) SMES have fewer employees, each with multiple roles (Yap et al. 2005), but they may be able to form cross-functional teams more easily than large enterprises
Employees of SMES interact more often with their counterparts and may have shared or swapped tasks with them.
For example, Flinchbaugh Engineering, a small employee-owned company in Pennsylvania, now operates transfer lines for customers such as Caterpillar, SKF and Siemens that previously owned these lines (Anonymous, 2006.
Often, where customers and employees are in relatively constant contact, interpersonal experiences are critical to the delivery of service products (Tidd and Hull, 2002).
but not necessarily, takes place in interaction between a customer and service employees and/or physical resources or goods and/or systems of the service provider,
training, employee attitudes, and perception of management support also moderate the effectiveness of adoption of new IT tools (Agarwal and Prasad, 1997;
New service ideas come from a close interaction between customers and employees. Thus, although product and service innovation are thought often of as the same,
Unlike products, many services are delivered by individual employees and the quality of service can vary greatly depending on the training and experience of employees.
As a result, it is critical that personnel training is conducted properly regardless of whether the solution is a product,
This is normally achieved by affinity diagrams (a sorting process conducted by the firm's employees),
, employees, lead users), groups (e g.,, brainstorming external search (e g.,, patent search, new use of existing products/services, competitors, upstream and/or downstream channel members) or collaboration (e g.,
) Effective transition into a service-centered business requires a transition strategy as well as management of employee motivation and supporting organizational structure and culture.
communicate the decision broadly and consistently to all employees, and provide the resources to assure that the path is taken.
Consolidation also helps to establish a separate reward structure that rewards employees for culture-supportive behavior.
Employees in this unit will need to be motivated to relate to customers differently than those in manufacturing units.
Dialogue is essential for success. These employees may need to be trained to relate to customers
It is important that employees understand their function within the company and how it relates to the whole company.
Values, norms and beliefs shape the firm and drive employee behavior. Some companies will have a tougher time with the transition to a service-centered culture;
It is critical that goals are applied not too aggressively as research shows that unrealistic and unattainable goals result in unmotivated and cynical employees (Gebauer et al.
) When employees can see that their task contributes to the overall strategy and goals of the firm,
These performance measures include customer satisfaction, employee satisfaction and business success (Gebauer et al. 2005). ) In a productcentered firm, customer satisfaction is based on the product,
but in a service-centered firm it is based on service delivery, employee friendliness, value-added, flexibility, customization, etc.
management must motivate the employees to reach their goals and be rewarded. Employee motivation can be described in terms of employee-push
and-pull (Gebauer et al.,2005). ) Employee-push refers to management's desire to motivate employees to engage in the service business.
On the other hand, employee-pull refers to employees'enthusiasm and self-motivation to commit to the new service initiative,
resulting from understanding the benefits and results of pursuing services. Although employeepush might be sufficient initially,
the goal in service firms is to stimulate employee-pull in order 45 Attribute Definition le Statements Alignment The degree to
which the interests and actions of each employee support the clearly stated and communicated key goals of the organization We have clear aims and objectives
which each employee feels empowered by managers and the organization As a manager, I am expected to delegate;
we recognize the individual Honesty The degree to which each employee has total confidence in the integrity, ability and good character of other employees and the organization, regardless of their role
employees and managers take risk I am encouraged to experiment; we take calculated risks; we encourage trial and error Stimuli The degree to which it is understood that unrelated knowledge can impact product, service and operations improvements
Table 5. 2 Cultural Attributes of Successful Innovative Enterprises 46 to get employees involved. Internal marketing is one way that firms sell the service concept to their employees
in order to get them to buy-in to the new initiative. Management should provide excess human resources while service-centered learning is underway
so that employees are free to engage in service exploration. Once the change process takes off and employee-pull is set in motion,
employees will become the driver of new ideas. During shifts from product-focus to service-focus there are often conflicts between departments because of perceived status
either increased or decreased. For instance, production personnel may feel downgraded because of the new interest in service sales.
Once employees are motivated and united to achieve service-centered goals, they will need to be equipped with training that will help them meet their objectives.
and to increase the creative and problem-solving capacities of employees. In product-centered firms, sales people view products as the main source of revenue and services as add-ons that are obligatory
If the firm chooses to hire new employees it is critical that the new hires fit with the new service-centered culture
) It is imperative that employees believe the internal marketing before they can get involved in external or interactive marketing.
