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The purpose of the study is to create an initial understanding of how various internal and external actors contribute to the development of new services based on the research question considering “which different actor takes part in small companies’ service development processes in order giving access to the resources needed and what roles do they play?”

Due to the lack of previous studies within the area, the focus in this study has been to use a qualitative method to reach a deeper insight about how small companies’ service development could be described, as seen from an actor’s perspective.

Based on the empirical analysis, the study identifies seven main categories of actors who were involved in the service-development process that contributes with different types of resources and their role varies during the development process. The actors and their roles are presented in a model giving initial understanding how various internal and external actors contribute to the development of new services.

Using a qualitative approach, the research results may lack generalizability. Instead, the findings should be seen as an initial starting point for further studies.

The paper’s highlight a number of actor roles that need to be handled to create possibilities for small companies’ service development.

The paper fills a research gap in the service innovation research. Traditionally, this research has been focused on larger companies, with a focus on what happens inside the companies.

The development of the Single European Market and the resulting publicity has persuaded many smaller firms to look to continental Europe as their first choice for market expansion opportunities. These include many UK small firms in the service sector where the economic benefits of a reduction in trade barriers are not so apparent. The approaches used by small service companies and professional practices in dealing with Europe are examined to identify the lessons learnt and to draw comparisons with Central Government advice. Semi‐structured interviews were held with managers from a randomly drawn sample of small firms in the UK with experience of exporting their services to Europe. The firms had experienced varying degrees of success with their forays into Europe. The study suggests that some small service sector firms may have greater potential in non‐EEC and/or English‐speaking nations than in Europe and that for many the experience of Europe has been expensive and erroneous. Small service firms should look to match their strengths to the market, which may be in Eastern Europe, South Africa or the Middle East, rather than tackle an EEC country where their competitive advantages are limited and market conditions may be hostile.

In today's supply chain management practices, a successful strategy depends increasingly on the performance of third party logistics (3PLs) providers as they play a key integrative role linking the different supply chain elements more effectively. Information and communications technology (ICT) has become an important element of 3PL competitive capability as it enables higher levels of supply chain integration. Recent industry developments have widened the technological gap between large and small 3PLs. This is critical particularly for those markets populated by a large number of small 3PLs such as the Italian logistics industry. The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of ICT adoption in small logistics service providers. The focus of the study is the Italian 3PL market.

The methodology adopted in this paper is based on the action research framework and it is a combination of theoretical analysis and empirical findings (focus groups and surveys). Firstly, a literature review on ICT dissemination in the international and Italian 3PL industry has been carried out. Then, a field survey has been developed preceded by two focus groups. The empirical investigation examined a sample of 153 small Italian 3PLs on the base of a definition and taxonomy proposed by the authors.

The results provide a useful technological profile of the surveyed companies, as well as an analysis of the role of ICT in customising services and of the factors influencing ICT adoption.

To give a more robust scientific justification of the survey results, it would be useful to carry out an additional large‐scale analysis including other countries with a high presence of small logistics service companies. Furthermore, a complementary case‐study analysis would be of help in defining the role of specific factors in different types of 3PL. Further investigations in this field are needed to better understand innovation paths, and how ICT can improve the competitive capabilities of 3PLs and of the wider supply chain.

Managers of small 3PLs can use the findings to set‐up guidelines for improving a company's technology innovation. Technology vendors can use the findings to better market their service/product into the small logistics service provider segment.

Despite the fact that much has been written about the dissemination of ICT, there is still a shortage of research in the field of small 3PLs with little empirical investigation into the usage of ICT by small 3PLs. This paper provides a contribution to filling this void and suggests some possible research directions.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the types and the nature of innovations developed by small companies in a traditional service sector, as well as the ways that innovations impact their strategic capabilities.

The paper provides evidence from three case studies captured through a number of interviews with senior managers within the companies. The paper adopted a comparative analysis, selecting two cases that have managed this process with great success and one showing evidently less success.

Organisational and process innovations are critical aspects of a dynamic strategy in small service companies. Although a successful innovation strategy does not require the development of technological systems and knowledge intensive services, it does necessitate their sophisticated usage. Innovation enables the firms to access new markets and the reconfiguration of strategic capabilities in the long term.

The paper identifies the existence of strong linkages between organisational and process innovation and dynamic capabilities in the small companies in a traditional service sector. The research has used qualitative methods and a case study methodology. Further research (e.g. other service industries) and ideally statistical evidence are required to generalise these findings into the wider service sector.

This work calls for managers in small companies in a traditional service sector which wish to grow to pay more attention to their active involvement in organisational and process innovations and the sophisticated usage (or development) of knowledge intensive services.

The paper brings together a number of concepts from the innovation studies and the strategic management literature to investigate management practices and strategies of small companies in a traditional service sector, the tramp shipping sector.

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.

The purpose of this paper is to improve the understanding of how individually designed services are actually developed in small companies.

This study focuses on a small number of enterprises over a relatively long period. The study has been using a qualitative method based on repeated interviews.

