Paper title (Paper Title style) Australasian Journal of Information Systems Parker, Burgess & Al-Qirim 2015, vol. 19, pp. S153-S173 Review of SME journal articles A review of studies on information systems and SMEs in high ranked IS journals (2000-2014) Craig M. Parker Deakin Business School Deakin University craig.parker@deakin.edu.au Stephen Burgess College of Business Victoria University Stephen.Burgess@vu.edu.au Nabeel Al-Qirim College of Information Technology United Arab Emirates University United Arab Emirates nalqirim@uaeu.ac.ae Abstract This paper identifies novel approaches to future small and medium enterprise (SME) research from a review of articles, and then introduces the papers in this AJIS special section which evidence these approaches. More specifically, the paper makes an important contribution by reviewing 61 articles in high ranked IS journals (2000-2014) and introducing three new facets which are used to analyse research on SME adoption/use of IS (units of analysis, SME sizes and SME types) not considered in previous literature review studies. These facets provide the basis for proposing various future research opportunities. The editorial then introduces the four papers in this special section covering the research theme on SMEs, and highlights the contributions they make using the three facets. Keywords: Information systems; small and medium enterprises (SMEs); units of analysis; literature review; high quality journals; SME sizes; SME types. 1 Introduction Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are not just small versions of large organisations. They have unique characteristics with regard to their adoption and use of IS, such as limited resources for implementing IS and the dominance of owner-managers in IS-related decision- making (Cragg et al. 2011). Small businesses in particular contribute between 40-50% of private sector employment in various countries (e.g. Australian Government 2014, Federation of Small Businesses UK 2014, United States Census Bureau 2012). However, the number of SME-related articles published in leading IS journals (see Keller and Coulthard 2013) is much less than the value contribution they make, so that continuing studies on SMEs are needed to advance the IS discipline. It is important that SME research is undertaken which results in new theoretical and empirical directions to be taken up by scholars in the future. To that end, this editorial prefaces this ‘research theme on small and medium enterprises’ by identifying novel approaches to future SME research, and by showing these new approaches are evidenced by the papers in this AJIS special section. This editorial therefore serves two aims which will advance future IS research relating to SMEs. First, we review 61 articles on SME adoption/use of IS in high quality ‘A*’ ranked IS journals (see the list of journals in the Appendix) from 2000 to 2014 according to three facets (units of analysis (UOAs) they use, the SME types studied and SME sizes used) to identify opportunities for future research. Earlier reviews of articles on IS and SMEs have focused on other facets of articles. For instance, Parker and Castleman (2007) analysed four facets of articles from 2003 to 2006 (research approaches, types of IS, and countries studied, and primary research objective), and Powell and Woerndl (2008) reviewed the research approaches used in IS S153 Australasian Journal of Information Systems Parker, Burgess & Al-Qirim 2015, vol. 19, pp. S153-S173 Review of SME journal articles articles on SME adoption/use of IS from 1995 to 2005. This editorial makes a contribution to knowledge by conducting original research into three new facets, which were not analysed in these past reviews, and by identifying new research opportunities. In addition, it presents current insights into state of the literature when compared to past reviews, which are now seven or more years old. The second aim of the editorial is to introduce the four papers in this special section in AJIS covering the research theme on SMEs. We highlight that each paper makes a contribution to knowledge through their use of novel UOAs and/or their focus on specific SME types or SME sizes. This give the papers unique perspectives when compared to the A* journal articles reviewed in this editorial. The editorial is structured as follows. First, it justifies the approach used to select and analyse the A* IS journal articles for review. Then, it reports on each facet of the selected articles (the UOAs employed and the SME types and sizes studied) in separate sections, including the future research opportunities revealed by this analysis. Finally, the editorial introduces the papers included in this AJIS special section covering the research theme on SMEs. 2 Research Approach Our overall approach to this review was informed by Schultze’s (2015) useful framework outlining a continuum of pluralistic literature review methods. In particular, we followed the principles associated with the ‘interpretive literature review’ end of this continuum to guide our article selection and analysis, as explained further in the next section. This was because the interpretive approach is most suited to identifying new future research opportunities (Schultze 2015) and to dealing with complexities in literature reviews (Boell and Cecez-Kecmanovic 2010), such as interpreting units of analysis (as explained later). 