External and interactive marketing are strategies that can help employees to sell services. External marketing is about portraying the firm's image to customers,
but before employees can make that portrayal they must be sure of its existence, a 47 belief that relates back to the firm's internal marketing.
Once the employees are assured that the internal marketing is credible (i e.,, the firm will be able to keep the promises it makes),
it is likely that its customer/employee interaction includes advertising, sales promotions and publicity. It is important to use the relationships that are created originally in this phase to help develop more strong and long-lasting relationships in the future.
Front-line employees, the ones who commonly work the most closely with customers, need to be in-tune with customer needs,
These employees also need to be committed and able to come up with possible ideas and solutions for customer problems.
which entails engaging the customer in serious dialogue where the employee listens intently and asks questions to make sure he
Exceptionally creative employees can listen to customer problems, generate their own ideas and solutions, and share them with others to stimulate maximum problem-solving ability.
It is important that they share their ideas with employees, stimulate communication within the organization,
and provide leadership to motivate employees (Johne and Storey, 1998). All too often service firms view their people simply in terms of an approach to deliver the product, i e.,
However, because of the inseparable nature of services, front-line employees shape the quality of a customer relationship. de Brentani (2001) concludes that having a highly trained workforce that has an intimate knowledge of the customer plays an important role in the success of new services.
Often, new service initiatives do not sufficiently involve input from front-line employees. In this case, the employees who should play a critical role in the process are uninformed
and underutilized and will build resentment to the new initiative. As a result co-workers can be the biggest resistance to innovation efforts,
Accordingly, management must consistently support the innovation process, encouraging employee involvement, and ensuring communication among the different functional areas (e g.,
Similarly, information sharing among employees should be encouraged so as to generate more ideas to satisfy unmet customer needs (de Jong and Vermeulen, 2003).
, having employees cross-trained and able to perform other company tasks) also helps to broaden employees'points of view
Thus, if an employee took the initiative to generate ideas for solving a customer problem and failed,
as long as the employee (and the firm) learns from the mistakes. An open culture should value experimentation
) Employees should understand that learning from failures is often a key to success (Susman et al.
Flat structures allow employees to see the big picture and minimize distortion by reducing the levels through
Flat structures also encourage an open door policy where employees have easy access to top management.
This helps employees to be able to contact people in other functions directly without going through and/or clogging other channels.
Employees should be permitted to seek advice from those who have authority based on knowledge as well as position.
Information should also be shared with employees at all levels (e g.,service, production, financial, marketing) by publishing newsletters or using other communication channels.
or signals of status differences so that some employees don't feel less valued than others. In order to encourage teamwork and idea sharing,
it is important that employees feel equal with their peers. 5. 2 Phase II: Services Provided to the Installed Base The next step is to extend services from the sale of existing products to providing services to the firm's installed base or even to its competitors'products.
The skills of the firm's employees now must extend beyond accurate diagnosis and speedy repairs
Customer interaction in this phase should include employees creating a friendly and helpful atmosphere for the customer.
Firms should encourage employees who are in regular contact with customers to share ideas with other employees concerning optimal use of the product,
In this phase, employees should be immersed in their customer's business. Employees should be able to see the points of pain (Gustafsson and Johnson
2003), or frustrations that customers have with existing offerings, and generate ideas for new solutions.
Since the employees are very close to the customer, the solutions generated from this type of encounter are often very valuable to the customer.
Discusses the advantages to having employees understand their function in the company and how it relates to the rest of the company.
Employees that understand their part in the firm are more likely to engage in behaviors that support the firm's strategy.
SMES had high percent of R&d and R&d employees per sale. They also had fewer patents than large firms
Discusses the effect of managerial influence on employees'willingness to adopt innovation. Lindman, M. T. 2002."
For example, the Gellman (1976,1982) data base identified SMES as contributing 2. 45 times more innovations per employee than do large firms.
Audretsch (1995) identifies SMES as contributing 2. 38 times more innovations per employee than do large firms.
%while five-year employee growth was 9. 8%.44. One of the keys to the success of the German Mittelstand has been their strong commitment to global expansion.
