• Title/Summary/Keyword: small business owners

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Effects of Technological-Organizational-Environmental (TOE) Factors on Social Media Adoption in Small and Medium Enterprises

  • Sikandar Ali Qalati;Wenyuan Li;Truong Thi Hong Thuy;Esthela Galvan Vela
    • International Journal of Computer Science & Network Security
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    • v.24 no.7
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    • pp.186-194
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    • 2024
  • This study aims to investigate the technological-organizational-environmental (TOE) factor of influencing small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs') social media (SM) adoption in developing countries. This study used a closed-ended questionnaire to collect data from randomly selected respondents (owners, executives, and managers) from SMEs operating in Pakistan. SMART PLS version 3.2.8 was used for path analysis of 423 responses. The research findings include the direct influence of TOE factors on SMEs SM adoption and SMEs performance. Furthers, this paper also has implications for practitioners and scholars interested in exploring the SM adoption and usage in SMEs.

The Role of Public Food Delivery Mobile Applications in the Food Delivery Market: A Game Theory Model

  • Bo-Hun SEO;Da-Hye SONG;Jong Woo CHOI
    • Journal of Distribution Science
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    • v.22 no.4
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    • pp.91-104
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    • 2024
  • Purpose: The study aims to assess the current status of domestic public food delivery apps and analyze the process through which sellers choose between private delivery apps and public delivery apps. This involves exploring strategiesto achieve the original purpose of public food delivery apps, which is to enhance the small business owners income and promote consumer welfare by preventing the monopoly of private food delivery apps. Research design, data and methodology: the research methodology is based on a model that introduces adjustments for non-economic effects, considering the preferences of multi-homing consumers, to more realistically reflect the benefits of sellers' choices. For data analysis, real business performance data from 'Daeguro', 'Meokkaebi', and 'Somunnan Shop' were used. Results: The study revealed that if the market share of public delivery apps within a specific region increases beyond a certain level, the benefits for small-business sellers also increase. This leads to the strategic advantage of simultaneously using both delivery apps. Furthermore, the results exhibit a tendency similar to real social phenomena. Conclusions: This analysis confirmed the role of public food delivery apps in the domestic delivery app market and presents policy recommendations, including application integration and the implementation of exclusive public interest functions, to effectively fulfill this role.

The Shifting of Business Activities during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Does Social Media Marketing Matter?

  • PATMA, Tundung Subali;WARDANA, Ludi Wishnu;WIBOWO, Agus;NARMADITYA, Bagus Shandy
    • The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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    • v.7 no.12
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    • pp.283-292
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    • 2020
  • The implementation of physical or social distancing during the Covid-19 pandemic has an implication on the shifting of conventional to online business activities. This study aims to explore how financial support, perceived benefits, external pressure determine social media marketing as well as understanding the role of internet and e-business technology (IEBT) that occurs in this relationship. This study adopted a quantitative study with Structural Equation Modeling (SEM)-based variance Partial Least Square (PLS), which aims to enhance understanding of the relationship between variables. The surveyed population of this study came from 123 small- and medium-sized enterprise (SME) owners in East Java of Indonesia, using an online survey and selected with the convenience random sampling method. The findings of this study indicated that the perceived benefits and external pressure have a positive effect on the adoption of IEBT. However, financial support failed in explaining SMEs' adoption of IEBT. This study confirmed that the adoption of IEBT has successfully mediated the influence of financial support, perceived benefits, and external pressure on social media marketing. Despite the samples solely collected from East Java, this study is the first step in research related to the social media marketing in SMEs in Indonesia.

Increasing Innovation Performance in SMEs Trade: Organizational Forgetting, Knowledge Management, and Business Agility as Predictors

  • Irfan BUDIONO;Gromyko BONGSO
    • Journal of Distribution Science
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    • v.22 no.6
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    • pp.23-32
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    • 2024
  • Purpose: Trade in small and medium businesses must improve innovation performance before and after the COVID-19 pandemic. The requirement for rapid innovation is being able to compete and survive post-pandemic. This research attempts to investigate the influence of organizational forgetting, knowledge management, and business agility in distributing innovation performance improvementsto SMEs in Tasikmalaya, Indonesia. Research design, data and methodology: In this research, a structural equation modeling approach with SmartPLS was applied. This research used 221 Tasikmalaya SMEs as samples. The findings of this study show that SMEs are still underrepresented in technological advancement. Results: Organizational forgetfulness does not have a significant impact on innovation performance, nor does it have an indirect impact through knowledge management. Business agility, on the other hand, has a significant indirect effect on innovation performance. Knowledge management does not have a significant and direct impact on innovation performance, but business agility has a significant impact. Conclusions: Efforts to enhance SMEs' trade must be willing to challenge the status quo or abandon knowledge that is no longer relevant to current developments to improve business agility and innovation. Technology-oriented SMEs can quickly become agile by implementing organizational forgetting. SME owners must be willing to adapt to technological advances to adopt organizational forgetfulness.

