Moyosoreoluwa Ogundipe, President, Parere_Inc, USA.

Introduction

Businesses usually start small. Although some can secure the resources to skip the small-business stage, most businesses experience it for a couple of years, while some remain there. Small businesses are often hailed as a vital segment of our national and local economies and a primary driver of U.S. financial growth (Hait, 2021). The Office of Advocacy defines a small business as an independent business with fewer than 500 employees. The table of size standards contains the industry-level small business size standards used in government programs and contracting. A size standard, typically stated in terms of the number of employees or average annual receipts, represents the largest size that a business (including its subsidiaries and affiliates) may have to remain classified as a small business for SBA and federal contracting programs. The definition of “small” varies by industry. For example, under the SBA definition, a roofing contractor is considered a small business if its annual revenue is $16.5 million or less. In contrast, an asphalt shingle and coating material manufacturer is defined as a small business if it has fewer than 750 employees (Hait, 2021).

Businesses of varying sizes adopt differing strategies to achieve their stated mission and goals. While some businesses adopt more traditional strategies, more are adopting emerging strategies to execute their operations. The deployment of information systems is becoming the norm and not the exception in today’s business environment. Adoption of digital tools is growing steadily, and with the current rise of artificial intelligence, being able to reduce risk and cost involved in more jobs is something that encourages the continued adoption of digital technologies.

The adoption of digital business strategies offers so many benefits for current small business owners looking to scale their business. Increasing digitization of business processes, products, and services makes it imperative to develop a better understanding of the opportunities that adopting digital business strategies offer small businesses. A digital business strategy outlines how a company uses digital technologies to achieve its goals, improve efficiency, and enhance customer experiences. A digital strategy is essentially an organization’s roadmap of how it will use digital technologies to reach its goals (International Institute for Management Development, 2025). Digital business strategy is the extent to which a firm engages in any category of IT activity. The building blocks for how digital business strategy emerges are the interplay between a firm’s digital strategic posture and industry environment (Mithas et al., 2013).

Digital business strategy is about using developments in technology to improve how companies create value for their customers. Digital business strategy guides the innovation of new products and new capabilities that were previously impossible. It highlights areas for growth, like new customer segments, and creates efficiencies and competitive advantages (Mitzkus, 2024). To scale in the digital age, small businesses restructure to adopt digital business strategies & concepts for more growth and success. At the core of the digital business strategy is the creation of an enabling environment for system changes, the deployment of information systems, and the adoption of predictive analytics.

Information Systems involve effectively designing, delivering, and using information and communications technologies to solve problems for companies, governments, and society. Equally, it is about understanding and measuring the impacts of these technologies on people and communities so they can be deployed ethically (Carnegie Mellon University, 2025). Information systems encompass organizations’ tools to collect, manage, and analyze data. This data guides decision-making to improve efficiency and profitability (Strauss, 2022).

Information systems focus on how to apply technology in business and other practical settings, while computer science focuses on the theory and mathematics of computing. Although there will always be some debate about when and where the first administrative information system was developed, there is general agreement that the first such system in the United Kingdom was developed at J. Lyons & Sons. In the United States, the first administrative information system was General Electric’s (GE) payroll system, which was developed in 1954 (Computer History Museum, 2025). At that time, and for many years afterward, obtaining an information system meant one thing only: in-house development (Valacich & George, 2016).

There are five components of information systems, namely hardware, software, data sources, telecommunications, and human users. Hardware is the tangible technology used to manage data. Examples include computers, smartphones, and their components. Software is the intangible programming that directs hardware and enables users to perform specific tasks (Strauss, 2022). We can group the sources of software into six major categories: information technology services firms, packaged software producers, enterprise-wide solutions, cloud computing vendors, open-source software, and in-house developers (Valacich & George, 2016). Data sources house data that can be retrieved, manipulated, and analyzed to make decisions. Examples include databases and data warehouses. Telecommunications refers to the pathways through which devices and software can send data to each other. Human users capable of understanding and manipulating data are essential to any information systems strategy (Strauss, 2022).

Do managers promote the psychological empowerment of employees, or rather focus only on job empowerment? Keep in mind that it is important to enhance employees’ confidence regarding their capabilities to engage in creative behaviors in the workplace. Similarly, a psychologically safe environment is also critical if employees seek to pursue creative endeavors (Mehmood et al., 2021). For a successful information technology configuration, management, programming, and usage, employee participation is a key input (Ranganathan, Watson-Manheim, & Keeler, 2004). For information technology deployment to go well, achieve the intended usage, and see the intended or expected results, we work through some form of user resistance (Ranganathan, Watson-Manheim, & Keeler, 2004). By minimizing user resistance and with the right upper management support, the results of a successful deployment would be felt by the enterprise (Ranganathan, Watson-Manheim, & Keeler, 2004).

Predictive analytics are techniques that use data to predict future events. It combines statistical methods like machine learning, data mining, and predictive modeling. It is the use of data to predict future trends and events. It uses historical data to forecast potential scenarios that can help drive strategic decisions. Predictive analysis can be conducted manually or using machine-learning algorithms. Either way, historical data is used to make assumptions about the future (Cote, 2021). Businesses use predictive analytics to fine-tune their operations and decide whether new products are worth the investment. Investors use predictive analytics to decide where to put their money. Internet retailers use predictive analytics to fine-tune purchase recommendations to their users and increase sales (Halton, 2025).

