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In his 2006 State of the Nation Address, President Thabo Mbeki indicated that the regulatory environment for small businesses would be improved, as this sector plays an important role in the national strategy for accelerated and shared growth. The aim of this study is to determine whether the size of an enterprise and the sector in which the enterprise operates has an impact on how the enterprise’s tax responsibilities are administered and managed. A survey was conducted amongst small and medium enterprises in the manufacturing, retail and business services sectors in Gauteng. The study focused on Gauteng because the majority of small, medium and microenterprises (SMMEs) are located in this province. The study found that most small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the business services sector outsource their tax responsibilities because they lack the time needed to manage these functions. It was also found that the size and type of organisation affects the role taxation inputs play in business decisions. The SMEs included in the survey preferred a reduction in interest and penalties charged as a taxation relief measure.

In his 2006 State of the Nation Address, President Thabo Mbeki indicated that the regulatory environment for small businesses would be improved, as this sector plays an important role in the national strategy for accelerated and shared growth. The aim of this study is to determine whether the size of an enterprise and the sector in which the enterprise operates has an impact on how the enterprise’s tax responsibilities are administered and managed. A survey was conducted amongst small and medium enterprises in the manufacturing, retail and business services sectors in Gauteng. The study focused on Gauteng because the majority of small, medium and microenterprises (SMMEs) are located in this province. The study found that most small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the business services sector outsource their tax responsibilities because they lack the time needed to manage these functions. It was also found that the size and type of organisation affects the role taxation inputs play in business decisions. The SMEs included in the survey preferred a reduction in interest and penalties charged as a taxation relief measure.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether the generally positive impact of transformational leadership on organizational commitment in large organizations can be extended to small- and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) in the manufacturing and service industry. The authors investigate the possible moderator effects of a participative and directive leadership style.

The collected data from 588 employees who rated 93 supervisors within 35 Dutch SMEs in both manufacturing and service industry. The authors analyse the nested data by means of multilevel modelling.

Transformational leadership, defined as visionary leadership and development stimulation, was positively related to organizational commitment for service SMEs, but not for manufacturing SMEs. While a participative leadership style did not moderate the relationship between transformational leadership and organizational commitment in either industry, a directive leadership style strengthened the relationship between transformational leadership and organizational commitment in manufacturing SMEs.

Leaders in the service industry SMEs should engage in transformational leadership, whereas leaders in manufacturing industry SMEs should engage in other types of leadership. Future research should examine effective leadership in manufacturing.

As the results of this study suggest, a distinction should be made between manufacturing and service industry. The advice therefore needs to be twofold. Supervisors in manufacturing SMEs can best improve employees’ organizational commitment by intensifying transformational leader behaviour combined with a directive decision style. Supervisors in service SMEs do not have to combine transformational leader behaviour with a particular leader decision style, if they wish to be more effective.

Demonstrating transformational leader behaviour can be successful in both manufacturing and service SMEs. However, in manufacturing companies this will only be effective when combined with a directive leader decision style.

Although SMEs most of the time are considered as one similar group in comparison to large organizations, the authors follow Hughes and Wood (1999; see also Stonehouse and Pemberton, 2002) who argue that because of their different products, customers, and labour it is important to disaggregate research on SMEs and differentiate between manufacturing and service SMEs.

This paper aims to examine the extent of and key determinants for bank and insurance provider selection and usage by business customers from the small to medium‐sized enterprise (SME) segment, thereby aiming to increase understanding of the drivers of customers' cross‐buying behaviour across these financial service sectors.

Semi‐structured interviews were carried out with key decision makers from 22 SMEs within one country. Content analysis was employed to analyse the data.

Empirical findings suggest use of multiple banks as the norm among SMEs, whereas insurances are dominantly purchased from a single provider. As SME customers appear to prefer using separate, independent providers for their banking and insurance services, absence of customer loyalty programs, unfavourable pricing of the total offering and image conflicts were identified as main factors limiting the willingness to cross‐buy across these financial services sectors.

This qualitative research is focused on the financial industry within one country and bound to smaller business customers, limiting the generalisability of the findings.

The results imply that in order to succeed in cross‐selling bank and insurance services in the SME segment, financial service providers should improve their cross‐selling concepts by creating customer loyalty programs that would reward customer companies according to the use of multiple products in their total portfolio.

This study is the first to describe the customer perceived drivers of cross‐buying bank and insurance services from the same service provider in the business‐to‐business context.

Since the 1980s, a substantial number of theories have contributed extensively to information and communication technology (ICT) adoption. Much of such theories regarded ICT adoption as a one-off action as they specifically focus on factors affecting decision making at one decision point. They tend to play down on the fact that as adoption decision progresses through stages, they are supposedly influenced by the same or different factors. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to examine the dynamic process of ICT adoption using the concepts of dynamic capabilities.

