Technology Uptake in Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises: Some Evidence from New Zealand
研究了新西兰中小企业技术采纳的障碍，包括企业对研究合作的疑虑以及研究者面临的资源限制，并介绍了政府为弥合这一鸿沟而资助的应用项目。
The gap between research examining technology uptake in the manufacturing sector and industry perceptions about their own technology adoption needs hampers the technology responsiveness of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). In the New Zealand context, for example, many small businesses have been wary of, or indifferent to, alliances with university and public or private sector research groups. They perceive the involvement to be too theoretical, unrelated to either their pragmatic business considerations or the specifics of production processes. Conversely, some researchers have faced constraints of access and funding which have limited their involvement with and contribution to SMEs, even when they have relevant applied technological, management, or educational expertise to offer. Policy-makers have for some time wrestled with ways of bridging this divide. The New Zealand government, under the auspices of the Foundation for Research, Science, and Technology, have identified the need for strategic and tactical research relating to technology uptake and has funded a series of projects which link researchers to SMEs in a series of applied programs with strong connections to the Manufacturers' Federation and industry sector groups. Many of these projects interrelate with the complementary goals set by TRADENZ, the New Zealand government export agency, which is charged with promoting the internationalization of industry by increasing the number of exporters, the scale and quality of product, and the sophistication of international relations and technology transfer partnerships. Economic Significance of SMEs in New Zealand The New Zealand research agenda explicitly acknowledges the importance of small and medium-size enterprises to economic development. SMEs are of increasing significance in the New Zealand economy, both in terms of wealth creation and numbers employed. The total number of enterprises in 1996, excluding farms, was 225,996 (see Table 1). SMEs, defined in the New Zealand context as entities with fewer than one hundred employees, accounted for 99.4 percent of all companies, leaving fewer than 1,500 enterprises in the large category. Indeed, 85 percent of all businesses in New Zealand employ five people or less (Cameron, Massey, and Tweed 1997). Another way to measure economic contribution is in terms of employment (see Tables 1 and 2). SMEs currently employ 60 percent of the New Zealand workforce - nearly 800,000 people. Bearing in mind New Zealand's comparatively small population base overall (3.77 million in total), it is no surprise that microbusinesses (0-5 people) predominate. An obvious trend of the last decade is the strong growth in the number of smaller businesses, which suggests it is smaller enterprises, rather than big business and corporations, which offer the greatest employment potential (McGregor and Tweed 1998; see Table 2). Future economic prosperity for New Zealand depends on the survivability, [TABULAR DATA FOR TABLE 1 OMITTED] performance, and growth of these enterprises. While the search continues for an accurate predictive model of SME performance, a recent synthesis of four international studies, identifying the key characteristics of growth firms, revealed a strong emphasis on technology uptake (Chaston and Mangles 1997). SMEs: Cultural Norms and Personal Characteristics The relationship between cultural norms, personal characteristics, and technology uptake has received little international attention in the literature to date. However, it is intuitively reasonable to suggest that some well-identified personal characteristics of many small business owner/managers may inhibit growth potential through technology enhancement, where that development requires independent specialized expertise. This is because owner/managers may regard outsider help or independent scrutiny as interfering with their autonomy. As Jennings and Beaver (1997) note, the nature of managerial activity expands or contracts with the characteristics of the person fulfilling the roles(s), and such expansion or contraction is partly conditioned by the adaptive needs of the context in which the business operates, and is partly dependent upon the personality and needs of the owner/manager. …