What motivates small businesses for collective action in smart living industry?

Abstract

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to study what motivates small businesses to engage in collective action, especially in high-tech industry.Design/methodology/approach– Application domain is smart living industry, in which installation companies offer ICT-enabled solutions for smart home services. A survey was conducted among 140 small/medium installation companies in smart living industry which are members of a major Dutch branch organization. Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) was used to model and analyse data from the survey.Findings– The paper found that different types of motivations do not significantly increase the collective orientation of small businesses. Moreover, the current involvement of small companies in smart living projects is not directly related to their collective orientation.Research limitations/implications– The lack of collaboration is resulting in market fragmentation and lack of technological interoperability. The paper advise policy makers to provide selective incentives to stimulate collaboration and to facilitate knowledge sharing on best practices and collective business cases.Originality/value– The motivational factors for collective action between small businesses in high-tech sectors have rarely been studied. Although many studies addresses collective action issues on an individual level, the literature lacks an integration of existing theories into a set of testable hypotheses that aim at motivators and inhibitors of inter-organizational collective action.