Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in the Cloud in Developing Countries: A Synthesis of the Literature and Future Research Directions

Adam, Ibrahim Osman; Alhassan, Musah

doi:10.5539/jms.v5n1p115

Cited by 15 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 76 publications

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“…The study used primary data and a descriptive survey method. This paper is available online at www.ijarbm.org Musah (2015) studied the financing gap of SMEs in Ghana using a structured questionnaire with stratify sample method where rudiments of the population were put into six layers. He employed the dualistic logistic deterioration to examine the elements of credit constraints and how these determinants explain credit constraints.…”

Section: Empirical Review Of Determinantsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Determinants and Constraints of Agro-based SMEs Access to Finance: Evidence from Ghana

Yeboah¹,

Mensah²,

Tandoh³

et al. 2023

IJARBM

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This study explored the determinants and constraints of the access to finance of Agro Based SMEs in the Cape Coast Metropolis, Ghana. The research utilized primary data using a structured questionnaire. Sixty (60) SMEs in the Metropolis were selected using the simple random sampling technique. To ensure data reliability and validity, a pilot test was conducted for confirmation. Results show that Agro-based SMEs prefer personal savings as the first means of finance. Also, collateral, owner’s gender, sector of business, availability of audited financial statements, firm’s performance and firm size are the determinants of Agro-based SME’s access to financing. The major challenges faced by Agro-based SMEs in financing their businesses result conclude a lack of the expertise to prepare sophisticated financial statements, less repayment period, unclear financial plans to execute business, non-availability of enough MFIs and bureaucracy. It is recommended that Agro-based SMEs should cultivate the habit of savings personally to serve as the basis for their working capital so as to reduce over-reliance on banks and microfinance institutions. Additionally, Government interventions like MASLOC must be enhanced to allow more SME owners in SME businesses to access financing.

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Section: Empirical Review Of Determinantsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Determinants and Constraints of Agro-based SMEs Access to Finance: Evidence from Ghana

Yeboah¹,

Mensah²,

Tandoh³

et al. 2023

IJARBM

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show abstract

“…The study falls under the interdisciplinary field of information systems (IS) and therefore used the following multidisciplinary databases as the data sources: Web of Science, Academic Search Premier, Science Direct, and Google Scholar. These databases are consistently utilized by many peer-reviewed SLR studies [18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26].…”

Section: Identification Of the Data Sourcesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Towards Sustainable Digital Agriculture for Smallholder Farmers: A Systematic Literature Review

Gumbi,

Twinomurinzi

2023

Sustainability

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Smallholder farmers are key contributors to food security globally, and more so in developing countries. Despite their critical role in food security, smallholder farmers are highly constrained by specific contextual challenges such as climate change, productivity, cost of production, credit access, and financial resources constraints that impact their sustenance, sustainability, and growth. Digital agriculture has emerged as a viable solution to addressing smallholder farmers’ contextual challenges, with many digital solutions already existing and developed to serve the agriculture sector. However, many smallholder farmers are beyond the reach of these digital solutions due to underdeveloped or nonexistent digital ecosystems. This paper reports on a systematic review conducted to examine the research that has been undertaken regarding digital agriculture ecosystems in relation to smallholder farmers and to identify challenges, usage, benefits, access, and uptake of the systems. The key findings reveal very limited research directed at digital literacy or skills, affordability, and business model innovation. Most of the challenges concern digital infrastructure, affordability, and digital literacy or skills. The findings also reveal that although digital agriculture is still a nascent concept to smallholder farmers, there are a few early adopters who access information mainly related to agriculture, selling, and marketing. There is, nonetheless, a lack of understanding of the value of digital agriculture systems. The study develops a research agenda that could facilitate digital transformation for smallholder farmers.

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“…The multidisciplinary nature of smart manufacturing meant that the review needed to perform the search in similar multidisciplinary research databases. The study therefore chose the four that are most commonly used by multidisciplinary researchers [27][28][29][30][31][32][33]; Web of Science (WoS), Academic Search Premier (ASP), ScienceDirect and Google Scholar.…”

Section: Identification Of the Data Sourcesmentioning

confidence: 99%

SMME Readiness for Smart Manufacturing (4IR) Adoption: A Systematic Review

Gumbi

Twinomurinzi

2020

Lecture Notes in Computer Science

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Smart manufacturing, Industry 4.0 and Smart Factory are phenomena regarded as a key necessity for Small, Medium and Micro Businesses (SMMEs) worldwide. Even though these 4 th Industrial Revolution (4IR) phenomena are generally used interchangeably, this paper sought to identify how SMME readiness for smart manufacturing has been investigated through a systematic review. The systematic review was conducted through the lens of Nooteboom, and Tornatzky and Klein's research on technological innovation in SMMEs based on Rogers' diffusion of innovations theory. The findings reveal that there is little to no research on smart manufacturing in relation to SMMEs in low-income countries particularly the African continent. The results also show that smart manufacturing is still an emergent phenomenon with disparate definitional challenges. These definitional challenges make the adoption of smart manufacturing innovations a challenge in resource-constrained contexts; but similarly present an opportunity for new definitions and theories in such contexts. The little research often treats SMMEs homogenously and as such misses their important heterogeneous (sector or industry specific) nature. Few research studies investigate SMME awareness (adequate knowledge) or make explicit the benefits (relative advantage) of smart manufacturing. Even fewer studies are explicit on the smart manufacturing technologies that are relevant for different SMME sectors. Smart manufacturing is identified as incompatible with SMME characteristics, that is SMMEs lack expertise/skills to comprehend the complexity of smart manufacturing, and also lack financial and human resources to implement smart manufacturing. Given that awareness, relative advantage, complexity and compatibility are critical barriers for SMME smart manufacturing readiness/adoption, there is a critical need for research to focus on these factors in particular for the context of resource constrained low-income country environments.

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Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in the Cloud in Developing Countries: A Synthesis of the Literature and Future Research Directions

Cited by 15 publications

References 76 publications

Determinants and Constraints of Agro-based SMEs Access to Finance: Evidence from Ghana

Determinants and Constraints of Agro-based SMEs Access to Finance: Evidence from Ghana

Towards Sustainable Digital Agriculture for Smallholder Farmers: A Systematic Literature Review

SMME Readiness for Smart Manufacturing (4IR) Adoption: A Systematic Review

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