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The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the discussion on enterprise resource planning (ERP) system adoption by investigating the relationship of enterprise size to the objectives and constraints of ERP adoption.

In the paper, survey data, based on the responses of 44 companies, are analyzed, by dividing the companies into small, medium‐sized, and large enterprises; and comparing these groups, using statistical methods.

The paper finds significant differences exist between small, medium‐sized and large enterprises regarding the objectives and constraints of ERP system adoption. While small enterprises experience more knowledge constraints, large enterprises are challenged by the changes imposed by ERP adoption. Further, large and medium‐sized enterprises are more outward‐oriented in ERP adoption than small enterprises. Business development, as opposed to mere efficiency improvement, while being the most prevalent objective for ERP adoption in all the company groups, is considered especially important by medium‐sized enterprises. Finally, the findings suggest that, instead of considering small and medium‐sized enterprises as one homogeneous group of smaller enterprises, differences between these two groups of companies should be acknowledged in information system adoption.

The paper shows that the Finnish context and the sample size should be taken into consideration when generalizing the findings.

The paper points out the differences in objectives and constraints between companies of different sizes that should be acknowledged in ERP adoption.

Instead of resorting to the customary approach of considering small and medium‐sized enterprises as a homogeneous group of smaller enterprises, this study acknowledges the differences between these two groups of companies.

Since the UK Companies Act 1981, different reporting standards have developed for different classes of company to reduce the reporting burden on non-listed companies. There are now different regimes for listed, large private, medium-sized, small and micro companies. This strategy raises the issue of whether earnings quality across the different classes of company is comparable. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

The paper uses the smoothness of earnings to measure reporting quality across the different types of companies from 2006 to 2013, based on 514,000 observations. Smoothness is an indicator of poor quality.

The authors find that listed companies have the highest earnings quality, closely followed by small and micro companies. In contrast, large private and medium-sized companies have much lower earnings quality. Overall, the authors find companies which switch between reporting regimes have lower earnings quality. The authors also find that earnings quality is not affected by the small company exemption from audit.

Companies filing abbreviated accounts are excluded since they do not file an income statement. The recent revisions to UK GAAP (FRS 102 and FRS 105) are not examined due to insufficient data.

The Financial Reporting Council’s (FRC) strategy of reducing the financial reporting and auditing obligations for small companies seems not to have significantly affected earnings quality. However, the FRC may need to review the reporting requirements of large private and medium-sized companies and also the option of companies to switch between reporting regimes; in these settings earnings quality appears to be weaker.

The paper studies the effect of earnings quality across the different reporting regimes in the UK. Novel and important features of the study are that the sample covers a wide variety of small and micro companies which have not been analyzed previously; the results are disaggregated by year, for assurance that the results are not driven by a single rogue year; and the authors also address the small company exemption from audit, and the flexibility of non-listed companies to switch between regimes.

This case study of the readiness of engineering companies for Industry 4.0 (I4.0) presents how surveyed key figures manage the implementation of I4.0. The research comprised a census of larger and medium-sized engineering companies in the Pilsen region of the Czech Republic. The selected region is characterised by a long industrial tradition and a high concentration of technical and technology-oriented companies. The survey questionnaire monitors a wide range of topics. In this text, the authors present the results only from selected areas. In particular, the authors examined: (1) the use of I4.0 technologies in individual areas, (2) the level of the digital strategy (DS), (3) factors influencing investments in I4.0 technologies, (4) the impact of I4.0 on the workforce and (5) existing threats to I4.0 implementation. The purpose of this paper is to show how key figures with a real impact on the implementation of I4.0 think and act in practice (as opposed to declarations).

In the presented article, thanks to the unique data obtained in the form of a census in the selected, traditionally engineering-oriented Pilsen region, and within the highly industrially oriented Czech Republic, the authors explored the state of readiness of companies for implementation of I4.0. The obtained data allowed the authors to present, in a suitably descriptive way, the current level, with respect to the future, of the planned use of I4.0 principles in the surveyed companies. They monitored not only the state of the adoption process (Industry of 4.0 technologies) compared to the declared proclamations but also which phenomena represent key obstacles.

First, medium-sized companies have barely implemented I4.0, whereas I4.0 is more often implemented in larger companies, especially the so-called DS aspect of I4.0. Furthermore, it appears that larger companies also clearly consider I4.0 more often and see it more significantly as a key success factor. Second, the survey highlighted the fact that customer satisfaction is the determining impetus for the introduction of I4.0. It can be assumed that with an increase in pressure from customers and a decrease in the price of technology, the introduction of I4.0 will increase. The third important finding is that the authors can observe a kind of two-stage flow of innovation in the results. The transformation towards I4.0 is approached by larger companies first, because they are more sensitive to customer satisfaction, are looking for new opportunities, and have greater resources to cover the costly implementation of innovations.

