دانلود رایگان مقاله مدیریت شرکت های کوچک و متوسط بنگاه به بنگاه از پیشینه تا استفاده از رسانه های اجتماعی

Abstract

This paper elucidates how business-to-business (B2B) small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) can manage antecedents to the application of social media for potential contributions to their business. This in-depth qualitative research study was conducted at four plastic-producing SMEs from October 2013 to October 2014, with follow-up interviews in October 2015. The findings reveal two important antecedents to the application of social media that overcome the gap between acknowledging the usefulness of social media and its actual limited application in practical B2B contexts. First, open collaborative business model innovation is needed to apply social media in local business processes. Second, central and distributed leadership must be integrated to create ownership and responsibility across the SME organisation and beyond to customers and partners. These findings differ from the social media application stages and the gaps between them identified in the previous literature. The developed model makes a contribution to the B2B SME field and to academia by recognising the importance of integrating critical antecedents before social media application can enhance business in B2B SMEs. This understanding is beneficial for the B2B SMEs and for society.

9. Conclusion

This paper elucidated how B2B SMEs can manage the antecedents of social media application to enhance business in their enterprises. The research was conducted as a qualitative action research case study with four plastic-producing SMEs from October 2013 to October 2014 with follow-up interviews in October 2015. The findings provide an enhanced understanding of the knowledge gap on B2B SMEs. These firms perceive the usefulness of social media for its potential contribution to their business and the contrasting limited actual application of social media in the SME business context. The findings reveal two important antecedents for social media application to overcome the gap between acknowledging the usefulness of social media and its actual limited application. First, open collaborative business model innovation for the application of social media in specific business processes in the B2B SMEs is needed. These specific business processes need to be aligned with the overall aim of the business model innovation of the B2B SME. Second, the integration of central and distributed leadership is needed to create ownership and responsibility across all levels of the B2B SME organisation. These findings differ from the perceived stages of social media application, with gaps between, found in the literature. Instead, the two antecedents of open business model innovation and the integration of central and distributed leadership approaches are emphasised as being necessary before social media application can really make a contribution to B2B SMEs. Thus, the model developed based on the findings from this research can contribute to the B2B SME field by highlighting the two antecedents required and the managerial and theoretical implications for efficient and effective social media application. The model furthermore makes a contribution to academia by providing a more thorough understanding of social media application and its antecedents, which is needed for enhanced educational dissemination and further research in the B2B SME context.