This study used qualitative approach to gain in-depth insight into the dynamic and evolutionary process of emerging information and communication technology (EICT) adoption in UK small service SMEs. Unstructured and semi-structured interviews were conducted in two separate rounds with 26 participants drawn from Crunch Online Data Base and Luton Business Directory. The participants were selected from a sample of 65 drawn from extended classification of professional service businesses proposed by Ramsey et al. (2008). They include managers, government agencies, SMEs consultants and IT vendors; and then purposeful random sampling and snowball sampling were used.

The study developed a framework from the concept of dynamic capabilities and found that using the concept of dynamic capabilities to examine the process of EICT adoption helps to unveil the recursive nature of the process and how the factors vary at both single and multiple stages of adoption.

This study is limited by its focus and other factors. Studying the opinions of small service UK SMEs limits the power of generalizing the identified causal relationships; therefore, extended measures are required on accounts of environmental, cultural, geographical and sectoral differences. While some errors seemed unavoidable when measures appear subjective and prone to common error biases, the study advised on recognizing the over-riding influence of the factor(s) at each stage of the adoption process in order to be proactive in committing resources.

This work focuses on emerging ICT adoption in SMEs from the dynamic and evolutionary process perspective using the concept of dynamic capability. It advances ICT adoption research by developing a framework to depict that ICT is not a one-off event, rather it is dynamic and interactive in nature and factors influencing adoption vary from one stage or the other.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are involved in emerging information and communication technology (EICT) adoption by concentrating on the adoption process and the role played by various actors in the process. Information and communication technology (ICT) adoption research, especially in SMEs, has moved from a simple adopters’ participation process to involving diverse actors that continually interact and influence the process. SMEs need to constantly interact with various human and non-human actors to keep up with the EICT adoption. However, this has proved difficult.

This study adopted a qualitative method to examine the dynamic process of EICT adoption in service SMEs in the UK, and deployed both unstructured and semi-structured interviews in two separate rounds with 26 participants drawn from Crunch Online Database and Luton Business Directory. The participants include managers, customers, government agencies, SMEs consultants and information technology (IT) vendors, with the help of purposeful random sampling.

The study develops a framework informed by actor network theory (ANT) concepts and found that using ANT to examine the process of adoption helps to unveil the recursive nature of the process and the roles of actors which vary from one stage to another. The finding reveals that adoption of EICT is not straightforward; rather, it is evolutionary and dynamic, and small business managers’ play an important role in the process amidst other actors influence. The framework supports businesses of all types. Although ICT applications are influenced by diverse actors including IT experts, customers and vendors, the decision of SME managers regularly shape the values and beliefs of other actors if adequate information are conveyed by the numerous actors. Therefore, adoption of EICT is embraced faster by organizations, especially small businesses, if diverse actors are committed in conveying the right information to the key actors, thereby helping them to make adequate decision, and streamline their business processes.

This study is limited by its focus and other factors. Studying the opinions of small service UK SMEs limits the power of generalizing the identified causal relationships; therefore, extended measures are required on accounts of environmental, cultural, geographical and sectorial differences. While some errors seemed unavoidable when measures appear subjective and prone to common error biases, the study advised on recognizing the overriding influence of the roles at each stage of the adoption process to be proactive in committing resources.

This work is of value to practitioners and academics, as it provides further insight into ICT adoption framework by showing how the diverse actors guarantee EICT adoption in small service(s) businesses. This is relevant given that SMEs have limited knowledge of new ICT and understanding diverse actors and their roles in the adoption process would enhance their knowledge of the analysts in the context of new technology adoption and to cope with EICT continually amidst of the roles of actors in the adoption process. The framework serves as an analytical instrument in explaining ICT adoption process and its outcomes characterized by conflicting views.

While a substantial number of studies have examined information behaviour, most centred on choice of information source, student information behaviour, information behaviour of women, environmental uncertainty and scanning behaviour of top-level hotel executives. However, little is known about how the small and medium enterprise (SME) managers scan, seek, gather, document and use information relevant for emerging information and communication technology (EICT) adoption decision-making. This paper aims to examine the key success factors influencing SME manager’s information behaviour on EICT adoption decision-making.

This study deploys a qualitative approach to exploring 16 key success factors shaping SME managers’ information behaviour on EICT adoption decision-making. More specifically, the study adopted both unstructured and semi-structured interviews with 20 small business managers drawn purposeful from Crunch Database.

This study develops an extended technology, organisation and environment framework by incorporating the information context which helped to unravel 16 key success factors influencing small business managers’ information behaviour on EICT. From the technology context, uncertainty driven, compatibility, replacement of legacy technology, relative advantages, lack of technical know-how and perceived affordability fit for purpose influence SME managers’ information behaviour. Users’ acceptance information, efficiency driven, owner’s support shape the organisation context of perceived information need; competitor’s intelligence gathering, customer’s information gathering provider credibility and government policy influence the environmental context of perceived information need; and finally, perceived information sources credibility, herding event, testimonial and openness to other people’s ideas and experiences are shaped by the information context.