A common misconception is that predictive analytics and machine learning are the same. Predictive analytics helps us understand possible future occurrences by analyzing the past. At its core, predictive analytics includes a series of statistical techniques (including machine learning, predictive modeling, and data mining) and uses statistics (both historical and current) to estimate, or predict, future outcomes. Thus, machine learning is a tool used in predictive analysis (Halton, 2025).

Problem Statement

While the assumption is that businesses are trying to achieve their stated missions and objectives, Ogundipe (2024) asks us to question whether the motivations for the business are purely financial. What non-pecuniary motivations might be attached to business? Ogundipe (2025) brings to our attention the importance of culture in a small business. It talks about the potential for culture at businesses to be a catalyst for economic growth.  Operating with the assumption that we want small businesses to be pecuniarily and non-pecuniarily net-valuable, and we want to drive economic growth, we must understand the mechanisms through which small businesses scale. It makes sense that we want small businesses to become big businesses or be valuable. It makes me wonder what strategies small business owners need to adopt to prepare their organizations for eventual transition into big business. What practices can small businesses foster that pay off when they eventually transform into large firms, and what features should small businesses expect when they scale?

Small firms have so much to utilize in this age of innovation. Technological innovations offer small businesses so many possibilities, requiring lower costs than in previous ages. Adopting the right strategy early on is integral to the success of IT deployments. How employees react to changing IT practices is an important factor to consider when conceptualizing a firm’s business strategy. The employees and customers are the core users of digital systems, and their willingness to adopt the products and services planned by the firm’s IT professionals determines the success of the business’s IT adoption. Imbibing the right attitudes and commitments from employees will reward the business with rewards for the IT investments.

• Can digital business strategies influence growth?
• What scaling benefits can small businesses derive from adopting digital strategies?

Literature Review

Information & Intelligence Systems

2020

International-focused and domestic-focused SMEs in Canada use digital technologies differently for growth. International SMEs are more likely to adopt advanced information systems such as CRM and ERP to streamline operations and manage global customer relationships. They also tend to have broader value networks, leveraging third-party services and online platforms to extend their market reach. Additionally, international SMEs invest more in specialized ICT resources, employing dedicated staff to handle the complexities of digital environments. As these firms face greater cybersecurity risks due to their global operations, they prioritize robust cybersecurity measures to safeguard their systems and avoid costly disruptions. The essential role of ICT resources and value networks in enabling international expansion is highlighted. It also underscores the importance of cybersecurity, which is often overlooked in traditional business model frameworks. In digital internationalization, cybersecurity is not just a protective measure but a strategic enabler of growth and innovation, aligning with Bailetti and Craigen (2020), who emphasize its role in providing a competitive advantage. Ultimately, the study shows that advanced digital systems, strong networks, skilled resources, and robust cybersecurity are crucial for international SMEs’ success in the global marketplace (Westerlund, 2020).

With the constant flow of large data sets generated by different organizations, big data analytics promises to be a revolutionary gamechanger for the Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) industry. The objective is to understand the contributing factors for the adoption of big data in AEC firms. The outcomes indicated that the inhibitors and facilitators of BDA adoption intention were different in construction service firms vis-à-vis construction firms. For the perceived strategic value of BDA, the results yielded a positive impact on BDA adoption. Out of the eight perceived strategic value variables of BDA, big data quality, top management support, technology readiness, competitive pressure, and firm size are confirmed as being significant drivers of the perceived strategic value of BDA. Empirical evidence that technology readiness is significant in describing the strategic value of BDA might exist. Business managers must have realistic expectations for big data quality, along with the integration challenges for the adoption of BDA solutions. Managers steering BDA adoption projects must organize a team of experts whose skill sets encompass the traditional analytics platforms and environment (Chaurasia & Verma, 2020).

The relevance of performance measurement and management systems (PMMS) in small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in facing the current competitive environment is hopefully understood. The efforts for developing PMMS in a leading SME could determine two different evolution paths within the same company because of the influence of management information systems, organizational culture, and management style. Academic and practical contributions in the form of a longitudinal, in-depth assessment of the PMMS adopted by a leading SME can be researched. The academic aspect covers the understanding of the evolutionary path of performance measurement and management in a manufacturing SME. The practical contribution offers a path, namely, a mature and democratic path, to managerial improvement in leading manufacturing SMEs (Sardi et al., 2020).

2021

The diffusion of information systems (IS) in small and medium enterprises (SMEs) is a multifaceted and open social phenomenon, considering the role and effects of complementary adoptions, that is, other innovations and their adopters, on the adoption of the IS, called focal adoptions. Adoption is a staged process (agenda-setting, matching, implementing, restructuring, clarifying, routinising, and infusion), and multiple case studies were used to guide the fieldwork and analysis. The outcome, timing, and flow of the stages of the focal processes were affected by intricate and multilevel systems of mutually dependent complementary adoptions of innovations and non-innovations by a diversity of adopters, which ultimately determined the results of the focal adoptions (Vega & Chiasson, 2021).

Big data analytics (BDA) played a mediating role between project performance and nine factors, including top management, project knowledge management, focus on sustainability, green purchasing, environmental technologies, social responsibility, project operational capabilities, project complexity, collaboration and explorative learning, and project success. In developing economies, achieving technical and operational performance at maximum cost is essential. A theoretical foundation to develop a BDA setup for manufacturers in the context of sustainability and project management is possible. Significant insights into the determinants of BDA for manufacturing SMEs handling innovative projects are available to academicians and researchers. BDA capabilities can optimize SMEs’ data generation, integration, and assimilation (Mangla et al., 2021).

