Investigating the Strategic Utilization of IT Resources in the Small and Medium-sized Firms of the Eastern Free State Province
MICHAEL E. KYOBE
University of the Free State, South Africa
代写留学生论文This study investigated the extent to which the Small-to-Medium sized firms(SMEs) utilized their IT resources strategically, and also identified factorsinhibiting such utilization. An attribute approach was adopted to identifyattributes characterizing strategic IT utilization in SMEs. Seventy SMEsparticipated in the study and factor analysis was conducted to identify theunderlying factors that explained the inhibitors of strategic IT utilization.While the results show that some SMEs utilize IT resources to reducecostsand improve customer services, many SME managers are still ignorant abouttheir
business environment. They do not use IT resources to create linkswith suppliers, neither do they use them to differentiate products/servicesnor to enable innovations. Lack of skills and knowledge to employ IT
competitively emerged as the prime inhibitor of strategic IT utilization.
Other factors were: poor planning; lack of resources; poor IT vision and
leadership; and environmental uncertainty.
KEYWORDS: competitive advantage; IT resources; SMEs; strategic utilization
1. Introduction
In the current global economy, where organizations are increasingly faced with
economic and other challenges, strategic thinking is essential. Strategic thinking
is a systematic approach to analyzing an organization’s position in the environment
and coming up with strategies to make the best of the resources available,
and to ensure the achievement of competitive advantage. Several approaches to
strategy have been proposed by different writers. Porter (1980) proposed cost
leadership, differentiation, and focus strategies. Cost leaders aim at achieving
overall cost leadership in their industry by establishing high relative market
shares, favourable access to raw materials or some other cost advantages. Differentiators
offer products or services perceived industry-wide to be unique along
dimensions such as design, technology or customer service. Focused strategists
131
International Small Business Journal
Copyright © 2004
SAGE Publications (London,
Thousand Oaks and New Delhi)
DOI: 10.1177/0266242604041311
Vol 22(2): 131–158
is bjcompete in a narrow segment of the market, based on buyer type, product type
or geographic factors. They may choose the differentiation or cost leadership
strategy, or may adopt a combination of the two strategy-types.
There is also a growing belief that the business world today is facing a wholenew set of challenges (e.g. deregulation, new technologies and increasingglobalization of competition) that require different approaches to strategy. Desset al. (1997) and Covin and Slevin (1989) consider an entrepreneurial approachto strategy to be vital to success. Entrepreneurial orientation reflects the firm’spropensity to engage in innovation and proactive, risk-seeking, autonomous andcompetitively aggressive behaviour to achieve its strategic objective. Stata (1989),Mintzberg (1990), Senge (1990) and Dodgson (1993) also consider strategy to beless about the selection of markets and market positions, and more about thebuilding and nurturing of key internal capabilities that are relatively enduring.They see sustainable competitive advantage to be rooted in a company’s abilityto i
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