Qualitative research is normally subjective, interpretive and limited on the sample used. Because of the limited number of interviews, the generalisation of the framework and the finding is difficult. Therefore, the finding and the framework need to be established across broader population. The findings are vital considering the fact that small business managers are limited in knowledge and the study may improve the way and manner they go about seeking and gathering information relevant in adopting new ICT.

This research provides further insight into SME managers’ information behaviour by developing a framework and identifying main factors influencing SMEs information behaviours on EICT. Therefore, understanding such factors will enrich their knowledge on some of the factors that may shape their decisions during EICT adoption decision to make effective decision.

Six sigma for small‐ and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) is an emerging topic among many academics and six sigma practitioners over the last two to three years. Very few studies have been reported about the successful applications of six sigma in SMEs. The purpose of this paper is to provide an analysis of six sigma implementation in UK manufacturing SMEs.

This paper presents an extensive literature review based on the experiences of both academics and practitioners on six sigma within an SME environment. The paper highlights the strengths and weaknesses associated with SMEs, followed by the results of a six sigma survey in UK manufacturing SMEs. The results of the study are based primarily on descriptive statistics.

The results of the study show that many of the SMEs are not aware of six sigma and many do not have the resources to implement six sigma projects. It was also found that lean sigma was not generally popular among SMEs. Management involvement and participation, linking six sigma to customers and linking six sigma to business strategy are the most critical factors for the successful deployment of six sigma in SMEs.

This paper reports the first study on the status of six sigma implementation in UK SMEs. The paper will yield a great value to academics, consultants, researchers and practitioners of six sigma.

This paper aims to consolidate the state of research on information behaviour. Regardless of the scholarly surge on information behaviour using numerous models and extended ones, gaps still exist on the development of more pragmatic frameworks that explain and/or predict the information behaviour across different fragmented environmental situations. Therefore, this paper extends technology-organization-environment (T-O-E) framework and synthesizes different research positions into a multi-dimensional framework that assists small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to understand their information behaviour and to make informed decisions on the adoption of emerging information communication technology (EICT).

This study deployed an inductive approach; data were generated from unstructured and semi-structured interviews with 20 participants drawn purposively from Luton directories.

This study developed a more integrated framework underpinned by T-O-E framework, which helped to identify how EICT adoption is critically shaped by perceived information need, information sources selection and the factors determining information source selection.

Qualitative research is normally subjective, inductive, interpretive and limited on the sample used. However, because of the limited number of interviews used, as well as industry-specific nature of the study, the generalization of the framework and the findings will be difficult, hence, the need to test the framework on a broader population and cross-context testing.

The T-O-E framework is extended to Expectancy (T-O-E-E) to provide a more robust insight into information behaviour of SMEs from a multi-dimensional perspective. It also offers a more analytical framework for exploring critical issues identified and demonstrates the capacity to provide a reliable explanation to the findings. Further, it serves as a tool for assessing the benefits or challenges of SMEs information behaviour especially on the EICT adoption decision.

While traditional theories of information and communication technology (ICT) adoption have been deployed to study ICT adoption in the past, these theories considers ICT adoption as static and rely on conceptualising factors as variables and predicting their levels of outcome at a single decision stage. Although much has been credited to these theories, they have continuously ignored the fact that as decisions to adopt are made and challenged along the adoption process, such decision can be influenced by the same, different or combination of factors at different stages of the adoption process. This paper aims to examine ICT adoption from a dynamic process perspective and to explore the key determinants and how these differ from one stage of the adoption process to another.

Qualitative method was adopted in this study. Both unstructured and semi-structured interviews were conducted in two separate stages using purposeful random sampling. Hybrid approach of thematic analysis was adopted in analysing the data.

This study develops a framework informed by actor network theory (ANT) concepts and finds that using ANT to examine the process of adoption helps to unveil the recursive nature of the process. The study reveals that the 14 determinants identified in this study influenced adoption at different stages. Factors such as ease of use, managerial time, customer focus and adoption influenced adoption at all the stages. This reveals that factors influencing ICT adoption are not static at one particular stage rather it may influence ICT adoption at different stages.

Qualitative research is often subjective and interpretive in nature, and one of the limitations is the sample used in this research. Considering the small number of interviews carried out in this study, the generalisation of finding and the framework remains to be established across a wider population. Therefore, the factors presented could be limited considering that a number of practitioners that are involved in establishing emerging ICT are numerous. Therefore, other factors are prevailing to other industries or sectors that may provide scholars another way of examining these factors. Also, the framework demonstrates that it is a valuable analytical tool for researchers to examine how and why different actors including small and medium enterprise (SME) managers act around emerging ICT.

This study develops a framework that revealed the interactive and recursive nature of ICT adoption and the determinants influencing the process of ICT adoption at different stages thereby advancing ICT adoption research. The study challenges researchers to always consider ICT adoption as dynamic and unpredictable instead of one-off action as factors influencing its adoption are not static rather; they vary from one stage to another.