The findings in this study show that there is no such thing as formal and/or structured development processes within the companies that were studied. The development process is more focused on how to, in an informal way, get hold of knowledge and other resources that are needed in order to create the new service. The development process can therefore be described as an intellectual and interactive process that involves cooperation within and between a changing set of actors and intervening parties, who all strive to create the knowledge that is needed in order to form new service offerings.

The main contribution of this study is to bring new perspectives into the service development area, and thereby highlight other aspects that the traditional service development literature has been focusing on, i.e. intra-organisation service development.

This paper aims to focus on economic consequences of audit outcomes by investigating the concept of audit quality operationalised as seven components of audit benefits to owner-managers of small companies.

The authors analyse survey data collected in 2013 from 642 small private companies above the audit exemption threshold in Finland.

No significant association was found between engagement of a Big 4 auditor (proxy for audit quality) and any of the audit benefits tested. However, the results provide consistent evidence of a positive relationship between the owner-manager’s perception of the competence and reliability of the external accountant and the perceived benefits of audit. It was also found that companies which do not incorporate e-processes in the accounting system are more likely to value the internal control benefits provided by audit.

Small business surveys suffer from poor response rates. To some extent, the authors overcame this problem by using two focused sampling frames and reminders. Care must be taken when generalising the results, as the definition of “small” varies across jurisdictions.

By focusing on small private companies, the research contributes to the audit quality literature. Contrary to studies of listed companies, the authors conclude that use of a Big 4 auditor is not a sufficient surrogate for audit quality in small companies. The authors go beyond aggregate measures of audit quality used in previous studies and identify specific audit benefits.

The purpose of this study is to explore the impact of the decision to adopt environmental practices in small service companies given that most of the studies on environmental practices focus on the industrial sector and on larger companies.

This work is based on 448 personal surveys involving the managers of small travel agencies, using structural equation modeling to study the links between the dimensions studied.

The results of this paper suggest that being proactive on environmental issues can bring small service companies a great number of benefits that improve their competitiveness and firm performance.

To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first study to explore the impact of the adoption of environmental practices on a single service industry. It therefore provides useful empirical evidence for managerial practice in the industry concerned.

The purpose of this paper is to make available an artifact that helps entrepreneurs and managers to recognize the diversity of creative logics centered on resources that are already available to the organization, presenting it as a tool to support the expansion of the product and service portfolio and as an alternative to Research and Development strategies, which are difficult to implement in the context of small businesses.

Following the precepts of the Action Design Research (ADR) method, researchers and practitioners (teachers and consultants) collaborated in the development of the artifact. Successive versions of the artifact were tested in the field: in classrooms by the teachers and in small companies by the consultants.

In addition to the artifact itself, which is available on the Internet, the lessons learned from the design process of the artifact were formalized in meta-requirements and meta-designs, in accordance with the precepts of the design theory that served as the foundation of ADR. These meta-specifications facilitate the critical analysis and evolution of the proposed artifact, in addition to the conception and proposition of new artifacts for the same class of problem.

The dialogical nature of the ADR approach, with the development of the artifact through interactive cycles between design and use, based on the practitioners' experience of using it with the final beneficiaries, resulted in a functional artifact that is simple to use by those interested in discussing product and service innovation with small organizations. The artifact in the form of software is available to all at https://tentypescreation.com.

From business examples and comparisons with widespread creative tactics, such as copy and invention, eight other creative tactics centered on resources available in the organization are explored by the artifact, providing means for practitioners to discuss alternative ways for managers, entrepreneurs, and future entrepreneurs to face the challenge of product and service innovation in small businesses.

New internet technologies are not always readily accepted by target users – especially by small companies. More effective identification of target market characteristics and requirements associated with the adoption and ongoing usage of internet‐based service systems (NCSSs) is therefore needed. Drawing on adoption theory, this research aims to assess pre‐launch survey, legacy and longitudinal data to evaluate factors that encourage small companies to use NCSSs.

The roll out and ongoing usage of a new NCSS are tracked within a single channel of dental offices over a 185‐week period. Logistic and multiple regression analyses are utilized to examine the influences of system attributes, attributes of the target user group, supplier promotional activity and system completeness on ongoing usage.

Pre‐launch survey data is an ineffective predictor of ongoing small company NCSS usage. The best predictors are indicators of organizational readiness and organizational resources drawn from the supplier firm's legacy database. Synergistic coordination of promotional activities and new system features generate the largest number of ongoing users.

Findings are not generalizable to the population of small service provider firms because the sample consisted purely of regional dental offices.

Pre‐launch promotional efforts should concentrate on capturing specific attributes from supplier firm legacy databases that more accurately predict ongoing customer usage.

As far as can be determined, this study is the first reported longitudinal examination of NCSS usage across an entire customer base. The examination of pre‐launch and legacy data as predictors of ongoing usage and the assessment of ongoing usage rather than intention to adopt or try out a technological innovation extends the adoption literature and responds to calls for research that improves current understanding of the determinants of e‐business acceptance and usage across organizations.