Developing a reliable parametric cost model at the conceptual stage of the project is crucial for project managers and decision makers. Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) algorithms include numerous models and algorithms for supervised regression applications. A comparative analysis of 20 or more AI models can guide practitioners to the appropriate model. The importance of ensemble methods for improving prediction accuracy and handling noisy and missing data is advocated. The most accurate and suitable method might be XGBoost (Elmousalami, 2021).

2022

Innovation has a positive effect on performance; accounting information systems have a positive impact on performance; accounting information systems mediate the effect of strategy on performance; and innovation fully mediates the effect of strategy on performance (Latifah et al, 2021). There is a need to investigate the risks related to adopting new technological innovations. While companies need to think of traditional risks such as market risks, financial risks, or strategic risks, they should be aware of knowledge risk too. It would put the small company in a better position to assess what the adoption of new technological innovation may mean for the organization, its business model, its organizational structure, and its people. Advocacy is made for a knowledge management system in small businesses to minimize knowledge risk (Temel & Durst, 2021). The management accounting information system had a positive effect on business performance. The world’s uncertainty and complexity have required more rigorous data as a basis for sound business decision-making (Hariyati et al., 2022).

Personalized management, a hallmark of many small and medium-sized German Mittelstand firms, can be scaled as these businesses grow. Using case studies of firms like Viessmann, Hipp, Würth, and Bertelsmann, it is found that maintaining personalization becomes increasingly challenging at larger scales. Attempts to merely extend personal control systems often fail unless the approach is truly scalable. The key insight is that successful scaling of personalization involves strategically focusing on a specific stakeholder group, such as consumers, employees, or the public, based on the firm’s nature and operations. For example, Hipp and Trigema used mass media to engage consumers, Würth focused on empowering employees, and Bertelsmann influenced public opinion through its media foundation. These targeted strategies enabled firms to extend their personalized touch in effective media as they grew. “Personalization” should be redeemed to mean personalized management rather than just customer-centric mass customization. Founder personality and personalized leadership still play a crucial role in many Mittelstand firms, offering a competitive advantage even at scale. Overall, personalized organizational cultures can be deliberately preserved and extended during growth, not just a relic of small-firm beginnings, but a strategic asset in their continued expansion (Lehrer & Schmid, 2022).

Business continuity (BC) management is an organizational approach to preparing information systems (IS) for incidents, but such approaches are uncommon among small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). To fill this gap and to respond to a practical need by an IT consultancy company, design science research (DSR) was employed to develop a BC approach for SMEs, coined as the thrifty BC management approach. Designing a BC approach, which facilitates expert-based decision-making but could be used independently by SMEs, posed a dilemma between theory and practice. This is because BC requires substantive expertise, which is rarely available within SMEs, and acquiring such resources can be difficult or even out of reach for SMEs. However, the evaluations they conducted do not span all possible SME contexts. The design partner’s involvement created practical expectations and relevance for the approach within their different clients’ contexts (Järveläinen et al., 2022). The innovation of enterprise resource planning and business intelligence systems (ERPBIS) has captivated the interest of industry analysts and policymakers due to their potential to provide more intellectual information for decision-making and ensure the organization’s continuity. One can only wonder about the extent to which technological factors, namely, artificial intelligence, perceived usefulness, compatibility, big data analytics facility, and cloud computing facility, affect behavioral intention towards using ERPBIS. ERPBIS plays a significant role in the performance of organizations and business continuity, which is why its adoption is advocated among SMEs (Zheng & Khalid, 2022).

The current market in which enterprises compete is highly complex, requiring significant competitive advantages based on information and knowledge, to both survive in it and take a leadership position against the competition. This reality manifests the necessity to enhance information systems so they can be used contextually to decide what is best and most adequate for each opportunity. The existence of BI, BA, data mining, analytics, and visualization tools supports this enhancement, allowing enterprises to know, with high precision, their status and, based on the presented information, predict future market behaviors and take proactive actions. A framework for SMEs is to adopt free/open-source software in trying to introduce big data analytics (Pantano & Romagnano, 2022).

In China, the digital economy has become an important force in economic transformation, and both large firms and SMEs are searching for progress in digital transformation. Compared with the resource advantages of large firms, there is still a lot of confusion among SMEs about how and when to play the positive role of big data analytics capability (BDAC) in competitive performance. The internal mechanism regarding BDAC’s influence on SMEs’ competitive performance via the mediating role of business models (BMs) is explained. The matching degree of BDAC and BMs suggests how managers can put balanced investments into the development of BDAC and BMs. BMs are a mediating factor, which means managers should focus on the unique role of BMs as a bridge for BDAC in promoting competitive performance. Therefore, managers should improve the business model design based on the value creation logic and value acquisition mechanism under the BDAC, utilizing resource allocation, organizational structure adjustment, participants’ collaboration, value chain analysis, and other ways (Song et al., 2022).

