Exploring the Influence of the Information and Communication Technology Dimensions on the Sustainability of Competitiveness in Small and Medium-sized Enterprises in the Hail Region

Abstract

The main purpose of this research paper is to investigate the role of information and communication technology (ICT) in providing small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) with a competitive advantage. To do this, we propose five dimensions to detect ICT (human resources, equipment and devices, databases, software, and networks) and four dimensions (service quality, market control, creativity and development, and operational efficiency) to decide competitive advantage. To achieve this paper’s purposes, a questionnaire was developed to collect data from respondents to a sample of 128 subjects by using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) for the survey data analysis. Several methods have been used in the statistical analysis of the data, including descriptive statistics tests, a normal distribution test (one-sample Kolmogorov–Smirnov test), simple linear regression coefficient (simple regression), variance analysis (one-way ANOVA), and a T-test for independent samples. This study reports a series of findings, underlined by the significant role of ICT with its various dimensions and the competitive advantage of SMEs. This study concludes with several suggestions including that SMEs must increase their investments in ICT components and take more care of creativity and development for the preemption to create new services.