3 Criteria employed in article selection Twelve ‘A*’ ranked journals were identified from the Australian Council of Professors and Heads of Information Systems’ (ACPHIS 2013) IS journal ranking list. We chose this list because it was revised recently to evaluate the quality of international IS journals, it subsumes the eight journals in the Senior Scholars’ Basket of Journals (AIS 2011) into the ‘A*’ category of journals, and it resulted in a wider range of A* IS journals to increase the scope for finding relevant articles (compared to the basket of eight) whilst retaining a focus on high quality journals. While the focus on A* IS journals means the review is not exhaustive, IS journal editorials and reviews often use A* IS journals (e.g. Sarker et al. 2013) because they are representative of high quality IS research (Shen et al. 2014). We investigated articles from 2000 to 2014 to cover a longer period than previous literature reviews. This meant we could identify many high quality articles, gauge the state of IS research on SME types, SME sizes and the articles’ UOA used, and then identify future research opportunities. In order to ensure that we identified high quality IS journal articles related to IS use by SMEs, we searched the A* journals for articles whose title or abstract contained the terms “SME”, “SMEs”, “small” or “micro”. Articles were removed if they used the terms in other contexts, such as an article that referred to a “small sample size” or one that referred to a “micro-level analysis”. We did not do a full-text search because we anticipated only articles with these terms in their titles/abstracts would have an SME focus. This resulted in 95 articles being selected initially. 4 Approach to analysing the articles An interpretive, hermeneutic circle approach, similar to that proposed by Schultze (2015) and Boell and Cecez-Kecmanovic (2010) was used to enable new themes and future research opportunities relating to the three facets of the articles to emerge inductively. After initial cycles of reading, interpreting and coding the articles, the research aims and the methods used lead us to conclude the importance of the three facets focused on in this editorial: the UOA S154 Australasian Journal of Information Systems Parker, Burgess & Al-Qirim 2015, vol. 19, pp. S153-S173 Review of SME journal articles used; the types of SMEs and sizes of SMEs examined. This hermeneutic process resulted in excluding articles which did not support our objective of exploring these three facets in articles focusing on the AJIS research theme on SME adoption/use of IS. The types of IS studied by the articles included Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems, electronic commerce systems, websites, anti-malware software, electronic marketplaces, decision support systems and software-as-a-service. Some articles were excluded because they had little focus on SMEs. Two of these developed models which provided little insight into SME-specific issues (Chen and Wu 2013, Kauffman and Mohtadi 2004). Six included only one hypothesis (Ada et al. 2012, Bose and Leung 2013, Bose and Pal 2012, Kuk 2004) or research question (Zhu et al. 2003) relating to company size, or controlled for firm size (Baird et al. 2012), but again provided almost no SME-related insights nor examined SME-specific issues. However, we included studies which compared SMEs and large firms (e.g. Daniel and Grimshaw 2002, Francalanci and Morabito 2008) if there were clear analyses and insights focused on SMEs. Nine articles purportedly focused on SMEs but provided no SME details to enable us to explore how they characterised SME types and sizes. For example, they did not specify SME sample selection criteria, characterise the firms as SMEs, or engage with the IS literature on SMEs to characterise their sample (Dahl and Derigs 2011, Delen et al. 2013, Hung et al. 2011, Lee and Myers 2004, Paolucci et al. 2002, Tallon 2010). This was because the SME context appeared to be incidental to the article’s research aims. For example, Tsatsou et al. (2010) focused on trust, Vidgen (2002) focused on a website development methodology, and Bandyopadhyay and Bandyopadhyay (2009) focused on online auction results. We also excluded articles which were not relevant to our focus on SME adoption/use of IS, as well as articles which studied IS use by large businesses to manage SME clients (Tsaih et al. 2004) or online user activities on websites (McCart et al. 2013), because these did not relate directly to SME adoption/use of IS. Additionally, we excluded 13 articles on SME software developer firms (e.g. Ågerfalk and Fitzgerald 2008, Butler and Murphy 2008, Carlo et al. 2012, Ceccagnoli et al. 2012, Mehra et al. 2014) because the study in this editorial related to how SMEs in general adopt/use IS. However, we included studies relating to (SME) software vendors (e.g. Liang and Xue 2004) if the article reported on any aspect of their relationship with SME clients. Finally, we excluded a non-empirical literature review (Powell and Woerndl 2008) and an editorial (Chau et al. 2007) relating to SME adoption/use of IS because these articles did not enable us to explore the main facets of our interest, such as unit of analysis. Table 1 summarises the 61 A* articles satisfying our selection criteria by publication year and journal (see the Appendix for the journal names corresponding to the abbreviations). The table reveals interesting insights. First, it shows that a few journals published the majority of articles of interest (EJIS and I&M, and to a lesser extent JSIS, ISJ and JIT), and that articles on SMEs and IS adoption/use have appeared fairly consistently over the years. Second, the table shows some journals in the 2000-2014 analysis period had no articles which matched our criteria for inclusion, as explained above. It should be noted, however, that the remainder of the editorial does not analyse the articles further by year because there are too few articles each year to comment on any yearly trends. Further hermeneutic cycles of reading, interpreting and coding of the 61 articles were carried out by the first and second authors, consistent with the approach by Schultze (2015) and Boell and Cecez-Kecmanovic (2010), to understand how the three facets were manifested in the articles, and to develop emergent coding themes. The first author started the hermeneutic approach by reading the full text of all articles to identify initial coding themes relating to each facet. Cycles then involved both authors: 1) discussing and refining the coding themes; 2) dividing and examining the articles using the refined coding themes; and 3) documenting the themes in a spreadsheet with articles in rows and coding themes in columns. Cycles were undertaken until agreement was formed between the authors. Further details of the coding themes and interpretations relating to each facet are expanded upon in later sections. S155 Australasian Journal of Information Systems Parker, Burgess & Al-Qirim 2015, vol. 19, pp. S153-S173 Review of SME journal articles Journal Year 20xx Total00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 ACM 0 DSS 1 1 EJIS 1 1 2 2 2 1 1 3 2 1 1 17 I&M 1 2 2 4 1 1 1 1 1 14 I&O 1 1 2 ISJ 1 2 1 2 1 7 ISR 0 JAIS 1 1 1 3 JAIST 0 JIT 1 1 1 1 2 1 7 JMIS 0 JSIS 1 1 1 1 2 1 1 8 MISQ 1 1 2 Total 4 6 5 4 11 2 5 5 4 3 2 5 2 3 0 61 Table 1: IS A* journals and the number of articles on SME adoption/use of IS each year Note: Blank cells are “0” and have been left blank to aid table readability. 