Tests have been conducted to check if machine learning can improve our ability to identify information in the financial statements that is useful for forecasting the sign of future earnings changes and to test whether these forecasts are useful for returns prediction. In several settings, random forest (a popular machine learning algorithm) is superior to stepwise logit regression (a popular parametric method) in terms of the accuracy of predictions about the sign of future earnings changes. Moreover, a trading strategy based on the predictions from random forest earns significantly higher abnormal returns than does a trading strategy based on the predictions from stepwise logit regression (Hunt et al., 2022)

 

The International Labor Organization’s SMEs COVID-19 pandemic business risks scale can be used to determine whether Artificial Intelligence (AI) applications are associated with reduced business risks for SMEs. Using a 10-item scale to examine the use of AI in marketing, sales, communication, predictions, pricing, cash flow, fake reviews, cybersecurity, recruitment, and legal services, SMEs’ business risks caused by the COVID-19 pandemic declined with the use of AI applications in London, England. The outcomes proved robust across different specifications such as enterprise size, turnover, and years of operation, indicating that AI applications can help SMEs to adapt to unprecedented conditions during a pandemic like COVID-19. AI in SMEs can be envisioned as a set of best practices to boost their dynamic capabilities by leveraging technology to meet and exploit new opportunities and change operational processes, thereby increasing efficiency and reducing business risks caused by the pandemic (Drydakis, 2022).

2023

Entrepreneurs’ academic background, budget control, learning from failures, team building, geographical expansion, and critical early business experiences are key attributes identified that facilitate the successful scaling of IT SMEs in Chile. Combined with a supportive entrepreneurial ecosystem and financial market reforms, these factors enable firms to scale and achieve sustained sales growth. The documented interplay between deliberate and emergent strategies- customer engagement, solution delivery, financial management, and team coordination- helps firms address both planned growth and unexpected challenges. Small firms focus more on regional business, and medium-sized firms emphasize client relationships. Entrepreneurs with a master’s degree prioritize experience and adaptability, while those without focus on startup activities. Despite the lack of strong empirical support for factors like networking and financial capital availability, the study identifies strategic partnerships, advanced technologies, and varied work experience as key drivers of scaling. The firms studied demonstrated rapid growth, with a 66.7% increase in sales and a 105.9% rise in employees, underscoring the significance of both internal and external factors in scaling within emerging markets. (Ireta-Sanchez, 2023).

Using longitudinal data from the UK from 2000 to 2017, firms that accelerated growth were analyzed across four areas: sales, employment, market share, and productivity. It is highlighted that firm growth is not uniform—different types of acceleration may conflict with each other, and strategic sequencing of growth priorities can be crucial. For managers and entrepreneurs, the study suggests practical strategies: understand and manage tensions between growth types, consider expanding into new and less saturated markets (“blue oceans”), and leverage co-location with foreign firms to benefit from knowledge spillovers. These external factors, alongside organizational and industry dynamics, play a key role in enabling growth. Emphasis is placed on a multi-level approach, noting that both internal (organizational) and external (regional and industry) conditions interact to influence how firms scale. A takeaway of the research was the exploration of these interactions; it also points to the need for future studies to better understand how factors like digitalization and platform use may cause trade-offs, for example, boosting sales but reducing the need for employment growth, especially in non-tech sectors (Belitski et al., 2023).

In emerging economies, social networks play a more significant role than government support in helping individuals pursue entrepreneurial goals. The government’s influence appears limited, possibly due to restricted access to public funding and underdeveloped financial systems in such regions. Furthermore, difficult regional economic conditions can drive people toward entrepreneurship out of necessity. The importance of organizations and institutions, like schools and universities, in providing entrepreneurship education and skill-building opportunities is not to be underplayed. These efforts help create a more supportive environment for aspiring entrepreneurs. Additionally, personal traits like proactiveness, resourcefulness, and entrepreneurial alertness are highlighted as crucial in overcoming systemic barriers. Therefore, shifting entrepreneurship development strategies away from purely financial incentives toward fostering these traits to build more resilient young entrepreneurs is advocated for (Nungsari et al., 2023). Managerial knowledge, external expert support, organizational characteristics, user participation in the system, and managerial support have significant impacts on the effectiveness of accounting information systems in small and medium-sized enterprises in Hanoi (Ngo, 2023).

Supply chain performance (SCP) could act as a mediator between big data-driven supply chain (BDDSC) and firm sustainable performance. There seems to be an impact of BDDSC on sustainable performance via the interaction of SCP and firm age. This holds for their performance outcomes as well. BDDSC enables supply chain integration, which influences SCP. Firm age acts as a moderating link between SCP and a firm’s sustainability. There is a direct correlation between BDDSC and SCP. BDDSC is an important organizational resource. This is due to its ability to extract relevant information from large datasets. It also enables resource productivity, increasing effective and efficient SCP. It also gives the firm a strategic fit between performance and purpose by enabling effective internal and external communication. It brings an end to data access to supply chain partners. Effective SCP leads to a firm’s sustainability. It integrates performance to purpose and helps the company to achieve its vision and mission through operational efficiency. This, in turn, creates value and an inimitable competitive advantage (Kamboj & Rana, 2023).

All businesses, especially small and medium enterprises, have many issues trying to survive with traditional technology. Therefore, enterprises need to adopt business intelligence by using the management of information technology systems to overcome the issues. The effective adoption of a business intelligence system (BIS) by SMEs should consider several factors related to the business’s resources and capabilities. The assessment of these elements reflects the flexibility of the business to effectively adopt the BIS. The potential usefulness and ease of use should be based on the high level of information quality required by the business, as well as the social support and good facility conditions that assist SMEs in smoothly adopting the BIS. Effective IT management plays a significant role in guiding the adoption, as it takes care of introducing the BIS to the business, besides providing a high degree of flexibility in executing the BIS adoption at an appropriate phase (Alsibhawi et al.,2023).