In the presented article, thanks to the unique data obtained in the form of a census in the selected, traditionally engineering-oriented Pilsen region, and within the highly industrially oriented Czech Republic, the authors explored the state of implementation of I4.0. The obtained data allowed the authors to present, in a suitably descriptive way, the current level, with respect to the future, of the planned use of I4.0 principles in the surveyed companies.

IS spending by high‐growth medium‐sized enterprises is at a significantly lower level than that for other companies. However, there was no set pattern or correlation that identified relatively high IS investment with high growth or vice versa. The future forecast for IS investment favours a modest increase in the one to three years planning horizon. Although, given that these are high‐growth companies growing at rates in excess of 15 per cent per annum, the modest increase could represent a real reduction unless the price of technology reduces at a significant rate. The most notable evaluation criteria were “to facilitate change” and “formal financial investment”, but these were closely followed by “act of faith” or “gut feel” approaches. When asked to identify preferred project options, in the past the clear choice of most was medium risk and medium pay off. In the future the preferred options support medium risk and high pay off.

The purpose of this paper was to examine the effects of size, strategic orientation and market orientation on innovation.

A mail survey was conducted on a random sample of 60 South Yorkshire non‐high‐tech small, medium‐sized manufacturing enterprises. A hypothesised model, stating company size, strategic and market orientation affect innovation was tested using multiple linear regression analysis.

The results confirm customer orientation has a positive effect on innovation at product, process and organisational level. While it was found size and strategic orientation have an effect on process innovation. Size also has an impact on strategic orientation and strategic orientation on market orientation. Overall, medium‐sized firms are prospectors and small firms, defenders. Prospectors are customer focused while defenders are competitors and environmental/technology‐led. Process innovation is important to defenders. The findings reiterate that customers are the drivers for organisational innovation; while firms' strategic orientation determines their market orientation.

This paper addresses a gap in the literature by that showing size, strategic orientation and market orientation are interrelated and, that customer orientation has a direct impact on innovation the most.

The purpose of this study is to underscore the impact of the family variable on performance. The authors were interested in understanding whether the differences between Family Firms (FFs) and Non-Family Firms (NFFs), on the one hand, and between large FFs and medium-sized FFs, on the other, were reflected in the performance achieved.

In this paper a sample of 80 industrial companies listed on the Italian Stock Market (FTSE MIB and STAR indexes) were considered, and mixed criteria to distinguish FFs and NFFs (Smyrnios-Romano et al., 1998) were used. The empirical method allowed the development of some research hypotheses by exploiting the Pearson correlation.

There are two main categories of FFs, which correspond to two different strategic and organizational categories, namely, the FFs listed on the large capitalized companies index (FTSE MIB) and the FFs listed on the medium-capitalized companies index (STAR). Each kind of FFs (large FFs and medium-sized FFs) has a specific effect on profitability and financial performance. Specifically, if a company is medium sized, family presence is a relevant variable in achieving better profitability and financial performance than NFFs of the same size; on the other hand, if the company expands to become a large one, the family presence is an irrelevant variable in terms of both profitability and financial leverage (debt ratio).

Limitations of the study concern the definition of the sample, as this paper focused on the industrial sector and the method adopted, as it could be integrated with some econometrical models. The implications of this paper are relevant for families and regulatory bodies because it helps them better understand the effects of governance and company size both on short- and long-term performance. Moreover, the findings of the study can influence the decision-making process of investors to identify the long-term outperformers listed on the Italian Stock Exchange.

This study contributes to the literature on FFs by defining two different categories of FFs, namely, large and medium-sized. It seems that larger companies record a weaker family influence on short-term profitability.

Small to medium enterprises (SMEs) play an important role in the economy, in terms of employment and their contribution to national wealth. A significant proportion of that contribution comes from innovation. SMEs are also the engine for future growth in the economy. Project management has a role to play in managing that innovation and growth. The purpose of this paper is to find the extent to which SMEs use projects, project management and the tools of project management, and to determine what differences there are by size of company and industry.

A questionnaire was developed to examine the extent to which small firms carry out projects, the resources they employ, the way they measure project success and the tools and techniques that they use. The questionnaire was answered by 280 companies from a range of industries and sizes.

