews were carried out. The second round of interviews was semi-structured with key human actors identified in the first round of interviews. A total of fifteen interviews were conducted. They included the small business manager; SMEs service sector customers, government agencies, SMEs consultants, and IT vendors. The aim was to further explore the dynamic adoption process, the roles and challenges of actors and to validate the outcomes of the findings. The analysis was guided by a hybrid approach of thematic analysis using NVivo software. The study proposed and validated a conceptual framework that illustrates the dynamic process of emerging ICT adoption in SMEs from the Actor Network Theory perspective. This framework helps to understand the adoption process, actors involved, actors’ roles and interactions, and the critical factors. Using the key concepts of ANT as the basis of the investigation, the findings identify a number of key activities associated with the adoption process. These activities include: problem assessment and evaluation, concept generation and evaluation, concept specification, product outsourcing /role delegation, misalignment and alignment of interests, product trial, product modification, adaptation, and impact and problem redefinition. These activities reveal that adoption of emerging ICT in a small business context is not constant, straightforward and certain; instead it is unpredictable, dynamic, and an on-going and reiterative process. ANT concepts were further used to analyse and categorise 20 roles that different actors play, 15 critical factors influencing emerging ICT adoption in SMEs, and the challenges facing actors. While all of these roles, factors, and challenges are critical, in this study, the findings reveal that monitoring and legislation are the most recurring roles at each stage. Furthermore, ease of use, managerial time, shared support, customer focus and adoption costs are the factors affecting the success of multiple stages (three stages). Finally, the thesis presents the contributions and implications for both research and practice in future adoption and diffusion.

This thesis reports on the association between particular psychological attributes of owner/operators and organisational financial performance in New Zealand small to medium sized enterprises (SME's). The specific psychological attributes of interest are ambiguity tolerance, self efficacy, resilience and planning orientation. A direct response mail survey was sent to 4,500 New Zealand organisations fitting the criteria for this study. Ambiguity tolerance, self efficacy and resilience were assessed using established item scales from the literature. Planning orientation was assessed using planning scenario analysis. Data analysis was conducted using structural equation modeling. Results show that the planning orientation of owner/operators has a significant direct association with organisational financial performance. Ambiguity tolerance, self efficacy and resilience were found to have a significant indirect association with financial performance. The findings of this research have implications for both theory and practice. Theoretically there are implications for cognitive and personality psychology, organisational theory and behaviour, entrepreneurship and research related to the psychological attributes of interest in this thesis. Practically, the results provide managers with a meaningful tool to aid in the selection, training and management of individuals responsible for strategic decision making in SME and other organisational settings.

This thesis aims to develop an inter-organisational knowledge transfer (KT) framework for SMEs, to help them have better understanding of the process of the KT between a SME and its customer (or supplier). The motivation is that knowledge management issues in SMEs is very neglected, which is not in line with the importance of SMEs in the UK national economy; moreover, compared to KT within an organisation, between organisations is more complicated, harder to understand, and has received much less attention. Firstly, external knowledge is generally believed to be of prime importance for SMEs. However, there is little empirical evidence to confirm this hypothesis. In order to empirically evaluate the hypothesis, and also specifically to identify SMEs' needs for external knowledge, a mail questionnaire survey is carried out. Then, based on the key findings of the survey, some 5MB managers are interviewed. The conclusions triangulated from both the key findings and the interview results strongly support the hypothesis, and demonstrate that SMEs have very strong needs for inter-organisational KT, and thus provide very strong empirical underpinning for the necessity of the development of the framework. Secondly, drawing support from a process view, a four-stage process model was proposed for inter-organisational KT. Then a co-ordinating mechanism underpinned by social networks and organisational learning is developed. The process model, co-ordinating mechanism together with cultural difference between organisations constitute an initial framework. Through interviews with SME managers, the initial framework is revised a final framework. The framework validation exercise shows that the final framework could help SMEs have better understanding of the KT. In order to remind and help SMEs to address the 'boundary paradox' embedded in interorganisational KT, and further reflect its complexities and difficulties, the important factors related to each stage of the framework are identified from a strategic perspective, with the help of the co-ordinating mechanism and relevant literature. The factors are also verified by interviews in SMEs. As a result, the initial factors are revised by removing the factors that are perceived as unimportant. The interview results demonstrate that the important factors, as a checklist, can remind and help SMEs to address the 'paradox', and are thus very useful for them.