MSMEs should adopt business intelligence and analytics (BIA) systems, and a framework is proposed for the BIA adoption process in the context of MSMEs. Using the BIA adoption of MSMEs in Vietnam, a typical example of a developing country, three BIA adoption stages are identified with specific technical and managerial features in the path of BIA adoption in each stage that correspond to the level of BIA maturity of MSMEs. Examination of the BIA adoption in MSMEs holds some implications for practice. Findings can help the understanding of the BIA adoption stage at which the MSMEs are. Thereby, findings also help business leaders and owners of MSMEs to determine the BIA maturity of their organization, as well as understand the potential benefits and implications of BIA adoption. In the same vein, their findings of contextual factors, leadership competencies, motivations, and barriers for BIA adoption can help MSME leaders and owners to trigger, advance, or eliminate challenges for the adoption of BIA initiatives in MSMEs. Consultancies as well as standard setters can use their framework to develop detailed BIA adoption strategies and tactics that support MSMEs towards BIA adoption in both developed and developing countries, in most industries (Hoang & Bui, 2023).

There has been an increase in the demand for business management capabilities that put into practice, autonomously, skills and knowledge in business intelligence and analytics by all those who make decisions and lead organizations (Faúndez & de la Fuente-Mella, 2023). With regards to supply chain management (SCM), we have insightful information about the use and adoption of technologies for small and medium-sized enterprises in developing countries. There is a positive and significant relationship between the relative advantage (RA) and the predictive supply chain business analytics (SCBA) adoption among SMEs in developing countries. Perceiving the benefits of predictive SCBA in SMEs leads owner-managers to be better exposed and confident to adopt the predictive SCBA technology. They are sharing knowledge and experiences broadly on how SCBA adoption implies the growth and efficiency of a firm, using the RA offers that might lead to a higher level. The spread of success stories broadcasts predictive SCBA adoption quickly and more widely among SMEs (AL-Shboul, 2023).

Emerging digital communication technologies (EDCT) affected SMEs’ resilience during the COVID-19 pandemic in a “weak institutional” developing country, Nigeria. EDCT played a critical role in activating SMEs’ resilience during the crisis through four drivers: facilitating connections and bonding with staff, clients, and suppliers; enabling collaborations; activating process diversification; and enhancing supply chain flexibility. A pandemic like COVID-19 forced companies to adjust and adopt digital tools to be resilient (Ashiru et al., 2023).

2024

A nuanced study of start-ups helps us understand how those in peripheral or geographically disadvantaged regions successfully scale up by deploying a diverse mix of internal (endogenous) and external strategies. While earlier studies emphasized internal organizational factors such as leadership, team dynamics, key individuals, company culture, and financial management, the lens was broadened by examining how start-ups adapt to and leverage their external environment to grow rapidly. External strategies – those that engage directly with the business environment – are just as crucial as internal capabilities, findings suggest. Actions like building external partnerships, engaging with local and global networks, and navigating institutional or regional constraints also mattered. This extends existing scaling theory by emphasizing that start-ups in challenging or under-resourced locations need a context-sensitive and comprehensive approach, combining multiple strategies rather than relying on a single growth factor. Importantly, a scaling strategy model that integrates both internal and external strategic dimensions is presented. Their model illustrates that no single strategy guarantees success; rather, it’s the synergistic effect of various strategies—adapted to the specific challenges of the local context—that drives rapid scale-up. By comparing firm practices across different settings, they offer valuable practical insights for entrepreneurs and policymakers working in peripheral or uncertain environments, while also contributing to the broader entrepreneurship literature with its context-based approach to startup growth (Felzensztein & Bagheri, 2024).

Investigating the rapid growth of 15 Chilean IT SMEs, which scaled at an average rate of 73.3% over 25 months, faster than the 42-month average noted by the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, five key strategic initiatives were identified that supported this growth: three deliberate strategies (maintaining customer engagement, delivering tailored business solutions, and leveraging social capital), and two emergent strategies (securing financial structure and driving organizational change during crises). These strategies reflect how SMEs prepare for scale, not just through planning but by adapting to real-time challenges. While specific to Chile’s IT sector, it provides valuable insights into SME development in fast-growing, emerging economies. It shows that scaling is not immediate but preceded by a strategic preparation phase that combines intentional action and flexible, experience-driven responses. The findings also align with scholars like Wiesner and Millett (2012), who call for accessible, short-term strategy tools for SMEs, and Leitner (2014), who finds that emergent strategies can outperform planned ones in stable markets. Prior business experience with self-funded ventures – often involving failed ventures – emphasizes the entrepreneurial context that 13 out of 15 founders had. This experience, paired with a contingency mindset and opportunity recognition, contributed to their success. Nine of the SMEs exported services, mostly to Colombia, due to cultural and linguistic similarities, while Argentina was avoided because of economic instability. Lastly, the study outlines six foundational elements of a scalable SME business model: business definition, lean operations, team management, sales planning, control systems, and installment strategy. These components form a practical framework for SMEs aiming to scale efficiently in competitive, resource-constrained environments (Ireta-Sanchez, 2024).

