Unlocking the “Base-of Pyramid” Readiness

The potential of the Base-Of Pyramid (BOP) community cannot be realized without an entrepreneurial orientation – an orientation that aims to create market and promote innovation. In line with the notion of the world is searching for avenues for profitable growth and innovation, converting the BOP into active entrepreneurs will foster innovations in business models (Simanis & Milstein, 2012). Realizing this situation, the Malaysian government stated the ambition of becoming a developed nation by the year 2020, and thus, the government has to accelerate their transition into an innovation-based economy. Poverty eradication has become the most important issue in Malaysia. In fact, Malaysia has embarked on many poverty eradication programmes, evidenced by the sharp decline in the incidence of poverty from 52.4% in 1970 to 12.4% in 1992 and further decreased to 3.8% in 2009 (Tenth Malaysia Plan, 2011). Under the Government Transformation Program (GTP), Malaysian government has established Rural Transformation Program (RTP) to reduce the extreme hardcore poor household to zero and also to halve the number of the BOP community. In this manner, Rural Transformation Centre (RTC) was introduced to optimize the potential of rural areas as the generator and growth of new economy. Although Malaysia has done remarkably well, there are challenges to serve this segment in which they need specific interventions to increase attention to eliminate inequalities between rich and poor. Hence, this chapter unlocks and explores the BOP community readiness to venture into business development.

Manoeuvring the Rough Commercial Landscape through Outsourcing

The global commercial landscape is moving dynamically and continues to loom in the rigour environment, forewarning the Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs) to get their act together before the next wave of the rough economic landscape hits their bottom line. SMEs discover that they need to reposition themselves, and consistent with this, many SMEs embark on outsourcing as one of their business strategies to manoeuvre their companies so that they could survive and sustain during the tough time. Therefore, this chapter studies the prevalence of outsourcing among entrepreneurs in SMEs in Malaysia. Outsourcing is a convoluted process and can bring new development opportunity for the SMEs to quest for their competitiveness. A sample of ten SME entrepreneurs from Malaysia participated in this study. A series of interviews were conducted among these entrepreneurs to probe their behaviours and outlook on outsourcing. The results showed that SME entrepreneurs highlighted the importance and impact of outsourcing in managing and running their business enterprise. Some entrepreneurs perceived outsourcing as a key trend shaping the future of their activities in terms of reducing costs and increasing efficiency, flexibility, and performance. In sum, this study generates agenda for researchers to reach more conclusive evidence about the practice of outsourcing among SMEs.

The Intellectual Capital Navigator as a Strategic Tool

This chapter outlines a grounded and proven tool for evaluating the effectiveness with which firms deploy the resources at their disposal. The chapter draws on the resource-based view of the firm literature as well as the intellectual capital literature combined with systems theory and matrix algebra to develop a theoretical lens and a practical tool for the optimization of the effectiveness by which the firm deploys its resources. The resources covered in the chapter are both normal monetary and physical resources as well as relational, organisational, and human intellectual capital resources capturing both the tangible and intangible aspects of these resources. The chapter takes a step-by-step approach and illustrates each step as well as providing guidelines for how to interpret the results. The practicality and validity of the tools have been proven through applications in more than one thousand firms.

Exploring the Components of Intellectual Capital in Electrical and Electronics SMEs in Pakistan

This chapter identifies the existence of the major components of intellectual capital in Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) operating in the electrical and electronics manufacturing sector in Pakistan. This study has been designed with the aim of selecting 6 major components of intellectual capital, namely human capital, customer capital, structural capital, social capital, technological capital, and spiritual capital. A structured questionnaire was utilized to conduct a survey of 247 respondents from 106 SMEs to identify the existence of these components of intellectual capital. This study confirms the existence of the major components of intellectual capital in SMEs operating in electrical and electronics manufacturing sector in Pakistan. The findings of this study provide valuable insights on the generalizability of the components of intellectual capital in a novel research setting in Pakistani. The findings of the study allow SMEs practitioners a better understanding about the existence of the components of intellectual capital on which they ought to focus their management efforts in order to take competitive advantage. This study is among only a few to investigate the existence of the components of intellectual capital in Pakistani SMEs and the first to SMEs operating in the electrical and electronics manufacturing sector.