International entrepreneurship (IE) is “a combination of innovative, proactive and risk-seeking behaviour that crosses national borders and is intended to create value in organizations”. The IE literature has been concerned with entrepreneurial behaviour in multiple countries and cross-border studies of entrepreneurship and international activities of small and medium-sized enterprises (SME). Due to the potential for SMEs to serve as significant sources of export, considerable research has been conducted regarding their internationalization. However, despite attempts to integrate concrete frameworks of international entrepreneurship, some primary issues have not been adequately addressed and IE researchers are faced with challenges including insufficient micro-data for advancing quality research. The main objective of this thesis is to study and explore the limitations on researchers to access governmental data regarding small firms operating internationally and use it for scientific purposes. Despite company data being compiled and publicly available in some countries, such as Germany, other countries, including Canada, have not made any such efforts in a coherent way. There is a significant disconnect in the Canadian context between internationalization and firms’ data. This shortcoming may stem from various sources, including the legal framework in Canada for accessing data and a lack of sufficient financial support and expertise to gather and integrate such data. Furthermore, the type of data available to the research community through statistical institutions were identified and analyzed, as were access methods. With the increasing interest of researchers in accessing data gathered by the government, the formation of anonymized records or anonymized micro-datasets has acquired great importance. Therefore, the primary approach is to explore the extent to which data regarding firms’ characteristics and internationalization activities are currently available to the research community, as well as to ensure the confidentiality of official statistics, most notably in the Canadian context. The research resulted in the confirmation of data availability in Canada through government and statistical organizations. The latter bodies can provide researchers and research organizations access to some data but limitations arise in providing micro-datasets to researchers due to confidentiality issues; these constraints were identified and further analyzed. Moreover, this research has studied methods to overcome these limitations and assess the shortcomings in micro-data in order to advance quality research. Methods and recommendations were introduced and studied to allow researchers access to essential data and information while maintaining confidentiality.

This thesis analyzes Turkey&rsquo / s integration to European Patent System with special reference to the role of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs) within this process. The main purpose is to understand the position of SMEs in Turkey within the industrial property (IP) system in general, patent system in particular, as their effective usage of the IP system is crucial in terms of proper integration of Turkey into the European Patent System. In this respect, the thesis aims to answer two basic questions, namely, &ldquo / What is the role of SMEs within the process of Turkey&rsquo / s integration to European Patent System&rdquo / and &ldquo / How can a more effective use of patent system by the SMEs in Turkey be achieved?&rdquo / Within this framework, a field research was conducted in three different industrial areas in Ankara with 136 SMEs active in manufacturing industry. Within the scope of the field research, it was tried to measure the R&amp / D capacity as well as the extent to which the industrial property system, especially the patent system, in Turkey is effectively used by the participant firms. According to the results of the field research, some proposals were tried to be put forward in terms of the achievement of a more effective use of the industrial property system in general, patent system in particular, by the SMEs in Turkey.

