ABSTRACT Small and Medium Size Enterprise (SMEs) have long been recognised as the major drivers of economic activities due to their entrepreneurial traits of being innovative which lead to job creation, sustaining economic growth, export expansion, and efficient allocation of resources in line with their competitive goals and their respective country’s objectives. In their pursuit as major economic drivers in their respective economies, SMEs are barely exposed to hostile environments triggering fierce competition from Multinational Corporations. This has entailed that SMEs need to enhance their capabilities in such environments to sustain their competitive advantage by reconfiguring their internal and external competences and resources in response to changing environments. Surprisingly, literature on how SMEs develop dynamic capabilities in such markets is limited and inconsistent. Therefore, this thesis explores how SMEs develop dynamic capabilities in emerging markets specifically in African markets.   The central purpose of the study is to explore how SMEs in emerging markets such as Africa develop dynamic capabilities to compete alongside MNCs. Building on prior researches which conceptually suggested that market orientation, learning orientation, and entrepreneurial orientation in separate cases, enables SMEs to build dynamic capabilities in dynamic environments, this study explored this viewpoint through a qualitative case study data. Comparative multiple case studies are developed in order to have a holistic understanding of how SMEs across sectors develop dynamic capabilities. The study employs empirical data collected through the use of semi-structured interviews in which samples are purposively selected from 10 firms from separate industries in Africa, in which five were drawn from Cameroon and other five drawn from Zambia. The study follows a qualitative-deductive approach.   Findings indicate that SMEs develop dynamic capabilities in emerging market principally through the lenses of market orientation and learning orientation. While entrepreneurial orientation is found lacking the potential to enable SMEs build-up the required dynamic capabilities due to the fact that it places huge demand on SMEs who are short of adequate financial resources to meet up with the contingencies of being fully entrepreneurial. That is to say, market orientation and learning orientation other than entrepreneurial orientation are the enablers of dynamic capabilities in emerging market. The findings contribute to existing literature by building an empirically-grounded synthesis of the constructs of market orientation, learning orientation and entrepreneurial orientation involved in the development of dynamic capabilities which validates earlier claims on the development of dynamic capabilities in dynamic environment. Second, the results contribute to theory by advancing an original model which brings together all standalone models in the field of dynamic capabilities development into one, thereby harmonising the polarisation of facts. Furthermore, the findings bear potential for researchers and entrepreneurs intending to invest in emerging markets such as Africa.   To improve on this study, we suggest undertaking a related cross-comparative case study on similar grounds which takes into account homogeneity and age parameters at industry level from two or more countries. We believe this might provide an additional explanation on how SMEs in emerging markets develop dynamic capability and may also shed more light on whether age of a firm has an effect on the build-up of dynamic capabilities.

Submitted by Caroline Falcao (caroline.rfalcao@ufpe.br) on 2017-06-01T17:47:43Z No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 811 bytes, checksum: e39d27027a6cc9cb039ad269a5db8e34 (MD5) Marcella Brito TESE.pdf: 2407523 bytes, checksum: c51f4313c0513dc415677aae710b3576 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-06-01T17:47:43Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 811 bytes, checksum: e39d27027a6cc9cb039ad269a5db8e34 (MD5) Marcella Brito TESE.pdf: 2407523 bytes, checksum: c51f4313c0513dc415677aae710b3576 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012-10-03 / As práticas de CRM- Customer Relationship Management têm sido cada vez mais recomendadas como forma de gerir e de manter os negócios, e têm se mostrado uma tendência também nas pequenas e médias empresas. Este trabalho tem como objetivo o desenvolvimento de um modelo de fidelização para clientes em pequenas e médias empresas no setor de serviços utilizando-se esse tipo de gerência. Após analisar vários modelos de CRM presentes na literatura específica, propõe-se um modelo específico que pode ser aplicado em pequenas e médias empresas do setor de serviços. Este estudo caracteriza-se como sendo uma pesquisa exploratória de abordagem qualitativa, utilizando a investigação bibliográfica como procedimento para alcance do objetivo geral. Por meio da análise comparativa entre os modelos estudados, estruturou-se um método de fidelização que integra os elementos de estratégia e de implementação de CRM em pequenas e médias empresas. Neste trabalho também foi realizado um estudo de caso para verificar a aplicabilidade e a eficiência do novo modelo proposto. Os resultados obtidos com a sua aplicação em uma média empresa de Call Center, a qual presta serviços em Aconselhamento de Saúde, foram positivos, visto que o modelo proposto atingiu o objetivo a que se propõe, que é disponibilizar mecanismos para que as pequenas e médias empresas de serviços conheçam seus clientes e interajam melhor com eles. / CRM practices have increasingly been recommended as a way to manage and maintain the business, and have shown a tendency also in small and medium enterprises. This paper aims at developing a model for customer loyalty in the service sector in small and medium size enterprises. The research analyzes several models of CRM in the literature and proposes a specific model applied to small and medium enterprises in the services sector. It is characterized as an exploratory qualitative approach, using literature as procedure to reach the overall goal. Through comparative analysis of the models studied, was structured a method of loyalty that integrates the elements of strategy and implementation of CRM in SMEs. A case study was done to verify the applicability and efficiency of the proposed model, the results obtained with its implementation in a medium enterprise Call Center for Counseling Health were satisfactory, since the proposed model achieved the goals that they propose, which is to provide mechanisms for small and medium sized service companies know their customers better and interact with them.