Examining information systems competencies using fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis in the context of lower-middle-income economies for small businesses, small business owner-managers have the potential to significantly enhance their capability to actively employ fundamental innovation, thereby fostering competitive advantage by expanding their overall threshold of knowledge management. Information systems play a crucial role in every organization, including small ventures. Management’s perspective, attitudes towards information systems adoption and use, and the development of internal competencies are crucial factors in determining successful adoption. Information systems competencies alone are insufficient to improve small businesses, but they are derived from effective knowledge management (Vargas-Zeledon, 2023). While the development and implementation of information and communication technologies are beneficial to the productivity, efficiency, and innovation of both organizations and individuals, they may also produce harmful effects on individuals, such as technostress or digital stress (Thurik et al., 2024). Different components of an accounting information system are important, especially in business, particularly in administration. They facilitate decision-making by management, and in this context, the accounting system deserves recognition for the significant value it brings to organizations. Small businesses in South Africa were not using accounting information systems. Implementing these techniques in small enterprise company administration fostered business growth. Additionally, organizations that are already using these systems should educate their employees on the optimal use of computerized systems (Kansilembo & Mkhize, 2024).

2025

Big Data Analytics (BDA) has increasingly become popular both in theory and practice in recent years. Globally, larger businesses have used BDA to collect, study, and evaluate vast volumes of data to identify market trends and insights that lead to sound and intelligent business decisions, but its adoption in small and medium enterprises (SMEs) is not fully maximized because of a variety of factors, including a lack of expertise and financial repercussions. Based on findings, system quality, information quality, and predictive analytics accuracy have shown a positive influence on the perceived benefits of BDA, thus affecting adoption intention among Philippine SMEs. Likewise, perceived security significantly influences perceived benefits, perceived ease of use, and attitude towards use of BDA. Further, perceived benefits have significant relationships with perceived ease of use and usefulness, which subsequently lead to attitude towards the use of BDA, which emerged as a significant predictor of intention to adopt BDA among SMEs in the Philippines. In general, there is a positive interest in adopting BDA among Philippine SMEs (Escolano et al., 2025).

Labor & Resources Management

User resistance can be disastrous to the successful implementation of information technology projects. Employee participation is a critical component for successful IT deployment. A good way to measure and influence employee participation is employee ownership behavior (Wagner, Parker, & Christiansen, 2003), organizational citizenship behavior (Jeong et al., 2017), and occupational health psychology.  How the employer instills ownership beliefs and behaviors (Wagner, Parker, & Christiansen, 2003), employees react to empowering leadership (Kim & Beehr, Terry, & Prewett, 2018), and employers cultivate a culture of self-efficacy (Burns & Christiansen, 2011). The employee’s attitude to new business development and information technology requirements could influence ideation and implementation (Janovics & Christiansen, 2003). The composition of the team’s personality influences member performance (Prewett et al., 2018) and influences employee participation in information technology usage.

Employee participation in productive activities and information technology usage is impacted by the personality they display in the work environment (Ritz et al., 2023; Christiansen et al., 2016). Being able to curb work stressors and mitigate counterproductive work behaviors (An, Boyajian, & O’Brien, 2016; O’Brien, 2008). Frequent assessment of employee participation by observing the personalities of employees during business activities (Speer, Christiansen, & Honts, Christopher, 2015) goes a long way in optimizing employee usage of information technology resources. With the rise of technology-mediated communication in work environments, maintaining a high connection quality and adequate emotional labor from employees (Silard, Watson-Manheim, Mary, & Lopes, 2022) could be the difference between successful technology usage with sufficient employee participation or the opposite. Facilitation of information technology innovation might face some resistance during the initial stages, but with concerted effort, the rewards of effective and efficient deployment of information technology solutions would be attained (Ranganathan, Watson-Manheim, & Keeler, 2004). With the rise of predictive analytics, ensuring the reliability of autonomy and automation is essential (Johnson et al., 2009).

2020

Structural empowerment has a significant and positive effect on job satisfaction and organizational citizenship behaviors. This study in Assam (India) illustrates the positive influence of structural empowerment on auxiliary nurse and midwives’ job satisfaction and organizational citizenship behaviors. Structural empowerment can lead to higher job satisfaction and display organizational citizenship behaviors by giving proper access to information, support, resources, opportunity to learn and grow, and formal and informal power. Empowering nursing practitioners facilitated efficient and effective treatment for patients and consequently led to positive patient outcomes and satisfaction among health workers. Higher job satisfaction, in turn, positively caused the display of organizational citizenship behaviors, that is, altruism, civic virtue, conscientiousness, role behavior, effort, job dedication, and courtesy. Organizational citizenship behaviors of auxiliary nurses and midwives increased if they feel or perceive high job satisfaction due to high presence of structural empowerment in the form of access to information, resources, support, opportunity to learn and grow, and formal and informal power. Auxiliary nurses and midwives felt satisfied, under the influence of high structural empowerment, which increased their energy, interest, and finally resulted in commitment and dedication. Under normal circumstances, when people are satisfied, their energetic resources are more than sufficient to meet the task demand, and when auxiliary nurses and midwives are working in an environment with high access to information, resources, support, formal and informal power, and have already developed a positive attitude, extra energy becomes available to perform extra role behavior or display organizational citizenship behaviors (Narzary & Palo, 2020).

2021

Much can be said about the importance of innovation to the survival and growth of start-ups, and the role of HRM in fostering employees’ innovative work behaviors. It is important to establish a work environment where employees can upgrade their knowledge and skills, which not only allows them to develop their innovative thinking but also helps them gain confidence in their abilities to concretize their creative ideas. Informality is found to be an appreciated aspect of the learning supportive environment that is fueled by close and trust-based relationships; however, start?ups may also benefit from the adoption of structured training practices where employees play the role of a contributor rather than only a receiver, which transforms learning into an exciting social task that can enhance their motivation to innovate and share creative insights (Jebali & Meschitti, 2021).