Thesis (MScEng (Industrial Engineering))--University of Stellenbosch, 2011. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: South Africa has potential to grow extensively as a country supplying components to the global aerospace industry supply chains, as well as directly to OEMs like Airbus, Boeing and Cessna which are first tier suppliers. The economic crisis had a significant impact on the growth of small to medium sized enterprises (SMEs), also in aerospace companies. Before the recession, SMEs did not see the necessity to become certified with internationally accredited quality standards, because there were an abundance of business opportunities. In the current restricted business climate SMEs are increasingly realising the importance of certification. The standard that aerospace companies need to comply with, is the AS 9100 standard. Compliance to AS 9100 was previously considered as a competitive advantage (order winner) but has become a necessary prerequisite (order qualifier) to be considered for a contract. In the aerospace industry accountability, traceability, documentation and quality of parts are of critical importance. Quality of products according to specification is crucial as it has a profound effect on safety. The tendency in improving of a company's processes is to scale down on superfluous documentation. In the case of aerospace companies, this is an extremely challenging goal because traceability is of such crucial importance in this sector in terms of aircraft structural system and –operational integrity. For the purpose of this study, a small to medium manufacturer of aircraft and defence system parts was studied and considered to be representative of the aerospace industry in South Africa. The research gap amongst SMEs was investigated by means of a case study at an SME in South Africa where an IT-based AS 9100 quality management system was designed, developed and implemented. The investigation includes the analysis of the research partner's quality documents, the steps in the design and development of the quality management system (QMS) and a description of the implementation thereof. This study aims to provide the focus group (SMEs) with more knowledge when developing their quality management systems for implementation of the AS 9100 requirement to compete in the aerospace industry. It describes the historic background and current use of the AS 9100 standard as background. The objective of the case study will be to determine the generic validity of the method to be able to implement AS 9100 at a small to medium sized aerospace supplier when using the same guidelines which are followed in this specific case. The method's value and success are determined by means of an external audit (certification audit) of the company used in the case study. The method makes specific use of an IT-based infrastructure to facilitate the reduction of unnecessary documentation. Experiences gained by the author in applying AS 9100 to upgrade local manufacturing companies to aerospace suppliers to Volvo Aero Company in Sweden are briefly discussed as well as the validity to make use of these generic steps. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Suid-Afrika het die potensiaal om betekenisvol te groei as ʼn land wat komponente lewer aan internasionale lugvaart verskaffersnetwerke. Die ekonomiese krisis het 'n beduidende impak op die groei van klein tot mediumgrootte ondernemings gehad, asook in die lugvaart-industrie. Voor die resessie, het hierdie ondernemings nie die noodsaaklikheid om akkreditasie tot internasionale kwaliteitstandaarde te verkry na waarde geag nie, weens die genoegsame beskikbaarheid van sakegeleenthede. In die huidige ekonomiese klimaat word die belangrikheid van akkreditasie egter toenemend besef. Die standaard waaraan maatskappye in die lugvaartindustrie moet voldoen is die AS 9100 kwaliteitsbeheerstelsel. Voorheen is die akkreditasie tot hierdie standaard gesien as ʼn mededingende voordeel wanneer daar getender is vir ʼn kontrak. Deesdae word dit as ʼn noodsaaklike voorvereiste beskou, voordat die besigheid se aansoek om ʼn kontrak te verkry eers oorweeg sal word. In die lugvaartnywerheid is aanspreeklikheid, naspeurbaarheid en dokumentasie van kardinale belang. Die tendens in die verbetering van 'n maatskappy se prosesse is om af te skaal ten opsigte van onnodige dokumentasie. In die geval van lug- en ruimtevaartmaatskappye, is dit 'n uiters uitdagende doel, omdat naspeurbaarheid gedurende die komponent se leeftyd van deurslaggewende belang is in hierdie sektor. Vir die doel van hierdie studie is 'n klein- tot mediumgrootte vervaardiger van lugvaartkomponente wat dien as navorsingsvennoot, bestudeer. Hulle is beskou as verteenwoordigend van die lugvaartnywerheid in Suid-Afrika vir die doel van die studie. Die navorsingsgaping is geïdentifiseer as die implementering van ʼn gehaltebeheer stelsel wat voldoen aan die AS 9100 kwaliteitsbeheer standaard. Die gevallestudie van hierdie lugvaartvervaardiger sluit die bestudering van die ontwerp, ontwikkeling en implementering van ʼn IT-gebaseerde AS 9100 gehaltestelsel in. In die studie word die navorsingsvennoot se kwaliteitstelsel en dokumente ontleed, en die stappe in die ontwerp en ontwikkeling van die nuwe stelsel verduidelik. Die implementering en die validering van die stelsel deur die outeur, word beskryf en getoets deur middel van ʼn eksterne sertifiseringsliggaam. Hierdie studie poog om as riglyn te dien vir die fokus groep (klein- tot mediumgrootte ondernemings) en hul kennis van die AS 9100 standaard te verbreed. Hierdie kennis dra potensieel by tot die ontwikkeling van hul eie gehaltebestuur stelsels en die implementering van AS 9100 vereistes sodat akkreditasie tot die standaard verkry kan word en hul die lugvaartnywerheid kan betree. Die dokument beskryf die historiese agtergrond en huidige gebruik van die AS 9100 standaard. Die doel van die gevallestudie is om die generiese waarde van die metode vas te stel sodat ander klein tot mediumgrootte ondernemings in staat sal wees om dieselfde metode te volg om AS 9100 te implementeer. Die metode se geldigheid en sukses word bepaal deur middel van 'n eksterne oudit (sertifiseringsoudit) van die navorsingsvennoot in die gevallestudie. Die metode maak gebruik van 'n spesifieke IT-gebaseerde infrastruktuur om die vermindering van onnodige dokumentasie te fasiliteer. Ervarings en bevindings van ʼn soortgelyke studie in Swede, waar die outeur lid van die implementeringspan was, word ook kortliks bespreek om die geldigheid van die generiese stappe te bepaal en te beklemtoon.

