Abstract
Information technologies (IT) have become one of the most important infrastructural elements for SMEs in service in-dustries. Now, these firms show specific characteristics and behaviours with regard to adopting and assimilating IT. These specificities have not been taken into account however in formulating a research framework or programme on the adoption and assimilation of IT in service SMEs. The present study thus seeks to fill this void. After reviewing the literature on IT in the services sector, the antecedents of IT adoption and assimilation in the context of service SMEs are identified and integrated within a research framework. This framework is then applied to generate a set of twenty-two salient propositions for future research on IT adoption and assimilation in service sector SMEs.
Highlights
The manufacturing sector has long been considered to be the main engine of regional, national or continental economies, and has received the most attention from economists, management researchers, and governments
Information technologies (IT) primary adoption is the first stage of IT adoption, and it refers to the firm-level decision to adopt the innovation; the second stage, IT secondary adoption is the actual implementation or individual adoption by users; IT assimilation is defined as “the extent to which the use of a technology diffuses across organizational work processes and becomes routinized in the activities associated with those processes”
Information technologies are called upon to play a crucial role in enterprises that are engaged in a knowledge-based economy
Summary
The manufacturing sector has long been considered to be the main engine of regional, national or continental economies, and has received the most attention from economists, management researchers, and governments. We lack knowledge on the specific characteristics and operating ways of service SMEs, given that the service sector has been insufficiently studied to-date when compared to the manufacturing sector [3,4]. While this transition to a service economy poses major challenges, notably to manufacturing enterprises that must adapt in order to survive, it creates numerous opportunities for service SMEs. In order to seize these opportunities, one crucial condition for these firms is the “need to establish capabilities to manage their portfolio of resources, including information technologies (IT), as services for business processes” [5]. We integrate these antecedents within a research framework that enables us to formulate a set of twenty-two propositions for future research, and conclude with the study’s theoretical and managerial contributions
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