The Roles of Shop Owners in Boosting Conventional Markets (상권활성화에 있어서 상업자의 역할에 관한 연구)

  • Park, Seung-Je
    • Journal of Distribution Science
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    • v.9 no.4
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    • pp.93-102
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    • 2011
  • With the increasing interest in boosting conventional markets, many authors have paid considerable attention to the roles of shop owners, store image improvement, and how to attract or maintain customers. Nevertheless, it is not easy to find papers related to the relationship between shop owners and their contribution to trading areas, directly or indirectly, in the academic world. Accordingly, research for answering the following question has been initiated: what kind of roles do shopkeepers should play in revitalizing poor conventional markets? Based on the previous studies focusing on enhancing traditional markets, this research was approached from the new insights that have been obtained concerning how to boost conventional markets, that is, from the perspectives of a shop owner and a trader. Therefore, this research aims at identifying some resolutions associated with the roles of shop owners to enhance a shopping district in a specific area, classifying their business roles into a few categories, depending on the degree of their participation in improving the shopping environment. Compared with previous studies focusing on emphasizing the importance of improving customer services from a shopkeeper's perspective, this research provides a new insight as far as how to boost conventional markets. It is, furthermore, necessary to note how market participants, particularly shop owners as they are the key players, can contribute to rebuilding their business area together with their customers. As a research technique for effectively achieving the research goal, the authors adopted a documentation methodology based on a large amount of the existing literature for studying how to rebuild traditional markets. Concerned about the ways to revitalize conventional markets, many authors have proposed a variety of strategies, and have suggested more detailed action plans from a practitioner's perspective. By analyzing these research results, the authors will have accomplished the research aim. Rather than simply identifying the roles of shop owners, the author found that they had to understand their social contribution for enhancing their trading areas, as well as their functional roles, in forming a regional society. The conventional market should be, thus, regarded as the place to share regional culture. Consequently, the authors draw some conclusions from the research results. In order to answer the above question, it was found that the roles of shop owners have been considered as one of the most important ways for revitalizing traditional markets. With respect to their roles, it is evident that their business activities are closely related to the improvement of the trading area in terms of sociality, regional development, and market revitalization, by selling products or services to the customers visiting that area. In a word, this implies that shop owners have to actively take part in boosting conventional markets as a core player. Although the authors have properly achieved the research aim, this study has a limitation, like most other research, in adopting a documentation method. Because the research is based on existing data results provided by the prior research conducted a long time ago, whether the research findings are applicable in a contemporary market should be re-examined in future research from a practitioner's perspective, rather than from an academic's perspective.

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Reinforcement Plan of safety and health technical support project for small-sized businesses by experts' survey (전문가 설문조사에 근거한 소규모 사업장 안전보건 기술지원사업 내실화 방안)

  • Yoon, Younggeun;Ahn, Yongro;Oh, Taekeun
    • The Journal of the Convergence on Culture Technology
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    • v.8 no.5
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    • pp.631-639
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    • 2022
  • Recently, the government is trying to change the paradigm of occupational safety by enforcing the entire revision of the Industrial Safety and Health Act and the Punishment of Serious Accidents Act with the goal of reducing the occupational accident and death rate by half. In particular, small-scale workplaces with less than 50 employees or less than 100 million won have difficulties in establishing a safety and health management system due to lack of safety and health management competency and lack of will of business owners. Therefore, this study attempted to identify problems and suggest improvement measures through an expert survey on the overall business area of the small business safety and health technology support project, which is one of the government's policies.

A Study on the Establishment of Process Safety Management (PSM) System for Small and Medium Size Chemical Plants (중소화학공장의 공정안전관리(PSM)시스템 구축에 관한 연구)

  • Baek Jong-Bae;Ko Jae-Wook
    • Journal of the Korean Institute of Gas
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    • v.3 no.1
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    • pp.8-13
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    • 1999
  • The article 49-2 of Industrial Safety Law requires that all the owners of industrial plants which contains dangerous facilities perform the process safety management. That is, this law requires the owners of industrial plants to take necessary measures to prevent fire, harmful gas leaking, explosion, and other serious accidents that could cause demage and injuries to the employees. So far, domestic chemical plants have tried to invest money and time in safety management. But, such efforts have been made only in chemical plants that were subsidiaries of large business groups. Moreover, since the economic crisis of Korea which is symbolized by the IMF bailout, small and medium size companies could not afford to invest in safety management. Their major concern is to increase productivity and thereby, survive in this crisis. The goal of this research is to develop the process safety management system that can help small and medium size companies to positively secure the process safety management. So, in developing the process safety management system, the financial and practical difficulties of such companies are fully taken into consideration.