Background: It has become increasingly important for all corporations to make environmentally friendly decisions and consider environmental CSR. Previous studies have shown that effective corporate governance and diversity of BoDs and TMTs can affect sustainability reporting positively. However, prior literature has been underrepresented regarding SMEs. It is currently voluntary for these types of firms to report on sustainability, but new requirements are underway. Additionally, family-owned firms differ in the context of environmental CSR reporting due to the interests of the family, and that these types of firms tend to not consider the diversity as much as non-family-owned firms.    Purpose: The purpose of this study is to investigate how the diversity of BoDs and TMTs in Swedish stock-listed SMEs impacts environmental CSR reporting. Additionally, how family firms moderate this relationship.     Methodology: This study adopts a positivistic view, follows the deductive approach, and uses a quantitative methodology. The collected data was gathered through databases, annual reports, and other sources to get information about the diversity aspects and sustainability reporting. This was analyzed by using the Spearman correlation matrix and multiple linear regressions.    Findings: The findings of this study only partially support the relationship between the diversity of BoDs and environmental CSR reporting. There was no support regarding the relationship between the diversity of TMTs and environmental CSR reporting. Family firms as a moderating factor to this, could also not be supported.

Avec les mutations de l’internet induites par le développement des outils collaboratifs (blogs, flux RSS, réseaux sociaux, partage d’informations...) l'information change de nature. Sa production devient de plus en plus simple. L'utilisateur, qui depuis les débuts de l’internet grand-public, se contentait d’un rôle de consommateur tout-court d'informations s'est, petit-à-petit, transformé en « consommateur-producteur ». Il est au cœur du nouveau système de production et de diffusion de l’information. Ce changement qui s'opère dans toutes les couches sociales avec comme caractéristiques principales la floraison des blogs, la veille personnalisée, la customisation des outils, le partage, la collaboration dans les réseaux sociaux ..., s’identifie à travers les appellations « web 2.0 », « web social », « web collaboratif ». Plus que des mots, il s’agit de pratiques informationnelles qui mettraient en cause les acquis des entreprises en matière de veille et d'Intelligence Économique. Ainsi, l'intérêt de mesurer les tenants et les aboutissants de ce renouvellement des usages informationnels nous pousse à travers cette thèse à s’interroger sur leur impact réel ou supposé dans la veille et l'Intelligence Économique. Ce travail propose de mesurer le degré de récupération des compétences des utilisateurs du web 2.0 dans les démarches de veille et d’IE en PME et TPE. À l’issue d’une enquête de terrain portant sur un échantillon de 70 entreprises de différentes régions du monde (France, États-Unis, Grande-Bretagne, Maroc, Sénégal…) il a été intéressant de constater que le web 2.0 est assez bien connu dans les entreprises quelle que soit leur taille. Toutefois, la récupération de ses applications dans une démarche de veille et d’Intelligence Économique reste assez dispersée du fait, notamment, de la méconnaissance des potentialités de certains outils, qui a comme conséquence leur non prise en compte dans les politiques informationnelles. Ce résultat nous a convaincu de proposer aux TPE et aux PME une démarche de mise en place d’un dispositif de veille collaborative qui a l’originalité d’intégrer les outils du web 2.0. S’inscrivant dans la logique d’un dispositif de veille de seconde génération (Lietzelman et al.), la démarche proposée constitue une amélioration de celles déjà existantes (AFNOR, Paul Degoul). Elle prend en compte dans chacune des phases (conception, planification et mise en œuvre) la dimension sociale de l’internet et de ses pratiques. Un exposé de techniques d’exploitation de certains de ces outils pour un problème de veille a été produit afin de sensibiliser sur leurs potentialités dans l’éventualité de leur intégration dans un système de veille et d’intelligence économique / With the web as a platform and the development of collaborative tools (blogs, RSS feeds, social networking, information sharing ...) information is changing and its production becomes increasingly simple. The average user, who since the advent of the Internet has merely a short role as consumer of information, is transformed into a "consumer-producer" of information. He is at the heart