Managing Information Technology in Small Business

Introduction to “Managing Information Technology in Small Business: Challenges and Solutions”

In many countries, small businesses comprise over 95% of the proportion of private businesses and approximately half of the private workforce, with Information technology (IT) being used in a majority of these businesses. Governments around the world are placing increasing importance upon the success of small business entrepreneurs and are providing increased resources to support their success. There are a number of key differences in the use of IT between small and larger businesses. These include: small businesses generally have fewer resources available to devote to IT, they have very little control over forces that are external to the organisation, they generally do not have their own separate IT department and small businesses generally have less formalised planning and control procedures for the adoption and use of IT. Small business entrepreneurs are thus often placed in the situation of knowing that IT can support their business in some way, but they lack the expertise and resources to know how it can be effectively applied.

Up until a few years ago, research into the use of IT in small businesses was almost non-existent when compared with the amount of research being carried out for medium and large-sized businesses. Recently, an increasing amount of research has been conducted into this important, emerging field.

The main purpose for Managing Information Technology in Small Businesses: Challenges and Solutions is to showcase the wide variety of research being carried out in the area of small business and IT. In doing this, the book examines the challenges facing small businesses in their use of IT and the solutions that are being proposed. The book is separated into two major parts, research that deals with IT and small business in general and research that deals with the rapidly expanding field of e-commerce.