Digital Collaboration Network for SMEs: Awareness of ICT and Perceived Outcome

Abstract

This study aims to analyze degree of awareness of ICT and perceived outcome of SMEs to be involved in digital collaboration networks. Digital Collaborative Networks can be assumed as a digital highway to accelerate economic growth in certain industrial sector. In this network, stakeholders can be formed in a unity to be voluntary sharing their business resources. Moreover, this community network is based on the spirit of cooperation and collaboration to build the economic strength of the nation. This study is thrilling because it has been argued that most of SMEs run their own business individually, experienced with raw material shortages, lack of business resources, innovation and business knowledge, lack of access to markets, and lack of capital access. The population in this study is all SMEs who involved in the supply chain of Batik industry in Indonesia. A number of 429 SMEs had participated in this study. Data were collected from questionnaire and in-depth interview. The analysis result shown that SMEs perceives high benefit or outcome when they collaborate virtually, however, government and other stakeholders have to provide several supports to establish this community network.

Harnessing E-Collaboration for Rural Tourism Recovery after COVID-19: Dual Analysis using SWOT and Porter’s Diamond Model

“…Another major concern in realizing e-collaboration is the lack of IT capability in rural areas [42,45], including IT infrastructure and digital literacy. The lack of IT capability addresses IT standards, models, or governance in an ecollaboration that does not yet exist [36,57].…”

“…Thus, e-collaboration is not only a platform but also a business with a new management method [46,48]. Markets can change quickly, and the level of competition is high enough to encourage a business to find new ways to maintain its business [45,51,56]. E-collaboration also provides entrepreneurs opportunities to build their digital business content, products, and services and continuously innovate [16,36].…”

SMEs Awareness and Preparation for Digital Transformation: Exploring Business Opportunities for Entrepreneurs in Saudi Arabia’s Ha’il Region

“…It is essential to support SMEs' growth and help small businesses gain a competitive advantage through special programs, funding, policies, and counseling on account of their planned behavior [101,125] and strengthen their support for digital transformation goals through technology acceptance [102,103,126]. Fachrunnisa et al (2013) [98] found that SMEs perceive more incredible benefits or outcomes when collaborating virtually. The government and other stakeholders must support this community network in several ways.…”

“…A thorough literature review found that most studies have been conducted in Western countries. Despite this, a few studies and reports focus on the Saudi SMEs' towards digitization [5,7,15,34,36,49,52,73,[75][76][77]94,98,99]. The study focuses on the Ha'il province, located in the northern region of Saudi Arabia, having 103,887 km 2 estimated area, and 746,406 population [100].…”