Indeed, non-marketing employees in the German Mittelstand engage in direct contact with customers at twice the frequency as in the largest German corporations.
and financial employees in order to make sure innovative activities truly meet customer needs. WK1 15 The Network and Flexible Production Strategies 47.
which employees perform a wide variety of different tasks. 15 Porter (1990) provides examples of Italian ceramics and gold jewelry as industries in
Two-dimensional plot of SMES according to their innovative capacity Leading Technology Users 10-15%of the SME population(>5 employees) Technology Developers 1-3%of the SME population
(>5 employees) Non-Innovative SMES about 40-45%of the SME population(>5 employees) Potential Innovators about 40%of the SME population(>5 employees) IIII IV
15 40 Firm size (employees) 47 43 73 R&d budget as%of turnover 21,7%32,1%10,9%Growth during 1996-1999 (in terms of employees) 89
<250 employees and independent. 25 Including CRAFT-projects (14,5%without CRAFT-projects. 26 In respect of Belgian (Flemish) definition of the SME:
less than 200 employees. 27 SME according to the Anvar-classification: less than 50 employees. 28 Only related to equity financing organised by the main R&d granting institute!
WK1 26 budget in the following years. R&d grants seem to have substantial additivity to the size of the R&d investments of leading technology users
A typical such SME might have three employees out of thirty who spend part of their time on R&d activities,
Average life span I e Number of employees of the firm x E Maximum number of employees (according to SME definition) i F Sales (or Turnover) i C3 Total costs of production
Studies related to the 1 SMES are defined as firms with less than 250 employees (NUTEK 2004, p. 15) 14 performance of SMES with a central focus on innovation capacity are limited (Siqueira and Cosh 2008).
and employee turnover, which are expressed differently in the intended model than the existing ones. The existing models are complex tools
the number of employees, the maximum number of employees distinguishing the different categories of enterprises, firm age,
The word size expresses either the number of employees or the amount of turnover. It is a misleading term,
Empirical evidence shows that countries with higher R&d activities per employee have higher levels of total factor productivity growth (Coe and Helpman 1995.
Companies with larger numbers of employees have a higher survival probability (Mansfield 1962. According to Caves (1998), firm failure rates decline with size, given age.
and how the employees are related 44 to the functions of the firm. The four lines of thinking show the progression of the way organizations have been viewed by scholars over time.
In the manufacturing sectors, SMES tend to have greater numbers of employees, while in consultancy and other service sectors;
SMES tend to have fewer employees. An alternative approach is to talk about smaller firms and larger firms in a relative sense;
expressed as the number of employees, to the average size of firms in the sector at that point in time.
The first two of these parameters are the number of employees and the firm's age.
maximum number of employees distinguishing the different categories of enterprises (for the firm size parameter)
Same as in (d). 3 The firms studied have less than 250 employees; the data was taken directly from the accounting reports of the firm
it had less than 250 employees; the data was delivered from the firm management for the period of the analysis;
as it had less than 250 employees, 60 and the data was taken directly from the accounting reports of the firm for the period of the analysis. Also,
as it had less than 250 employees; the data was delivered from the firm's management for the period of the analysis;
Contribution of paper 3 to the purpose of the thesis The analysis was performed on a small Swedish fishery that had 6 12 employees.
We used a maximum limit of 50 employees to define a small firm in the case study. The firm's relative size figure varied between 0. 12 and 0. 24.
The company had a work force range of 49 90 employees through the years. Summary of paper 7 This paper is a case study wherein the model is implemented, with the innovation aspects playing a major role in the evaluation of the firm's performance.
The first is case was that of a small fishery firm based in Gothenburg, Sweden, with 6 to 12 employees.
the number of employees, the maximum number of employees distinguishing the different categories of enterprise, firm age,
In terms of regional policy, the SME concept is taken generally to mean everything from micro-companies (of only 1 employee) to large companies employing several hundred people
which defines small companies as those with fewer than 50 employees and an annual turnover below €10 Million,
and medium-sized companies as those with fewer than 250 employees and an annual turnover below 50 million.