In the business sector there is increasing pressure for organisations to embrace Sustainable Development - but what does it really mean for the Small and Medium-Sized Enterprise Sector? While this concept has received considerable attention in the academic literature, legislation and common language, it has perhaps inevitably lost some of its precision. Within business ventures in the industrialised world, sustainable development has only been applied in a few bigger enterprises. Given that Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs) make up the majority of manufacturing capacity in industrial economies it is -worthwhile to examine the concept in order to assess its relevance to the specific needs of SMEs. The author proposes in this research that a very successful way for SMEs to contribute positively towards sustainable development and indeed to survive in a highly competitive environment is to embrace waste minimisation. The author reports that smaller businesses appear to see waste minimisation as peripheral rather than integral to sound and competitive business practice. She argues that waste minimisation can in fact be the key driver for sustainable change within the Small and Medium-Sized sector. The author reports upon her participation in two European Regional Development-funded projects, namely the Environmental Enterprise Project, and the Environmental Mentoring Project, assisting SMEs to establish waste minimisation programmes. These projects served the purpose of gathering raw data for analysis. The projects spanned 3 years and, during that time, a novel -waste minimisation methodology was developed -which generated cost savings and environmental benefits. The principal findings of this research are (i) the waste rninimisation methodology can be effectively used to achieve cultural change within the organisation, (ii) defining waste as "anything that doesn't add value to the customer" enabled the companies to more readily understand waste and thus positively contribute to business improvement.

This study is focused on utilization of programs supporting small a medium-sized enterprises in South Bohemia and its effectivity. This study summarizes those programs. It features European Unions Structural funds but consists national and regional supports as well. It is followed by description of South Bohemia. Ministry of Industry and Trade programs utilization was evaluated questionary research. Addressed enterpreneurs answered question regarding grants utilisation. After that, personal conversations were used for further research. It is obvious, that utilisation of Support and Innovation programs is not used enough. Especially, enterprise awareness in insufficient. To improve that situation, it is necessary to increase awareness of enterprises and develope number of enterprises familiar with Support and Innovation programs. And it is important to build up help from offices and institutions that are responsible of this agenda. It is obvious and positive, that the situation evolves and percentage excercised grants rises.

Atualmente têm-se valorizado o aproveitamento das características das aglomerações, como os arranjos produtivos locais - APLs e a necessidade de cooperação entre as empresas. Neste contexto, a avaliação de desempenho em relação a um referencial externo e a identificação de melhores práticas, como proposto pelo benchmarking, pode ser de grande valia. Este trabalho apresenta o desenvolvimento de um sistema de informações para benchmarking com acesso via web e sua aplicação piloto. O trabalho de campo contou com a participação de 29 empresas de até médio porte, que fazem parte dos APLs de Ibitinga (confecções de bordados) e de Jaú (calçados femininos). A partir desta aplicação, discute-se a viabilidade operacional de tal sistema, os estímulos e resultados para as empresas usuárias e as relações de tal sistema com os agentes de governança dos APLs. A avaliação do processo de implementação, realizada essencialmente por meio de observações da pesquisadora (de caráter qualitativo), aponta para a necessidade de um mecanismo que possibilite a adesão e participação de um número elevado de empresas em um curto espaço de tempo ou com participação vinculada a outras iniciativas, a fim de que uma base robusta de dados seja criada, eliminando a principal razão para que as empresas percam o estímulo em participar. Outras alternativas de abordagem também são discutidas a fim de melhorar os benefícios deste sistema para empresas e para a governança, como a formação de grupos de empresas (mesmo de setores diferentes) interessados em trocar experiências em uma determinada área ou mesmo a troca de experiência entre instituições de governança. / Nowadays, the clustering approach and the development of joint actions have gained acceptance. In this scenario, performance assessment against an external reference and the identification of best practices, as proposed by benchmarking, can be very useful. This study presents the development of a web-based benchmarking information system and its pilot application. The fieldwork was developed with the participation of 29 small and medium-sized companies from the clusters of Ibitinga (garment for use in the house) and Jaú (female shoes). The objective is to discuss the operational viability of such system, the incentives and results for the users and the relationship of this system with the cluster governing agents. The assessment of the implementation (of qualitative features), points to the need of an organization that enables a high number of companies to participate in a short period of time, like binding the participation to other initiatives, in order to create a strong database, removing the main reason for the incentive missing. Other approaches are discussed aiming to increase the benefits to the companies and to the governing, e.g. experience exchange by groups of firms (even from different industrial sectors) interested in a specific area or by governing institutions.