5 Facet 1: units of analysis used in A* IS articles on SMEs 5.1 Interpreting units of analysis (UOAs) Determining the unit of analysis (UOA) of a study is important because it helps to determine, for instance, the type of data to collect (Singer 1961). Various UOAs can be used such as the individual, group, organisation, inter-organisation, industry, state/province, nation, event, government policy (Singer 1961, Yin 2014), artefact, social interaction (Herring 2004, Trochim 2006), activity or practice (Nicolini 2012), as well as sentences in websites and social media content (Herring 2004, Parker et al. 2011). It must be noted that case studies of SMEs do not always mean that the UOA is the firm (or SME), because the firm examined in a case study can be the context for focusing on group interactions, events and other UOAs (Grunbaum 2007, Yin 2014). Table 2 lists and describes each UOA identified from the 61 articles. We anticipated that examining the UOAs in the A* articles, and identifying those which have received little attention, could help to identify future research avenues. Yin (2014) points out, however, that if authors do not explicitly state their UOA, readers often come to different conclusions. Indeed, Table 2 shows that 51 articles did not explicitly state their UOA. In these instances we inferred UOAs using the hermeneutic circle approach of repeated reading and interpretation of each article’s research objectives, research questions and/or hypotheses. This often led us to lean toward, for instance, two UOAs such as the firm or process/activity for an article. In some cases we settled on the IS process/activity as the UOA when the research objectives and questions/hypotheses focused on a process/activity and used SMEs as case studies. However, there were articles where the distinction was still not clear. In these instances, the findings and, if available, survey and interview questions, were examined. Where the majority of these focused on the process/activity (as in our example), this was selected as the UOA. S156 Australasian Journal of Information Systems Parker, Burgess & Al-Qirim 2015, vol. 19, pp. S153-S173 Review of SME journal articles UOA Explicit Not stated UOA description External to firm Vendor-SME relationship 1 4 Nature of the relationship between an SME and IS vendor-consultant(s) such as delegation, knowledge sharing, etc. Industry 1 IS-related events, discourse, etc relating to the SME sector within or external to the industry. Cluster 1 A location-specific cluster and IS-related events, governance, knowledge sharing, etc relating to SME members. Intervention 1 IS-related aims, management, success, etc of an intervention targeting the SME sector or a specified group of SMEs. E-marketplace 1 Socio-technical factors (e.g. ownership, management) of an e-marketplace (involving SMEs) explaining its success/failure. Firm-level Firm 4 26 Impact of IS, including internal and external circumstances, which influence SME: IS (non-)adoption; or owner-manager views on the ability of the firm to achieve firm-level benefits from IS. Process/daily activity 12 Nature of a process/daily activity relating to IS or influenced by IS in an SME, excluding the firm-level impact of the process/activity. IS capability 2 Nature or development of an IS-related resource (capability, skill, competency) in an SME, excluding the firm-level impact. IS artefact 2 Design of artefacts (e.g. IS architectures, website, social media) used by SMEs, excluding the firm-level impact of these artefacts. Group 1 Team/group dynamics in an SME on IS-related matters. Sentence 1 Sentence level analysis (e.g. text, images, videos) in an SME’s IS artefact, report output by IS, etc (excluding artefact design level). Multiple UOAs Combination 1 3 Process and vendor-SME relationship Combination 2 1 (firm) Firm and process Total 10 51 Table 2: Units of analysis used in IS A* journals 5.2 Findings from the analysis of UOAs Table 2 shows the most common UOA was the SME or firm, with five articles stating this explicitly. Four of the articles examined factors affecting the firm’s adoption (Li et al. 2011, MacKay et al. 2004, Mehrtens et al. 2001, Reardon and Davidson 2007) and use of IS (Li et al. 2011, Reardon and Davidson 2007). In other words, these articles investigated, and included firm-level findings and data collection questions about, the (anticipated) positive and/or negative impact of IS on various aspects of the firm. The fifth article, included as Combination 2 under multiple UOAs, explicitly stated the firm as its UOA was Pob-Nzaou and Raymond (2011). We examine this article in more detail later because our analysis suggests they combined the firm UOA with a second unstated UOA (IS process). Table 2 shows the remaining A* articles without explicit statements about their UOA included 26 with a firm UOA (31 articles in total). Many of these were adoption factor studies (e.g. Caldeira and Ward 2002, Eikebrokk and Olsen 2007, Lee and Larsen 2009, Quaddus and Hofmeyer 2007) like the articles with an explicit firm UOA. But other studies examined the impact of business-IT alignment (Bergeron et al. 2004, Cragg et al. 2002), IS