The same recommendation defines micro-companies as those with fewer than 10 employees and a turnover below €2 million.
and business partners Develop strategies for the marketing of innovative ideas Improve the capacities of employees in SMES for RTD
The European central bank Consultation (2011) 21 of 7 532 firms, 6 941 of which had fewer than 250 employees in
Similarly to Innovation assistant, it aims at promoting the employment of recently graduated staff in SMES with no or little experience with graduate employees.
including number of employees, number of newly established enterprises, Gross domestic product, and export data per economic sector.
Since the inauguration of the photonics industry promotion in Gwangju, the average annual growth rate of production, number of employees and companies are 19.2%,9. 6%and 5. 0%respectively.
The number of employees has jumped also to 8 270 at 377 companies in 2010. Regional and national policies that have been decisive for prioritisation of domains Government action has been decisive for prioritisation of industrial domains.
Its manufacturing sector is characterised by small firms (e g. less than 200 employees) in comparison to other industrial areas.
7 Start-up centres in Amstetten, Berndorf, Hollabrunn, Krems, Ternitz, Waidhofen/Ybbs and Wiener Neustadt and 17 business parks with about 776 companies and 18 300 employees.
%)In Lower Austria especially small companies(>9 employees) were engaged largely in innovation activities. Still below average are innovation activities in the service sector.
The most appropriate data appear to be OECD's regional labour market statistics (e g. number of establishments or number of employees per TL2 region),
and employ 54 per cent of all formal private sector employees (informal employment). According to Terziovski (2010) Small and Medium enterprises (SMES) in the manufacturing sector make a significant contribution to economic growth,
and they use fundamental bases such as number of employees, financial position or annual turnover. However in Zimbabwe, according to Small and Medium Enterprises Institute, SMES are defined as a registered enterprise with employment levels ranging from 30 to 70 depending on the types of industry.
In a study by Machipisa (1998) he defined an SME as a registered company with a maximum of 100 employees and an annual turnover in sales of a maximum of 830
According to Gaither and Frazier (1999), SMES constantly experience shortages in capital to employee skills to improve production capacity,
1988) for instance, suggested that the smallest firms (20 employees) had the benefit of individualism, the larger firms (50 employees) had the benefit of more resources and systems,
while the intermediate group (20-49 employees) lacked the best of either world. Ettlie and Rubenstein (1987) in support stated that for radical innovations they required additional funds for technical work, capital investment for plant and equipment, marketing and promotions.
They went on to clarify that larger size have a key enabling condition because of access to key resources and addressing these key issues.
At individual level, the capacity included employee empowerment and engagement, trust, training, job rotation, and the extent and range of individual networks.
At individual level, the capacity included employee empowerment and engagement, trust, training, job rotation, and the extent and range of individual networks.
In France, from 1990 to 1992,30. 5%of firms with a number of employees ranging from 20 to 49
and 93%of those with more than 2000 employees were engaged in this process (SESSI, 1996). These results do not mean that SMES are less efficient than big firms. 5 The absence of hierarchical levels
They know that the success of their company is based on the quality of their employees and on their commitments to networks of innovators In this prospect,
In France, about 5%of firms with more than 500 employees benefited from the financial aid. 740 F. Bougrain, B. Haudeville/Research Policy 31 (2002) 735 747 regression model, with the dependant variable,
ownership status and the sectors of production of the innovations (NAF 16) Size and status of firms Employees Regional group Subsidiary of group Totala Sectors 1 9 10
(1 9 employees)- 0. 9152*(-1. 938)- 1. 2468**(2. 536)- 1. 1226**(2. 936) Very small enterprises (10 19
employees) 0. 240 (0. 487) 0. 216 (0. 415) SME (20 49 employees) 0. 1231 (0. 296)- 0. 2114(-0
. 485) SME (50 99 employees) 0. 9406*(2. 002) 0. 7647 (1. 551) 0. 8808*(2. 304) SME (100 250
employees)- 0. 1773(-0. 395)- 0. 3186(-0. 667) SME (251 499 employees)- 0. 4788(-0. 763)- 0. 9574(-1
This 9 The size affects negatively the results of the innovative projects only for very small enterprises (less than 10 employees.
We decided not to take into account the percentage of executives to employees for SMES with less than 10 employees.