An inquiry into the relationships among entrepreneurial leadership, employee creativity, psychological empowerment, and psychological safety, using the manufacturing sector tells us that entrepreneurial leadership is positively linked with employee creativity. We learn that entrepreneurial leadership and creativity are mediated by psychological empowerment. There is credence to the tenets of social learning theory (SLT), which argues that employees learn and adopt different thoughts and behaviors from their direct experiences and through observations within the context of their social interactions. As these interactions also affect their cognitive factors, including psychological safety and psychological empowerment, the employees also use this information to influence their thoughts and behaviors (Mehmood et al., 2021).

By juxtaposing two elements – the critical issue of succession for retiring baby boomer owners of SMEs, and a potential solution by transferring ownership to the employees- as elucidated with examples from the furniture industry, it is vital to underline the major role played by SMEs in any economy, particularly in relation to growth and job creation. A detailed examination of various financial and non-financial variables, direct observation of firms, and interviews with representatives of several international employee ownership associations and bodies led to challenging existing thinking and assumptions on the role of employee ownership as a valid business model, and to put forward an alternative option. SME succession is tricky; the employee ownership business model seems a practical solution to a specific problem. Retiring SME owners in search of a solution could consider employees looking for a sustainable and viable buyout option, practitioners and professional advisors seeking transaction examples, success stories, and best practices. Impact investors who were not aware of employee ownership as an alternative asset class are another option. There are multiple financially sustainable, innovative, viable, and practical solutions for all stakeholders. We must consider two things, though. The first one concerns employee ownership, IP, and the second one concerns finance. Firstly, employees are core creators of value in a firm, so they are one of the most valuable assets. One of the best ways of rewarding them is to transfer ownership of a healthy and stable firm and let them steer and steward it on the next journey. Secondly, access to capital and how that capital is used for employee ownership transactions will obviously play a major role in helping to speed up the rhythm of conversions in the furniture industry or any other industry. However, to be successful, capital needs to be deployed in patient ways, risk-taking, and replicated across industries while simulating employee ownership, usually not being extractive or exploitative (Pitchford, 2021).

The relationship between the implementation of the high-performance work system in the organization and the well-being and organizational citizenship behavior of employees should be of concern. A high-performance work system will have a positive and significant impact on the well-being of employees; the higher the degree of implementation of the high-performance work system by the enterprise, the higher the employees’ satisfaction with the work process. At the same time, the use of a high-performance work system will also make it easier for employees to produce employee citizenship behavior and to voluntarily do things that are beneficial to the organization. Based on the results of data analysis, specific management implications and relevant suggestions for reference in the work of the practical community can be investigated. Companies can use the implementation of high-performance work systems to make employees feel well-being in the work process, which in turn encourages employees to exhibit a higher degree of organizational citizenship behavior. This will improve the overall performance of the organization, which in turn is conducive to the sustainable operation of the company (Wang & Kortana, 2021).

2022

We are fascinated by the mechanism by which entrepreneurial leadership develops team creativity and the effect of other leadership styles on team creativity. Team psychological safety and knowledge sharing are important in developing team creativity. The dynamic and competitive business environment compels organizations to focus on creativity and innovation for organizational success. Therefore, the mechanisms of how entrepreneurial leaders promote team creativity are very important. Further, top management should promote entrepreneurial leadership practices in their organizations and develop mechanisms that motivate leaders and employees to practice entrepreneurial leadership principles and explore and exploit entrepreneurial opportunities, in turn improving organizational performance. Organizations should train their leaders, such as entrepreneurial leaders, and create a psychologically safe environment where employees share their ideas. A psychologically safe environment is a predictor of team creativity. In contrast, if a workplace is not psychologically safe, then employees are reluctant to share information with team members, which in turn decreases team creativity. So, organizations should develop an environment that is supportive of employees’ information sharing. However, knowledge sharing is more challenging for leaders in the team context, as ideas are created by individuals. Consequently, leaders should motivate and cooperate with team members in knowledge sharing. Knowledge sharing enables team members to share their information with other team members. Therefore, team creativity increases when team psychological safety and knowledge sharing exist (Mehmood et al., 2022).

Shedding light on the connection between empowering leadership and innovative work behavior (IWB), while including two mediating variables, namely climate for initiative and job autonomy, it is revealed that firms that are led by empowering leaders, that enjoy a climate for initiative, and that grant their middle managers (heads of production departments) autonomy in their job are likely to have their middle managers exhibit IWB. Empowering leadership links to IWB, as empowering leaders encourage their subordinates to experiment with innovative ways at work independently from the fear of punishment in case of negative outcomes. Further, empowering leaders boosts creativity in general as they encourage followers to exhibit proactive behaviors at work due to the trust and confidence they display. Regarding the positive association between empowering leadership and climate for initiative, empowering leaders permit their firms to provide an initiative-friendly environment to their subordinates. Organizational climate for initiative is positively associated with middle managers’ IWB. CEOs’ empowering leadership has been found to positively affect middle managers’ job autonomy. Middle managers’ job autonomy is positively associated with their IWB. The climate for initiative and job autonomy mediates the empowering leadership-IWB link (Hassi et al., 2022).