It is found that companies of all sizes spend roughly the same proportion of turnover on projects, but the smaller the company, the smaller their projects, the less they use project management and its tools. Surprisingly, hi‐tech companies spend less on projects than lo‐tech or service companies, but have larger projects and use project management to a greater extent. They also use the gadgets of project management to a greater extent.

It is concluded that SMEs do require less‐bureaucratic versions of project management, perhaps with different tool sets than the more traditional versions designed for medium‐sized or large projects, and with different versions for medium, small and micro projects. For all firms, the important success factors are client consultation; planning, monitoring and control; and resource allocation are also identified.

The findings suggest the need for further research into the nature of those “lite” versions of project management designed for SMEs.

In 2014, the European Union (EU) adopted the non-financial reporting Directive (2014/95/EU) making the disclosure of certain non-financial topics mandatory for large listed companies. They are required to report on policies, actions and outcomes regarding their environmental impact, social and employee matters, impact on human rights and corruption. Denmark introduced mandatory corporate social responsibility (CSR) reporting already in 2009, while Germany had no specific legislation on CSR reporting before 2017. Some authors allege that regulation positively impacts CSR reporting, while others argue that the voluntary nature of CSR reporting is essential (Romolini, Fissi, & Gori, 2014). Critics of mandatory reporting claim that non-financial reporting should develop bottom-up, as mandatory one-size-fits-all solutions are inappropriate given the differences among companies (ICC, 2015). The aim of this chapter is to evaluate the effect of legislation on reporting quality by comparing Denmark with a long tradition for mandatory reporting and Germany introducing mandatory rather recently. However, a rich body of literature exists on factors impacting CSR reporting other than legislation. These are among others: firm size, ownership structure, industrial sector and culture (Hahn & Kühnen, 2013.)

The chapter applies a content analysis of 150 CSR reports from German and Danish listed companies between 2008 and 2017 from four different industrial sectors. The chapter finds that mandatory reporting improves overall report quality by lifting the quality floor, yet, without lifting the quality ceiling. Size is important as improvements in reporting are largest in small and medium-sized companies. Companies in environmentally sensitive sectors tend to disclose more relevant environmental information than companies in less sensitive sectors. Both culture and ownership structure has a moderating effect on report quality.

In this paper, the authors review the literature on the nature of the small and medium-sized enterprise concept. The review examines the broad diversity of terms and definitions used to describe these kinds of firms in scholarly and practical settings. They relate this examination to the concept of small business for the purpose of comparison, in order to highlight differences and similarities between the concepts.

Relevant literature including articles from academia and defining documents from practical settings was identified through a scope literature review. Field data were subsequently collected via questionnaires sent to editors and authors of articles related to the theme. The data were content analyzed and the resulting codes consolidated into dimensions in accordance with the Gioia method. Chi-squared tests were applied to categorical data.

The use of the composite category “small and medium” was found to be predominant in the labeling of small businesses in scientific articles, including those in journals that specialize in small businesses, with no justifications presented for this, characterizing a widespread and consensual practice between authors and editors. In the defining documents of practical settings, however, the authors observed greater consistency and precision both in the terms used and in the delimiting values for a small business (self-employed, micro business, small business). In the sample of 27 defining documents mentioned in the articles, 25 specifically defined “small business” and 20 defined “micro business,” using indicators such as number of employees and annual turnover. The indicators delimiting values regarding the category of micro business were the same in all the documents analyzed and, regarding the category of small business, many documents used the same delimiting values.

Recognizing the “non-large enterprise” myth will provide a more effective posture for editors and authors to avoid using the term “small and medium,” resulting in greater precision, understanding and knowledge regarding small businesses. A better definition of a small business by academia can help public policymakers and managers of organizations that support small businesses to tailor their actions better according to the different sizes of companies. This will also lead to social gains, given the importance of small businesses in terms of job creation and countries' economies.

The authors identified and described the myth of the “non-large enterprise” among academics, characterized by the dichotomous view of the business universe, composed of “large enterprises” and “non-large enterprises,” the latter group being characterized by the widespread use of the term “small and medium.”

Total quality management has become an important issue in many public and private sector organizations. This may provide hope that training may be taken seriously in Britain, Many organizations’ competitiveness is seriously damaged by the lack of training, even though many experts advocate comprehensive training to be the foundation on which essential improvement programmes should be built. A survey of small/medium‐sized manufacturing firms in the North of England showed that attitude to training has been short‐sighted and only a small percentage of firms have adopted a total quality management strategy within their organizations. Fully explores the survey results.