integration (Francalanci and Morabito 2008), IT capability (Zhang et al. 2008; 2013), software-as-a- S157 Australasian Journal of Information Systems Parker, Burgess & Al-Qirim 2015, vol. 19, pp. S153-S173 Review of SME journal articles service use (Lee et al. 2013) and IS in general (Rivard et al. 2006) on firm performance. Others looked at IS/IT investment and impact on firm-level costs, benefits and risk (Love and Irani 2004, Love et al. 2005). Our analysis in Table 2 shows that the next most common UOA inferred from 12 A* articles without explicit statements of their UOA was an IS process or a daily activity within SMEs: • IS strategy formulation process (Duhan et al. 2001, Levy and Powell 2000, Ray and Ray 2006, Walters et al. 2003); • IS adoption process (Molla et al. 2006); • IS/vendor selection process (Chang et al. 2012, Olsen and Sætre 2007); • IS implementation process (Newman and Zhao 2008, Ray and Ray 2006); • improvements or changes to daily activities using IS (Choi et al. 2004, Harwood 2011, Levenburg and Klein 2006); and • IS governance process and activities (Huang et al. 2010). These articles focused on describing or exploring SMEs’ processes or daily activities, not the broader impact which these processes/activities had at the firm-level. Some reported on the internal and/or external issues which influenced these processes/activities (Molla et al. 2006, Newman and Zhao 2008, Olsen and Sætre 2007, Ray and Ray 2006), but these firm-level issues were used to provide context for understanding, in detail, the process/activity. The firm and process/daily activity UOAs can be considered firm-level UOAs or, in other words, looking at the firm or a narrower aspect of the firm. Table 2 shows there were a range of other firm-level UOAs stated explicitly in, or inferred from, other articles: • Group: The case study by Street and Meister (2004) reports on how the management team in a small firm handled IS-related change in response to planned firm growth. • The IS capabilities which SMEs can develop (Cragg et al. 2011), with another article examining how SMEs developed these IS capabilities (Caldeira and Ward 2003). These capabilities do have implications for firm-level success, but this aspect was not the focus of these two articles. Indeed, Caldeira and Ward (2003) stated this aspect had been examined in their earlier work (Caldeira and Ward 2002); • The IS artefact, which related to the design of SMEs’ IS architectures (Bidan et al. 2012) and contents of their websites (Merono-Cerdan and Soto-Acosta 2007). The dominant focus of these articles was on the IS architectures and websites, although a second UOA of the latter could also be considered the firm-level because they examined the impact of website content on overall firm performance; • Sentence: Alonso-Mendo et al. (2009) investigated the reasons SME owner- managers stated for changes the researchers observed in the SMEs’ websites over time, and characterised their UOA as “website change reason sentences”. The vendor-SME relationship UOA was the next most common in Table 2. It was evident in only five articles, and is the first example of a UOA which bridges the firm-level and external context of the SME. Three of these articles, without an explicit UOA statement, explored intermediary e-business models to encourage SMEs to engage in e-commerce (Brown and Lockett 2004), a non-government organisation’s attempt to develop IS solutions for SME farmers (Dobson et al. 2013), and an ERP vendor’s methods of engaging with SME clients (Liang and Xue 2004). The fourth non-explicit article, McGovern and Hicks (2004), was similar because it examined the power relationships between the authors, who acted as IS consultants, and the owner-manager of a small business during an action research project. Only Currie et al. (2004) explicitly stated their UOA as the business model between vendors and SMEs, which we labelled vendor-SME relationship. They explored the business models S158 Australasian Journal of Information Systems Parker, Burgess & Al-Qirim 2015, vol. 19, pp. S153-S173 Review of SME journal articles (strategic positioning, product/service portfolios and value propositions) offered by Application Service Provider (ASP) vendors to SME clients. Table 2 shows there were a range of other UOAs stated explicitly in, or inferred from, other articles which focused on examining areas outside the context of a single SME: • Intervention: Vega et al. (2008) reported on a policy intervention aimed at encouraging SME adoption of e-business, and aimed to understand the mechanisms and effectiveness of the intervention itself. • Industry: Currie (2004) examined the ASP industry and how its marketing discourse during the late 1990s and early 2000s affected the adoption of ASP by SMEs. • E-marketplaces (websites facilitating SME-to-business/government/consumer trade) and the socio-technical factors (e.g. ownership structure, profile of the rural regional locations) influencing their success and failure (Gengatharen and Standing 2005). We did not consider the UOA to be the IS artefact because the article did not focus on the design, features or functionality of the e-marketplace websites (see Table 2), but instead focused on socio-technical factors associated with managing e-marketplaces. • IS-enabled clusters involving SMEs and the communication, intellectual property and research collaboration issues between stakeholders in these clusters (Jaegersberg and Ure 2011). We did not consider the UOA in this article to be the industry-level, because the clusters were location specific. Thus, the focus is more on the location than the ‘IS’ itself. An industry-level analysis, as in the case of Currie (2004), explores the entire industry at the national or international level. The difficulties of inferring UOAs was notable for three articles because they reported in-depth findings relating to two UOAs (Adam and O'Doherty 2000, Howcroft and Light 2006; 2010). They all described in-depth an IS selection or implementation process, but also examined in some detail aspects of vendor-SME relationships associated with these processes. Similarly, a fourth article, Pob-Nzaou and Raymond (2011), stated that their UOA was the firm-level, but the article mainly detailed the activities within the ERP implementation process of four SMEs. An alternative interpretation, therefore, is that the UOA in this article was the process-level and that the internal firm-level and external influences they examined contextualised the execution of the processes. 