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This study aims to propose an integrative conceptual framework of e‐learning adoption and assimilation that is adapted to the specific context of small to medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs).

The literature on the state of e‐learning usage in SMEs and on the IT adoption and assimilation factors that can be specifically applied to e‐learning adoption and assimilation in this context are reviewed. These factors are then integrated within a research framework, and a set of 20 propositions formulated.

The paper identifies the technological, organizational and environmental factors that are likely to favor or hinder e‐learning adoption and assimilation in SMEs, as well as the interaction among these factors.

The integrative framework and the 20 propositions that emanate from it constitute the conceptual foundation for a research program and hypotheses on the adoption and assimilation of e‐learning in SMEs.

This study offers managers a frame of reference to analyze their firm's situation before initiating an e‐learning program by highlighting key adoption and assimilation factors in the specific context of SMEs.

This study proposes an integrative conceptual framework of e‐learning adoption and assimilation that is adapted to the specific context of SMEs.

Increased requirements for competitiveness, innovation, quality, flexibility and information processing capability has led a number of small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) to implement advanced manufacturing technologies (AMT). Seeks to explore this.

Using a contingency theory perspective, a survey study of 118 Canadian manufacturers was made to determine the performance outcomes of the “fit” or alignment between the critical success factors (CSFs) of operations management in SMEs and their level of proficiency in the use of AMT.

It was found that while increased CSF and AMT assimilation levels directly impact operational performance in terms of increased productivity, cost reductions, flexibility, quality, and integration, a mismatch between the two significantly reduces performance. From an information processing view of the firm, it was also found that increased uncertainty in the SMEs' environment leads to increased CSF levels but not to increased assimilation of AMT.

Common to survey studies, the nature of the sample and perceptual nature of certain measures impose care in generalizing the results of the study.

Provides information showing that enterprises must increase their ability to manage both manufacturing and information technologies.

This paper seeks to build and validate a typological profile of manufacturing small to medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) in regard to their eventual adoption of an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system, based on the predisposition of their environmental, organizational, and technological context.

Provides cluster analysis of secondary questionnaire data obtained from a benchmarking database of 356 Canadian manufacturing SMEs.

Three types of SMEs were obtained: 140 “internally predisposed” SMEs, 60 “externally predisposed” SMEs, and 156 “unfavourably disposed” SMEs.

Provides a valid framework for analysis that can serve ERP vendors and consultants, as well as SME owner‐managers, the first to better target their offer of products/services, and the second to better position their firm before contemplating the implementation of an ERP system.

This paper aims to clarify the notions that underlie performance measurement systems (PMS) and to propose an information systems (IS)‐based characterisation and definition of PMS, that is, as a performance management information system (PMIS).

Research on PMS can be enhanced by a clear, precise and uniform characterisation of this research object in IS terms A classification scheme is developed and the contribution areas of an IS perspective to PMS research are presented and exemplified.

The knowledge developed in IS research in the form of IS theories, models and methods can be applied in research on PMS, particularly in empirical studies that analyse the individual and organisational behaviours associated with the PMS phenomenon.

The conceptualisation and definition of PMS, as found in the literature, have not truly reflected their basic nature and characterisation as IS.

The research benefits of an IS‐based approach are illustrated through a PMS usage model founded on IS theory. In so doing, a contribution is made to the PMS research field by reinforcing its theoretical and empirical foundations.

This study proposes a novel and demonstrably useful IS‐based perspective, including an improved conceptualization and definition of PMS.

The present study aims at a deeper understanding of the performance outcomes of the alignment between the e‐business capabilities of manufacturing small‐ and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) and their business strategy in terms of Miles and Snow's recognised strategic typology that includes prospectors, analyzers, and defenders.

From a contingency theory perspective, a survey of 107 Canadian manufacturers was used to collect data that were analyzed through correlation analysis.

Results indicate that the ideal e‐business profiles vary in the relation to the firms' strategic orientation, whether it is of the defender, analyzer or prospector type. E‐business alignment has positive performance outcomes for manufacturing SMEs in terms of growth, productivity and financial performance.

The nature of the sample impose care in generalizing the results of the study. These results also allow us to emphasise the nature rather than the investment value of the SMEs' information technology investment, given that certain forms of e‐business would be more appropriate for certain firms, depending upon their strategic orientation.

For SME owner‐managers that require greater manufacturing flexibility, increased systems integration, products and services of better quality, and higher levels of product and process innovation, the results of this study allow us to prone an examination of their firm's level of e‐business assimilation, this being done in conjunction with their strategic intent.

This is one of the first studies to have used a rigorous conceptualisation and measure of alignment to confirm the theoretical validity and empirical usefulness of this notion and of the strategic contingency approach for research on e‐business, and to compare this approach with the universalistic approach founded upon “best practices”.

