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The purpose of this study is to evaluate the factors related to the adoption of social media by women entrepreneurial small businesses (ESBs).

Using a structured survey instrument, this study gathered data from 101 women entrepreneurs in Yemen. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the data.

The results confirm that social media has been widely applied by women ESBs in Yemen and has made a significant contribution to different business strategies and processes, mainly marketing, promotion and communication. Social media adoption is linked mainly with nontechnical obstacles and challenges, in specific, those “soft” factors such as management attitude, as well as “hard” technical obstacles and challenges involving cost and other practical aspects regarding social media nature.

This study contributes to the increase in awareness of the impact of social media among female ESB owners. A greater understanding of the impact of social media will eventually lead to better use of the tool to increase performance.

This study highlights the perceived benefits and challenges that give Yemeni female business owners strong decision-making power in their businesses. This study provides insight into the numerous drivers that affect owners/managers’ decisions to adopt and continuously use social media in the future.

This study aims to investigate the impact of market orientation on small and medium-sizedenterprises (SMEs) innovativeness in Yemen.

The study uses empirical data collected from 206 managers, owners and operators of SME in Sana'a. By using exploratory and quantitative methods, the collected data was examined using descriptive, correlation and regression analyses.

The results indicated that market orientation, as a whole, has a significant impact on SME innovativeness. Specifically, while the two dimensions – customer orientation and supplier orientation – have a significant impact on SME innovativeness, the other two dimensions – competitor and inter-functional coordination – do not have a significant impact on SME innovativeness.

The study focuses only on four factors that have an influence over SME innovativeness based on the perspective of managers.

SMEs represent the largest portion of businesses in Yemen’s private sector. It is anticipated that the findings of this study will help SMEs’ owners and managers to better understand market orientation and the significant impact it has on SME innovativeness.

The value of this research work is evident from the fact that the market orientation models have neglected the part of suppliers (upstream supply chain) in generating superior value for customers, even though they have concentrated on the role of customers (downstream supply chain) and competitors.