5.3 UOA-related future research opportunities While our interpretation of the articles’ UOAs is subjective, our analysis makes three important contributions. First, it suggests the need for article authors to have clear statements of and rationale for their UOA(s) so that it is not left to interpretation. Second, it provides the starting point for a scholarly debate on what constitutes different UOAs in the context of SME adoption/use of IS, including the notion that an article could potentially have more than one UOA. Third, Figure 1 illustrates the interrelationships between firm- and non-firm-level UOAs which we identified above, and highlights areas requiring further research; the darker the shading, the greater the opportunity because fewer A* articles have used the particular UOAs. S159 Australasian Journal of Information Systems Parker, Burgess & Al-Qirim 2015, vol. 19, pp. S153-S173 Review of SME journal articles Figure 1: Interrelationships between units of analysis in the context of SME adoption/use of IS Figure 1 suggests there are various future research opportunities arising from firm-level UOAs. For example: • Our analysis shows there is a lack of research on post-implementation IS activities by SMEs and how these change over time. Harwood (2011) was one of few A* studies in this area. It shows the value of such research because it provides insights into the complex socio-historical issues which shape IS activities and how IS (fails to) become embedded or ‘invisible’ in SME daily work, which is so far not well understood. Such studies could also explore in detail how SME IS capabilities evolve/develop over time. • There are opportunities for research into the design, architectures, content, etc of IS artefacts used by SMEs. This could include exploring information outputs of their IS, whether it is used and understood by SME owner-managers, whether it is in a form suitable for their use, etc. Another example is studying the content of SME social media presences (including client postings) to examine the effectiveness of use. Figure 1 illustrates that SMEs can have marketplace relationships with third-party firms and they can use inter-organisational IS artefacts, and that third-parties can engage in IS-related processes/activities with SMEs or initiate interventions to support SMEs with IS. Additionally, it shows that SMEs operate within industry and government level contexts which can influence perceptions and use of IS. Whilst this is not new and is well acknowledged in the IS literature on SMEs, our analysis of the A* articles adds that these can be UOAs in their own right and the source of future research opportunities. For example: • There is emerging, but still limited, in-depth analysis of interactions between SMEs and IS vendors-consultants (VCs) during IS (post-)implementation. For example, future studies can explore how (post-)implementation processes/activities of VCs help SMEs develop, or obviate the need to develop, IS capabilities when VCs sustain ongoing relations with SMEs, and with various groups (e.g. management) in larger SMEs. This can include, as per Howcroft and Light (2010), observing (and interviewing) VCs, and treating the SME-vendor relationship as the UOA. Another example is exploring the processes/activities used by VCs to gather SME information needs for, and design/develop, packaged software (e.g. ERP systems) S160 Australasian Journal of Information Systems Parker, Burgess & Al-Qirim 2015, vol. 19, pp. S153-S173 Review of SME journal articles for SME markets to determine, for instance, possible improvements to these processes and designs of their IS artefacts. • There are opportunities to build on the work of Vega et al. (2008) to explore in- depth the design, execution and impact of IS-related interventions initiated at government and industry levels. For instance, future research can explore the impact of ‘green’ IS/IT regulations (Parker and Scheepers 2012) to explore the impact on the SME sector (e.g. their IT purchasing decisions). Other examples include examining the impact of government, industry and trading partner led IS- related information campaigns on SME behaviours, including the impact of different designs (e.g. types of messages, media used, etc). • The work of Currie (2004) highlights the opportunity to explore how IS-related industry norms evolve and become known to and practiced by SMEs. For example, it is unclear in the A* articles how best practices are selected and embedded in ERP systems, whether these are based on the practices of large firms rather than those of SMEs, and how these industry-level norms affect innovation in the SME sector. 