In the now global business environment, SMEs are being subjected to increased pressures. In the manufacturing sector in particular, increased requirements for information and knowledge management, innovation, quality, and flexibility within new organisational forms such as the network enterprise entail organisational developments that can affect critical business processes, R&D in particular, and business performance. Hence, the customer dependency of manufacturing SMEs on certain important customers or the absence of diversification in their customer base can have significant impacts on the R&D activities, the productivity, and eventually the profitability of these organisations. Through an empirical study of 179 Canadian SMEs, it was found that more commercially dependent firms allocate more financial and human resources to product R&D. These firms are also less productive in that they have relatively fewer sales per employee. While customer dependency seems to negatively affect the SMEs’ profitability, firms whose product R&D activities are more intense report significantly higher gross margins. R&D activities could allow manufacturing SMEs to counter the influence of their major customers, by reversing the direction of commercial dependency, and thus to reduce their vulnerability.

In order to deepen knowledge and further build theory on the use of advanced manufacturing systems (AMS) in SMEs, the present research seeks to explore the following questions: are the AMS used by SMEs aligned with their network, product and market development strategies? And does the alignment of AMS contribute to the successful outcome of these strategies, that is, to the business performance of manufacturing SMEs?

A survey of 248 Canadian manufacturers was used to collect data that were analyzed through cluster analysis and analysis of variance.

Three alignment patterns of strategic development were identified and named local SMEs, transition SMEs, and world‐class SMEs. World‐class firms were found to clearly outperform local firms in terms of growth and profitability whereas transition SMEs did not perform significantly better or worse than the other two groups.

The nature of the sample imposes care in generalizing the results of the study. Co‐alignment constitutes a valid theoretical foundation on which to further investigate the fundamental technology management problem for manufacturing SMEs, namely how these firms can achieve value from ever‐increasing investments in AMS.

When shifts in the business environment require strategic choices or provide strategic opportunities for development in terms of product innovation, market expansion or network extension, the resulting changes must be inter‐linked and assessed systemically with the SMEs' assimilation and integration of AMS.

Viewing AMS from a configurational perspective has provided a deeper understanding of the extent to which SMEs co‐align their use of manufacturing technology with their development strategies in order to achieve greater business performance.

New information technologies have become the source of a new form of entrepreneurship known as cyberentrepreneurship. The cyberentrepreneur creates a firm that is essentially founded upon electronic commerce (e‐business start‐up), and whose main activities are based on exploiting networks using Internet technologies. So far, researchers have tended to study entrepreneurship as it is expressed in more traditional business models, even though there is recent interest in technology‐based entrepreneurs. Given that cyberentrepreneurship is still in its emergent phase, further research is needed on the subject. The study described in this paper, an in‐depth exploratory study of five cyberentrepreneurs, was designed to throw more light on cyberentrepreneurial processes and on the competitive elements applied by cyberentrepreneurs in starting up their business.

The purpose of this paper is to propose an intelligent infrastructure for the reconciliation of knowledge management and e‐collaboration systems.

Literature on e‐collaboration, information management, knowledge management, learning process, and intellectual capital is mobilised in order to build the conceptual framework.

This paper presents a conceptual framework including a set of concepts and guidelines that can be used to specify an efficient knowledge infrastructure for networked enterprises.

Results from this study uphold the emerging research area of knowledge management in e‐collaboration systems. The proposed framework derived purely from theory and conceptual analysis; more work needs to be done in order to validate and experiment with the framework. Future research remains be carried out to apply the framework on a broader scale, and in particular to determine its applicability relative to various collaboration patterns and current technology development.

Results from this study are important for networked enterprises, especially knowledge‐intensive enterprises, who intend to build e‐collaboration systems to organize their knowledge base and to share it with their partners.

This paper is one of the first to address collaborative knowledge management in e‐collaboration systems with a focus on the promotion of learning process and the creation of intellectual capital.

This paper seeks to take a Gestalts perspective to analyze the alignment between the HRM practices and strategic capabilities of SMEs.

Based on Miles and Snow's adaptive cycle, this study examines the coherence of HRM practices with the strategic capabilities of manufacturing SMEs (n=176) in terms of products, markets, and networks. A principal component factor analysis was first made to reduce the HRM practices into a lesser number of factors. A clustering algorithm was then used to determine three groups of SMEs or Gestalts. Finally, an a posteriori examination of the performance of each group was made.

SMEs align their HRM practices with their realized strategy within three configurations, namely local, international, and world‐class SMEs. Regardless of their strategic choices, these SMEs achieve comparable levels of performance.

The Gestalts perspective seems effective in its capacity to describe the role of the HRM function. While the firms surveyed are fairly representative of Canadian manufacturing SMEs, there might yet exist a bias in that these are firms that have chosen to undertake a benchmarking exercise.

The study is one of the first to use Miles and Snow's adaptive cycle as a foundation to specify the type of activities that researchers should consider in assessing the SME's overall degree of strategic alignment. A practical implication for owner‐managers is that their strategic choices in terms of product innovation, market expansion or network extension must be inter‐linked with the development of their HRM practices.