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Drivers of Small Business Competitive Advantage: A Study on Flower Shop Product Distribution in Bali

  • i gusti agung ketut gede SUASANA;i gede RIANA;i wayan SANTIKA;anak agung ayu diah puspita MAHADEWI
    • Journal of Distribution Science
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    • v.22 no.1
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    • pp.1-12
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    • 2024
  • Purpose: Rapid technological advancements and information dissemination have catalyzed a steep upsurge in the distribution of ornamental flower arrangement products, effectively meeting the burgeoning demands of customers. This research endeavours to elucidate the relationship between market orientation (MO) and competitive advantage (CA), with the intermediary role of marketing performance (MP) within Denpasar's flower arrangement retail sector. Research Methods: Conducted within a Denpasar-based flower shop, the study engaged 94 respondents through a questionnaire-based data collection methodology. Utilizing a saturated sampling approach, the sample size equated to the population size. The analysis employed SmartPLS, a robust statistical tool. Results: The study findings reveal that MO does not exert a statistically significant direct impact on CA. Nevertheless, MO exhibits a substantively positive and statistically significant influence on MP, which, in turn, substantially and significantly contributes to CA. For flower arrangement business owners, it is imperative to orchestrate effective control over their marketing performance. Conclusion: This involves nurturing enduring customer and employee relationships by steadily implementing market-oriented distribution strategies. By doing so, customer satisfaction and growth, pivotal in bolstering marketing performance, can be adeptly sustained, ultimately culminating in attaining competitive advantage.

The Effects of Product Innovation, Process Innovation and Government Policy on SMEs Performance: Evidence from Indonesia

  • ISMANU, Sidik;KUSMINTARTI, Anik;RIWAJANTI, Nur Indah
    • The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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    • v.8 no.12
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    • pp.305-311
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    • 2021
  • The purpose of this study is to examine and analyze product innovation and process innovation as an indicator of innovation that affects the performance of small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Government policy as a moderator of the effect of innovation on performance. This research was conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic. The population in this study are SMEs that produce clothes and t-shirts in Indonesia. Data collection is done through questionnaires and direct interviews. Online questionnaires were given to the managers and business owners. The sampling technique used is purposive sampling based on certain conditions of the research object, and in this study 100 business units were selected. The result of loading factor correlation between indicator and latent construct is significant. Hypothesis which explored the linear relationship between the construct variables was tested. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was used. The results of this study indicate that there is a positive relationship between innovation and business performance, and government policies have an important role as a full moderator in this relationship. The study findings concluded that the government policies are an important instrument in supporting the development of SMEs by innovating product and process innovation.

Development of Chatbot Using Q&A Data of SME(Small and Medium Enterprise) (소상공인들의 고객 문의 데이터를 활용한 문의응대 챗봇의 개발 및 도입)

  • Shin, Minchul;Kim, Sungguen;Rhee, Cheul
    • Journal of Information Technology Services
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    • v.17 no.3
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    • pp.17-36
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    • 2018
  • In this study, we developed a chatbot (Dialogue agent) using small Q & A data and evaluated its performance. The chatbot developed in this study was developed in the form of an FAQ chatbot that responds promptly to customer inquiries. The development of chatbot was conducted in three stages : 1. Analysis and planning, 2. Content creation, 3. API and messenger interworking. During the analysis and planning phase, we gathered and analyzed the question data of the customers and extracted the topics and details of the customers' questions. In the content creation stage, we created scenarios for each topic and sub-items, and then filled out specific answers in consultation with business owners. API and messenger interworking is KakaoTalk. The performance of the chatbot was measured by the quantitative indicators such as the accuracy that the chatbot grasped the inquiry of the customer and correctly answered, and then the questionnaire survey was conducted on the chatbot users. As a result of the survey, it was found that the chatbot not only provided useful information to the users but positively influenced the image of the pension. This study shows that it is possible to develop chatbots by using easily obtainable data and commercial API regardless of the size of business. It also implies that we have verified the validity of the development process by verifying the performance of developed chatbots as well as an explicit process of developing FAQ chatbots.