6 Facet 2: SME types studied in A* IS articles We analysed the types of SMEs studied in the A* IS articles by examining, for instance, the industries studied to identify future research opportunities, as shown in Table 3. Industries Total Percent Business focus within an industry Total Percent Multiple 29 47.5% Export-focus 2 3.3% Two 4 6.6% Business growth 1 1.6% Three 5 8.2% Family-run 1 1.6% One 23 37.7% None 57 93.5% Total 61 100.0% Total 61 100% Table 3: SME types studied in A* IS articles Table 3 shows we found that nearly half of the articles studied SMEs across a range of industry sectors (e.g. Khazanchi and Sutton 2001, Kuan and Chau 2001, Levy et al. 2003, Levy et al. 2001, Poon 2000, Riemenschneider et al. 2003). Very few of these articles (exceptions included Lee and Larsen 2009, Love et al. 2005, Quaddus and Hofmeyer 2007, Riemenschneider and Mykytyn Jr 2000) examined the impact of SME industry on SME adoption, use or experiences of IS, and instead researched their aims without considering the impact of industry. Those that did compare industries quantitatively reported differences among the industries regarding aspects such as IT investment (Love et al. 2005) and business- to-business trading exchange adoption (Quaddus and Hofmeyer 2007). Table 3 also shows that four articles examined two broad industry sectors: • manufacturing and oil (Olsen and Sætre 2007); and • manufacturing and service (Bergeron et al. 2004, Francalanci and Morabito 2008, Pob-Nzaou and Raymond 2011). A further five articles studied three broad sectors: • manufacturing, service and one each of the following sectors: o not-for-profit (Huang et al. 2010), o retail (Lee et al. 2013, Merono-Cerdan and Soto-Acosta 2007) or o trade (Kendall et al. 2001); and • transport, tourism and food-beverage (Eikebrokk and Olsen 2007). S161 Australasian Journal of Information Systems Parker, Burgess & Al-Qirim 2015, vol. 19, pp. S153-S173 Review of SME journal articles Interestingly, Merono-Cerdan and Soto-Acosta (2007) was the only article among those examining three industries which quantitatively examined the impact of industry, and found some differences in website design by industry. This article, and those cited earlier, highlight the need for future research to investigate whether there are industry-specific idiosyncrasies among SMEs with respect to the UOA research opportunities identified above, such as their response to IS-related interventions or the evolution of ‘best’ IS practices. Finally, the existence of industry-specific idiosyncrasies is emphasised further by the observation that the remaining 23 articles focused on a specific industry sector. Eight articles studied SME manufacturers (Caldeira and Ward 2002; 2003, Choi et al. 2004, Cragg et al. 2002, Hussin et al. 2002, McGovern and Hicks 2004, Street and Meister 2004, Walters et al. 2003, Zhang et al. 2008). Some articles examined similar industry sectors such as engineering (Cragg 2002), construction (Love and Irani 2004) and solar energy (Jaegersberg and Ure 2011). The remaining industries were career management (Howcroft and Light 2006; 2010), farming (Dobson et al. 2013), knowledge-based (Duhan et al. 2001), hotel (Harwood 2011), not-for-profit (MacKay et al. 2004), wine (Molla et al. 2006), retail (Newman and Zhao 2008), sporting (Ray and Ray 2006) and medical physician (Reardon and Davidson 2007) SMEs. In many cases, authors emphasised unique characteristics of SMEs in their chosen industry relative to other industries. For example, MacKay et al. (2004) points out that small not-for- profit businesses have unique dilemmas compared to for-profit firms which may result in different IS uses, such as recruiting/servicing volunteers and competing for grants/donations, in addition to providing (selling or donating) their products/services to beneficiaries. When combined with the UOA future research opportunities above, this raises interesting questions such as whether their everyday IS activities, interactions with third-parties to develop IS capabilities and IS artefact use are different to other SMEs. Interestingly, three of the 29 articles examining various industry sectors focused upon specific types of SMEs irrespective of their industry: ‘born global’ and export-focused SMEs (Zhang et al. 2013); SMEs focused on business growth (Levy and Powell 2000) and family-run SMEs (Wang and Ahmed 2009). Similarly, an additional article examining a single manufacturing sector narrowed the focus further to export-focused SMEs (Zhang et al. 2008). These SME types were justified in the articles on the basis they were more pertinent to the articles’ research goals (Levy and Powell 2000, Zhang et al. 2013), or because the articles argued these SMEs had characteristics differentiating them from other SMEs (Wang and Ahmed 2009). Given the heterogeneous nature of SMEs, future research can explore these and other idiosyncrasies (e.g. home-based businesses) to determine if these SME types use and experience IS differently to other types of SMEs. These SME types could also be considered within the context of UOA research opportunities identified earlier. For example, do the everyday IS activities of home- based SMEs differ manifestly from those of otherwise similar SMEs working out of dedicated business premises? How do IS capabilities or IS artefacts evolve and develop as SMEs grow? 7 Facet 3: SME sizes studied in A* IS articles Table 4 summarises the A* articles in terms of how they characterised the SME sizes they examined. The table shows that over half the articles focused on SMEs broadly, while the next common size was small business. Table 4 also reports on the types of SME size stated in the articles (e.g. staff numbers) determined hermeneutically by analysing SME definitions or descriptions in article introductions and method sections (e.g. sample selection criteria). S162 Australasian Journal of Information Systems Parker, Burgess & Al-Qirim 2015, vol. 19, pp. S153-S173 Review of SME journal articles SME sizes studied Total Percent Size definition/description types Total Percent SMEs and Large 2 3% Precise staff numbers and revenue 6 9.8% Small, Medium and Large 1 2% Precise staff numbers 36 59.0% SMEs 35 57% Precise revenue or assets 1 1.6% Medium 1 2% Imprecise staff numbers 2 3.3% Small and Medium 2 3% Industry specific size definition 2 3.3% Micro, Small and Medium 2 3% Size evident only from case overview 4 6.6% Small 16 26% SMEs size described in generic terms 10 16.4% Micro and Small 1 2% Micro 1 2% Sole-operators 0 0% Total 61 100% Total 61 100% Table 4: SME sizes studied and size definition/description types used in A* IS articles Our analysis suggests that a major issue facing IS scholars is the various SME size definitions. 