Entrepreneurship and Innovation in ICT Companies

This chapter studies entrepreneurship and innovation in ICT companies. The study presents a literature review considering the particular features of ICT companies and proposes an empirical study applied to ICT companies in a small open economy. Empirical study using a relevant sample of ICT Portuguese companies allowed an interesting characterization of this sector in several strategic dimensions. Most ICT companies contribute to the Schumpeterian process of creative destruction, assuming a catalytic role in the creation of new companies (and industries) and in mortality of the less fit companies. In this way, promoting the revitalization and competitive selection with impact on organizational structures and obvious implications for employment, directly or indirectly, tends to save the market friction and contribute to the reduction of transaction and context costs, with a positive impact on productivity and economic growth.

Managerial Orientations and Digital Commerce Adoption in SMEs

This chapter determines the relationships between managerial orientation factors, such as entrepreneurial alertness, learning goal orientation, and digital efficacy, on the adoption and outcomes of digital commerce in Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs). A survey of Australian SMEs was conducted, and 109 useable responses were received. The results describe owner/manager views of digital commerce use and business outcomes such as growth and efficiency resulting from adoption. Hierarchical regression analysis reveals that managerial orientations related to entrepreneurial alertness scanning and search as well as learning goal-orientation predict growth outcomes resulting from using digital commerce. Being able to see connections, make associations, and search for new opportunities is significantly related to efficiency stemming from digital commerce adoption. The findings contribute to the knowledge of digital commerce adoption, its outcomes, and how these relate to managerial orientations of entrepreneurial alertness, learning, and digital efficacy.

The Role of the Entrepreneur and Government in the Development of Korean Information Technology Firms

This chapter examines how an entrepreneur’s strategic choice influences corporate development leading to the initial public offering. The data comes from Korean startups in the information technology industry. The authors consider the dynamic interplay between an entrepreneur’s attributes and government's institutional support as key factors. An empirical analysis of 615 listed companies shows that an entrepreneur’s attributes play a significant role in market entry, especially in the information technology industry, which tends to have shorter lead time to the initial public offering. Government certification and venture capital investment also facilitate corporate growth toward the public company status.

An Investigation into the Success Factors of Small Software Companies

This chapter is concerned with the study of success factors in small software firms. The decision to focus specifically on the software sector, as opposed to high technology firms or the generic small firm, is because the authors believe that there are elements in the operation of a software business that are unique to that domain and do not have equivalents in other industries. Interviews were carried out with six owner/managers of small to medium software firms. The interview data was interpreted using a qualitative analysis approach based on the principles of grounded theory. A number of factors emerged from this analysis, a few of which have parallels in the generic small firm literature (e.g. market positioning, export orientation, distribution channel), as well as a few others which appear to be specific to the software industry (e.g. remote accessibility, ability to demonstrate/trial at global reach with minimal expense, software reuse, etc.).

The Use of Vignette Experiments in Business Strategy Research

Scholars in business strategy research often face the challenge of obtaining the necessary empirical data to test causal relationships that form the foundation for many practitioner-oriented recommendations. About two decades ago, Priem (1992) and Priem and Harrison (1994) provided compelling introductions to and called for using vignette experiments to overcome this impasse. Yet, little is known on vignette experiments’ actual use in business strategy research. In this chapter, a search of past applications suggests little overall use, yet a broad diversity in both the themes studied with vignettes and the ways the vignettes were used by scholars. These findings suggest that a number of open methodological issues likely have hampered more common use of the method so far.

Exporting vs. Domestic SMEs in Malaysia

The extent of SMEs’ technology adoption in Malaysia has not been clearly reported. This chapter provides an initial snapshot onto the various types of technological tools adopted by exporting and domestic SMEs in Malaysia. It also highlights the differing perceptions held by both exporting and domestic SMEs on certain issues related to the technological, organizational, and environmental contexts that the firms operate in as well as the differences in the owners’ characteristics for the two types of SMEs. Through a survey of 540 manufacturing and manufacturing-related services SMEs, the findings revealed that exporting firms generally have higher technology adoption rates than domestic firms. Significant differences between exporting and domestic firms were also found in their perceptions on issues like perceived relative advantage, competitive advantage, information intensity, as well as in the owners’ characteristics, such as innovativeness. Implications drawn from the findings are duly discussed in the chapter.