of the new system of production and dissemination of information. This change whose characteristics cannot be ignored: blogs, personal monitoring, social bookmarking, personalization tools for research, collaboration in social networks etc. and known under the names "Web 2.0", "social web", "collaborative web" would undermine the achievements of companies in terms of information monitoring and Competitive Intelligence (CI); hence the importance of measuring the ins and outs of this renewal informational practices. In addition to questions about the real or supposed changes in information monitoring and Competitive Intelligence in the Age of social web, our research also wanted to measure the degree of recovery skills of web 2.0’s users in SMEs CI‘s systems. With a field survey covering a sample of 70 companies from different regions of the world (France, USA, Great Britain, Morocco, Senegal ...) we noticed that the Web 2.0 is fairly well known by companies regardless of their size, but the recovery of its applications in a process to monitor information is dispersed (using disparate, breach of certain tools potential, lack of information policy incorporating tools 2.0...). This result has convinced us to propose to the SME an approach of establishing a collaborative information monitoring system which has the originality to include the tools of Web 2.0 since the phases of design, planning and implementation. In order to respect the logic of a second generation Information Monitoring System (Lietzelman et al.), the proposed approach is an improvement of existing ones like the AFNOR system or that of Paul Degoul. It is accompanied, for sensitizing SME by a statement of operational techniques of some social media tools for their possible inclusion in a Competitive Intelligence System

Le contexte économique actuel se caractérise par un environnement plus turbulent qui pousse les entreprises à envisager un nouveau modèle de création de valeur plus durable. En effet, elles sont rentrées dans une ère post-industrielle qui met en avant et exploite la richesse de leur capital immatériel. Elles doivent créer les conditions de leur développement et de leur succès en activant les richesses de l’invisible mais également en les protégeant des actions hostiles de leurs concurrents car les actifs immatériels sont déterminants en termes de compétitivité. Dans ce contexte, la performance des entreprises est conditionnée par la mise en œuvre de stratégies pouvant anticiper les évolutions de leur environnement ainsi que les risques sur leur capital immatériel.Les PME sont plus sensibles aux modifications de leur environnement que les grandes entreprises. Leur organisation et leurs moyens financiers rend leur capital immatériel plus vulnérable. Notre sujet requiert une pollinisation croisée entre différentes disciplines afin de faire émerger les moyens les plus efficaces pour les PME afin de progresser en fonction de ses spécificités, de son expérience et de l’environnement dans lequel elle évolue.Sans modifier l’organisation de l’entreprise, l’objectif est de mettre en œuvre une démarche rigoureuse permettant à l’entreprise de développer une protection efficace de son capital immatériel pour prendre ses décisions. Cette démarche est synthétisée dans le logiciel ICARS (Intangible Capital Assessment Risk Software) / The current economic environment is characterized by a more turbulent environment that pushes companies to consider a new model for more sustainable value creation. In fact, they have returned to a post-industrial highlights and exploits the richness of their intellectual capital. They must create the conditions for their development and their success in activating the riches of the invisible but also protecting them from hostile actions of their competitors because intangible assets are crucial in terms of competitiveness. In this context, business performance is dependent on the implementation of strategies to anticipate changes in their environment and the risks to their intellectual capital.SMEs are more sensitive to changes in their environment than larger companies. Their organization and financial resources makes them more vulnerable intangible capital. Our subject requires cross-pollination between different disciplines in order to bring out the most effective ways for SMEs to grow according to its characteristics, experience and environment in which it operates.Without changing the organization of the company, the goal is to implement a rigorous approach allowing the company to develop an effective protection of its intellectual capital to make decisions. This approach is synthesized in the software ICARS (Intangible Capital Risk Assessment Software)