44 articles used staff numbers. Others (Adam and O'Doherty 2000, Alonso-Mendo et al. 2009, Bergeron et al. 2004, Cragg et al. 2011, Kendall et al. 2001, Molla et al. 2006) combined staff numbers with, or solely (Chang et al. 2012) used, annual turnover and/or level of assets. Most articles used previous studies or regional definitions to derive upper limits on staff numbers and/or revenue, but this resulted in inconsistencies. For example, the upper limit for SMEs was typically 450-500 (15 studies) or 249/250 staff (8 studies), reflecting North American/Asian or European Union (EU) focus (respectively). Similar differences were evident for small and micro firms: some articles defined small firms as up to 100 staff (9 articles) and others up to 50 (Alonso-Mendo et al. 2009, Levenburg and Klein 2006); and micro firms having up to 10 staff (3 articles) and another up to 50 staff (Molla et al. 2006). The challenge of varying definitions was notable in Cragg et al. (2011) who defined SMEs in USA, Portugal and New Zealand as less than 500 staff; and a large firm in New Zealand using the definition of less than 200 staff from other articles (Mehrtens et al. 2001). Some articles were imprecise because they did not specify an upper limit (Merono-Cerdan and Soto-Acosta 2007, Zhang et al. 2008) to clarify if large firms were omitted, while others had no definition and described their case studies with ‘staff’ numbers (Duhan et al. 2001, Howcroft and Light 2006, McGovern and Hicks 2004, Street and Meister 2004). These issues make cross-national comparisons difficult both across studies, and with future research. Further difficulties with comparisons occurs with the 10 articles noted in Table 4 without a clear SME size definition, and instead only characterising SMEs or small firms in more general terms. It is important to note that staff numbers may be problematical in industries with a large casual or seasonal labour (Al-Qirim 2005, Burgess et al. 2009). This was evident in two articles which used an industry-specific size definition: number of rooms for hotels (Harwood 2011) and number of medical physicians without mention of other staff (Reardon and Davidson 2007). Another issue which emerged was that some articles included subsidiaries of large firms as SMEs (Adam and O'Doherty 2000, Huang et al. 2010, Olsen and Sætre 2007, Pob-Nzaou and Raymond 2011), others excluded them specifically (Cragg 2002, Cragg et al. 2011, Eikebrokk and Olsen 2007, MacKay et al. 2004, Reardon and Davidson 2007, Street and Meister 2004, Walters et al. 2003, Wang and Ahmed 2009), and most articles did not confirm if subsidiaries were included. Only two studies (Cragg et al. 2002, Hussin et al. 2002) compared independent and subsidiary SMEs and concluded the results were consistent, which means there is insufficient empirical evidence to conclude whether they are equivalent. This analysis of the articles raises implications for future research. First, we implore IS scholars to include clear SME size definitions, including lower/upper staff numbers and (if relevant) revenue limits, and whether subsidiaries are included to enable comparisons of future research. Second, our analysis suggests that future research can explore the feasibility of consistent size definitions between nations. For example, is there evidence that SMEs up to 500 staff in the USA are equivalent to SMEs up to 200 in New Zealand due to national context? S163 Australasian Journal of Information Systems Parker, Burgess & Al-Qirim 2015, vol. 19, pp. S153-S173 Review of SME journal articles Or are SMEs up to 200 staff (or micro firms up to 10, etc) similar regardless of national context? Third, future research can explore if independent SMEs are different, or equivalent, to subsidiaries. Fourth, research can potentially determine industry-specific differentiators which better describe SME size (instead of or in addition to staff numbers) and the impact of these on SME UOAs such as IS activities, IS artefacts, etc. Another insight from Table 4 is that few A* IS articles contrasted their findings by SME size, which is often a categorical variable comprising micro, small and/or medium sized firms (e.g. Alonso-Mendo et al. 2009, Levenburg and Klein 2006) or continuous variable (e.g. Lee and Larsen 2009). This is important because SME size is one dimension on which heterogeneous SMEs can be differentiated. While some studies using SME size as a categorical (Alonso- Mendo et al. 2009) or continuous variable (Lee and Larsen 2009) did not find statistical differences, others did find differences which suggest further research is warranted. For example, Levenburg and Klein (2006) found significant differences between micro and medium firms regarding use of some IS applications. Others treated SME size as a continuous variable and found that firm size explained significant differences between SME adopters and non-adopters of e-commerce (Grandon and Pearson 2004) and between SMEs gaining some strategic benefits from IT and being willing to adapt to changes resulting from IT (Love et al. 2005). There is no consensus and this implies that there is potential for future research to identify peculiarities relating to how SMEs of different sizes adopt and/or use IS, and to compare findings relating to size to understand better differences between different sized firms. 