Barriers to Adopting New Technologies within Rural Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs)

Abstract

The adoption of technologies by small and medium enterprises (SMEs) that operate in several business sectors in rural areas is a crucial issue because they often need financial and technical incentives and support from public and local authorities. The question of whether and how innovation can be replicated and applied in a wider context is strictly connected to the understanding of those factors and mechanisms capable of determining the success or failure of the introduction of innovation itself. In this paper, the attention is focused on the impact of new technologies in order to increase SMEs’ competitiveness and productivity among the firms. For this purpose, only recent resources, research and studies that have been implemented during the last twenty years are taken into account. Firstly, based on these studies, the main disruptive technologies were selected. Secondly, the evidence is drawn from stakeholder data discussions of the Interreg Europe project “Regional policies for innovation driven competitiveness and growth of rural SMEs—INNOGROW”, covering eight European countries (Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Slovenia and the United Kingdom). Descriptive statistics were applied to describe the case identities. The cases’ needs, enablers and barriers in different groups were analyzed using a chi-square test and Mann–Whitney U Test. The results of this study are important for both researchers as well as small business practitioners (including government agencies and owners/managers) in order to provided policy recommendations, concerning how to establish favourable conditions and offer incentives to SMEs to integrate innovative solutions into their business models.

A General-Equilibrium Model of Labor-Saving Technology Adoption: Theory and Evidences from Robotic Milking Systems in Idaho

“…Third, another important limitation of the paper is we cannot explicitly add financial and resource constraint to the model. This is particularly important for illustrating barriers to entry (see discussion in [11]) and the heterogeneity of resource constraints ( [78]).…”

“…For instance, one study from [10] discusses the adoption of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in rural areas, which analyzes adoption barriers and also proposes policy recommendations. The later empirical research by [11] also studied the barriers to adopting new technology but includes various kinds of technologies (like organic farming or renewable energy) in eight European countries (Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Slovenia, and the United Kingdom) and their result shows that financial resources are one of the biggest barriers to SMEs to adopt new technology.…”

Digital Transformation of Small and Medium Enterprises: Aspects of Public Support

“…These obstacles are commonly grouped into human, technological and financial factors; however, other factors are important too, including organizational, legal, and environmental factors (Vogelsang et al 2019;Matt et al 2020). This is a fast-growing research area mainly focused on large companies, but some of the literature is also devoted to SMEs (Abel-Koch et al 2019;Fanelli 2021). However, the question of what support SMEs need to overcome these barriers is still largely unexplored.…”

How Efficient Is the Implementation of Structural Funds Committed to Enhancing ICT Adoption in SMEs?

“…According to their findings, the EU seems to underachieve its competitors (specifically, the United States, Japan, and South Korea) in terms of innovative ICT infrastructures and ICT adoption, in particular by SMEs. In fact, [33] ascertained that to create the encouraging circumstances and provide incentives to SMEs for adopting innovative solutions, SMEs need explicit policy initiatives to guarantee that technological services can be supplied and that the required infrastructures are accessible.…”

“…On the other hand, managers tend to reject digital projects since they do not know how to integrate them into the firm [28,32]. In fact, the question of whether and how innovation can be reproduced and used in a broader framework is inextricably linked to an awareness of the elements and procedures that might determine the (un)successful adoption of the technology itself [33].…”