176) Size (number of employees)- 0. 00018 (0. 861) Executives(%)1. 3198(-0. 431) Design office 0. 045+(0. 088) n
Project result(%of executives to employees) Success Success rate Failures Failure rate Number of projects From 0 to 5 9 42.9 12 57.1 21 From 5
and the percentages of executives to employees. 5. 3. The contribution of executives to successful collaborative relationships The presence of executives indicates that the entrepreneurial manager delegates part of his power to its subordinates.
According to regression 2 (Table 4) and to the 2-test (Table 6), there is not a direct link between the result of a cooperative project and the percentages of executives to employees.
when the percentage of executives to employees is larger. This category is heterogeneous. Research and production managers are often at the heart of the innovation process.
We also assume that qualified employees working there are more able to understand information flowing through industrial networks.
The firms with between 1 and 9, 10 and 19,20 and 49,50 and 99,100 and 250,251 and 499 employees were all independent.
We distinguish regional groups with more than 500 employees whose headquarters is located in the Centre region and subsidiaries of company
whose group employment exceeds 500 employees and is located outside the Centre region. By holding concurrently two criteria, the size of the firm and the ownership status, we avoid the classification discrepancies described by Tether et al.
and employ over half of all private sector employees. They make up 97.3 percent of all exports
and produce 13 times more patents per employee than large firms. These small businesses make up approximately 29.6 million businesses with 6 million of these with employees.
Thus, it can be seen that small business and SMES are a critical factor in the economic fabric of nations and regions.
small is considered to be fewer than 100 employees, and medium-sized is under 500 employees (Headd & Saade, 2008).
A. Innovation Early research has examined the important role of innovation within entrepreneurship (Schumpeter, 1947. Therefore, in order to measure innovation, several dimensions were included in a twelve-item Likert scale.
B. Performance Frequently used measures of performance criteria include profitability, ROI, number of employees, revenues.
All businesses are under 50 employees, with a majority in both samples of fewer than 10 employees.
TABLE 2 FIRM CHARACTERISTICS SIZE (NUMBER OF EMPLOYEES) Characteristic Range Australian Businesses%(n=201) U s. Businesses%(n=229) Number of Employees Less than 10 From 10 to 20
in order to impact society has significant implications for SME owners/managers, SME employees and the economies in
But the chamber only has 5 employees, servicing thousands of firms in Yogyakarta province. Business associations are criticized also widely.
4 Medium silver Budi silver Subcon 1 0 1 High silver LSE=more than 100 employees MSE=10-99 employees SSE=1
-9 employees Turnover=average past 5 years Price segment product ranges from low, medium, high to top end Number of employees=average last 5 years Source:
data collection IHS Working Paper 27.2013. Innovation in SMES. The case of home accessories in Yogyakarta, Indonesia 42 Annex 2:
These take account of the mobility requirements of visitors, employees, participants and VIPS, within the framework of general event logistics.
because the number of employees does not reach 20 in more than half of the business research organizations active in the field of R&d.
because the number of employees is more than 250 only in one-tenth of the business research organizations pursuing R&d activities.
growth in productivity, growth in rate of exporting SMES (especially the RDIINTENSIVE medium-sized enterprises), growth in rate of innovative companies among active companies with more than 10 employees (the ratio to be increased to 30
which the companies take account of the interests of society by having regard to effect of their activities on their business partners, suppliers, employees, shareholders and also the environment.
while only 15%of all employees are employed by them. The growth potential of national economy providing two-thirds of the employment is weak,
The employees employed at research and development workplaces carry out research and development activities and participate in their promotion in one part of
In this case, the actual number of employees employed at the research and development organisation is indicated in the ratio of the time spent on research and development to the whole working time.
and employs ten or more employees at the beginning of the examined period. The growth can be measured by the number of employees and turnover.
Network: system of co-operation characterized by common goals, interdependence and comparative advantages. The networking co-operations have different forms;
The total number of their employees is between 10 and 50 and their annual net turnover or balance sheet does exceed not EUR 10 million.
Those enterprises whose total number of employees is between 50 and 250 and their annual net turnover does exceed not EUR 50 million
The total number of their employees is between 10 and 50 and their annual net turnover or balance sheet does exceed not EUR 10 million.
Additional indicators related to the objectives and prioritized during the strategic monitoring Increasing the ratio of companies (with more than 10 employees) engaged in technological innovation to 30%The ratio of companies (with more than 10 employees) introducing new products
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