SME Adoption of Enterprise Systems in the Northwest of England

Abstract

The attention of software vendors has moved recently to SMEs (small- to medium-sized enterprises), offering them a vast range of enterprise systems (ES), which were formerly adopted by large firms only. From reviewing information technology innovation adoption literature, it can be argued that IT innovations are highly differentiated technologies for which there is not necessarily a single adoption model. Additionally, the question of why one SME adopts an ES while another does not is still understudied. This study intends to fill this gap by investigating the factors impacting SME adoption of ES. A qualitative approach was adopted in this study involving key decision makers in nine SMEs in the Northwest of England. The contribution of this study is twofold: it provides a framework that can be used as a theoretical basis for studying SME adoption of ES, and it empirically examines the impact of the factors within this framework on SME adoption of ES. The findings of this study confirm that factors impacting the adoption of ES are different from factors impacting SME adoption of other previously studied IT innovations. Contrary to large companies that are mainly affected by organizational factors, this study shows that SMEs are not only affected by environmental factors as previously established, but also affected by technological and organizational factors.