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The purpose of this paper is to examine the resistance behavior of smart factories in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Drawing upon dual factor perspective, this study examines how two types of quality and perceived usefulness impact user resistance as enabling factors and how switching cost, skepticism, habit and inertia contribute to user resistance as inhibiting factors. Additionally, multi-group analysis is employed to compare small and medium enterprises.

Purposive sampling technique was employed to collect 460 Korean SMEs employees, consisting of 235 small enterprises and 225 medium enterprises. Partial least squares structural equation modeling was used for data analysis.

The results reveal that all three inhibiting factors, switching cost, skepticism and habit, are key antecedents of inertia. In small enterprises, skepticism has a greater impact on inertia, which in turn strongly affects resistance. Additionally, system quality is more crucial for small enterprises, whereas information quality holds more importance for medium enterprises in mitigating resistance. Moreover, when the implementation level of a smart factory is high, the effect of perceived usefulness on user resistance diminishes.

This study has revealed the importance of considering both enabling and inhibiting factors for the adoption of smart factory systems in the context of SMEs. Additionally, it has provided evidence that as the level of the smart factory system increases, the effect of perceived usefulness on user resistance decreases, thus making the transition to smart factory systems more challenging.

This paper aims to take a step in this direction and use the high dimensional fixed effects and quantile regression discontinuity design to test the managerial Coase theorem, which provides an institutional perspective for us to gauge the impact of private property rights on firm performance and the effect of management costs on intermediate inputs.

This study first uses high dimensional regression discontinuity designs to examine the impact of privatization on firm performance in China between 1998 and 2013.

Results indicate that privatization effects increase average outputs of the firm by around 10% given lower management costs, and management costs increase intermediate inputs by more than 50% points. Using data from annual surveys to test managerial Coase theorem, the authors show that management costs negatively affect the marginal effect of privatization on the average outputs of the firm. The positive impact on the investment in intermediate goods and services is larger in magnitude under higher management costs.

The authors develop the managerial Coase theorem. Today, given lower management costs, private property rights provide an incentive structure for a firm to maximize the value of the assets and expand the boundaries.