8 Introduction of articles in the AJIS special section The papers in this AJIS special section offer diverse insights into SME adoption or use of different IS, across various countries, and using different theories and methodologies. By shedding more light on the idiosyncratic features of the SME sector with respect to IS, it is evident from the papers that SMEs experience success with IS, but also face many challenges. The hurdles are in part due to fast-paced technological change, but also due to other issues specific to SMEs which can overwhelm an owner-manager and/or their venture. The papers introduced in this research theme on SMEs provide a broad picture about such advantages and challenges concerning IS and SMEs. Additionally, we state how they contribute to the future research areas identified above. In the first paper, Kreuzer, Born and Bernius shed light on improving SME adoption of inter- organisational IS (IOIS) by exploring the under-studied area of firms’ non-coercive persuasion strategies using a methodologically novel controlled experiment examining the outcome of a large German firm using information and expertise support with its SME business partners. The authors state their UOA is the SME partners, and address a knowledge gap relating to interventions we identified in A* IS articles. The initial analysis of 203 SMEs showed no significant result concerning the impact of the strategy on adoption. A cluster analysis, however, found two adopter configurations which varied in their response to the strategy, thereby addressing knowledge gaps we found relating to SME size (using the EU definition of less than 10, 50 and 250 for micro, small and medium enterprises respectively) and SME type (micro-sized service providers in a community-based configuration, and a dyadic configuration of medium-sized parts manufacturers). Their findings suggest the success of providing information and expertise to SME business partners about an IOIS to foster adoption may succeed or fail depending on adoption configurations of the SMEs. The findings support adopter configurations as an alternative conceptual view of adoption than that used in prior studies, which examine factors influencing individual SME owner-managers’ IOIS adoption decisions without considering the firm’s adopter configuration context. The second paper by Bradshaw, Cragg and Pulakanam explores how consultants affect the IT knowledge of SMEs when consultants and SMEs managers interact by exploring relations between IT consultants and SMEs, using the New Zealand size definition of less than 50 staff, during IT implementation projects. The authors thus address a UOA knowledge gap relating S164 Australasian Journal of Information Systems Parker, Burgess & Al-Qirim 2015, vol. 19, pp. S153-S173 Review of SME journal articles to SME-vendor (i.e. consultant) relationships which we identified in A* IS articles by interviewing IT consultants and SME staff with knowledge of the project. Further, the paper sheds light on the knowledge gap we report concerning how SMEs develop IS capabilities by exploring the processes by which IT knowledge is acquired by SMEs, shared between SMEs and consultants, the barriers to knowledge transfer, and the types of knowledge that consultants help SMEs to create. Another important contribution of the paper is modifying an existing theoretical framework of knowledge sharing mechanisms to include three types of knowledge assets that were shared between consultants and SME clients during IT implementation projects. Salim, Sedera, Sawang, Alarifi and Atapattu, in the third paper, point out that most IS literature treats SME adoption of IS as a single activity when examining the impact of adoption factors, rather than as a multi-stage process whereby each factor in each adoption stage will have a different level of importance. The paper explores this notion in a survey of 162 Malaysian SMEs (using the size definition of less than 200 full-time staff for manufacturers, and 75 staff for other sectors) across various industry sectors using the Theory of Planned Behaviour to explore factors which influence two stages of cloud-based Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) adoption: evaluation and trial. The authors state that the UOA for this study was the SME owner-manager, because they represented the views of the firm as a whole. The study sheds light on a knowledge gap we identified in IS A* articles relating to IS processes/activities by finding that the factors (attitude, subjective norms and perceived behavioural control) influencing the intention to adopt cloud-ERP vary significantly across the two adoption stages. In the final paper, Bi, Davison and Smyrnios argue that the ability of SMEs to gain IT business value depends on how they employ IT resources to develop IT capability, because it facilitates partnership processes along inter-organisational value chains. The paper focuses on fast- growth, independent (non-subsidiary) SMEs across multiple industries with turnover greater than 500,000 AUD (and not greater than 50% of sales from one customer) and less than 200 full-time staff. The authors address a knowledge gap we identified in A* IS articles relating to SME type based on the argument that fast-growth SMEs are different to other SMEs because they are risk takers, more entrepreneurial, and active in leveraging their IT resources. The paper uses specific SME size criteria (i.e. staff numbers and revenue, excluding subsidiaries) which will help future IS scholars compare their findings against this study. The paper tests and finds support for a research model linking IT resources, IT capabilities, IT-enabled inter- firm processes and firm performance, based on the resource-based view theory, from their survey of 310 fast-growth SMEs (i.e. firm-level UOA). The paper thus addresses another knowledge gap relating to IS capabilities which we identified in A* IS articles. 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DOI: 10.1057/palgrave.ejis.3000475 S172 Australasian Journal of Information Systems Parker, Burgess & Al-Qirim 2015, vol. 19, pp. S153-S173 Review of SME journal articles Appendix: List of A* IS journals Abbreviation Journal name ACM ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction DSS Decision Support Systems EJIS European Journal of Information Systems I&M Information and Management I&O Information and Organization ISJ Information Systems Journal ISR Information Systems Research JAIS Journal of the Association for Information Systems JAIST Journal of the Association for Information Sciences and Technology JIT Journal of Information Technology JMIS Journal of Management Information Systems JSIS Journal of Strategic Information Systems MISQ MIS Quarterly Copyright: © 2015 Parker, Burgess & Al-Qirim. 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