2023

In the modern era, the survival of SMEs depends on their employees’ innovative behavior, making them perform better and become sustainable. The performance of the SMEs is associated with the employees’ psychological ownership, which they exhibit at work. Research has been conducted into the direct and indirect effects of psychological ownership on the innovative work behavior (IWB) of employees at SMEs in China and their job performance (JP). There exists a significant and positive effect of job-based psychological ownership (JBPO) on the IWB of SME employees. It is important to encourage employees to be familiar with the organization for which they perform their duties, to have a sense of pride in their work, and to treat their work as if it were their organization. This JBPO-related facet leads them to generate novel ideas to solve organizational problems, support colleagues to be innovative, and apply innovative ideas in their organization. This illustrates that the development of JBPO in SME employees exhibits IWB. The more SME employees become embedded in their jobs, the more IWB they exhibit. Developing the feeling of attachment to the organization among the employees and creating a tight connection between the organization and employees causes the employees to perform their assigned tasks more attentively and accurately and meet the organizational expectations (Bai et al., 2023).

Researchers have identified that employees with creative abilities and novel ideas can better be explored for innovation outputs in the presence of leadership that delegates power and authority among subordinates. Empowering leadership creates and maintains a positive mood among the employees, and a positive mood enhances creative performance. When employees work with appropriate designations, adequate responsibilities, and space, they can perform better. Empowered employees are motivated and innovative; when a manager trusts and delegates proper authority to employees who have the knowledge and problem-solving abilities, this can result in encouragement and positively enhance innovation outcomes. Managers are responsible for the creative performance of their subordinates; therefore, managers should remain well-informed about the contributions of subordinates to innovation. Innovation is the outcome of trying to do something that has not been done before. In this process, employees with certain specific creative abilities need to remain in constant thinking (stress) to offer innovative outcomes. Managers need to analyze the creative and novel ideas of employees and the extent to which such stress can be absorbed to improve performance. Managers may align creative employees’ job-related performance with tangible and intangible rewards to enhance innovation (Dost & Qatiti, 2023).

2024

Connections between emotional intelligence, organizational citizenship behavior, and employee performance have been researched. A detailed understanding of the complex dynamics among the three variables and their influence on each other is required to properly motivate employees. Consequently, we need to build up organizational citizenship behavior as a medium to magnify the impact of emotional intelligence on workers’ performance and guarantee favorable workforce results for SMEs. There might exist a significant positive relationship between the variables, with all proposed pathways in the structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis. The mediating role of organizational citizenship behavior for emotional intelligence and employee performance offers promise. Enquiries have been made into how emotional intelligence can contribute to employee performance, with organizational citizenship behavior playing a mediating function, which are necessary elements for SMEs’ development and sustainable performance. Employees with high levels of organizational citizenship behavior play a substantial role in their emotional intelligence to become more skillful at observing and regulating their emotions, which will consequently influence their performance. SME owners/managers, as well as policymakers, need to appreciate the effect of employees’ emotional intelligence and organizational citizenship behavior and devise strategies on how to promote them within organizations to contribute to employee performance. We also need to identify other variables that might directly or indirectly impact emotional intelligence, organizational citizenship behavior, and employee performance, which could set new benchmarks (Alenezi et al., 2024).

Certain dimensions of flexible HRM – skill, behavior, and human practice flexibility – impact firm performance, and empowering leadership plays a moderating role in SMEs of emerging markets. Firms intending to improve their performance need to enhance employee productivity through increased cost-efficiency and value addition in human capital. A firm’s efficient HR systems facilitate acquiring, inspiring, nurturing, and strengthening intellectual capital that can become the source of competitive advantage. Notably, in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, flexible HR practices turned out to be highly significant for small firms. Small and medium enterprises need to tackle economic challenges for business sustainability and survival. Empowered employees enhance the firm’s performance by applying their skills to creative and innovative solutions. Employees with behavioral flexibility have the habits of responding to changing market demands, working environments, adjusting to work requirements, and changing customer requirements. When employees with flexible behavior are motivated and encouraged through delegation of power and authority by the leaders, this boosts their morale to utilize expertise for enhanced firm performance (Pahi et al., 2024).

The interplay between human resource management (HRM) and information systems (IS) is integral, and the importance of employees’ technology adoption through their behavioral intention to accept and adopt the human resource information system (HRIS) cannot be overstated. There exists a relationship between the behavioral intention to accept and adopt HRIS and work-related outcomes, which most people might overlook. Introducing the behavioral intention to accept and adopt HRIS as a mediating variable expands the horizons of HRM and IS. Thus, we need to facilitate an understanding of how information quality and employees’ technological adoption variables are crucial in improving employees’ creativity, engagement, and work–life balance by supporting positive results such as psychological HRIS adoption. Information quality, effort expectancy, social influence, and performance expectancy are involved in decreasing end-users’ disagreement, and are beneficial for their psychological adoption to improve their work-related outcomes, such as creativity, engagement, and work–life balance. Using Malaysian employees of SMEs and the psychological adoption factors that motivate and help them adopt new technologies, increase employees’ technology adoption by increasing their psychological adoption. Organizational management can implement more IS modules and attract more essential advantages from HRIS interventions to inspire SMEs to become pioneers in this competitive environment. They can persuade their employees to enhance and raise their loyalty to organizational IS and increase their sense of belonging, as they have access to information and data, while top management supports them (Shahreki & Lee, 2024).

A lot could be said about the mediating factor of employee voice and psychological ownership on the effect of transformational leadership on organizational identification. A positive and significant effect of transformational leadership on organizational identification was found. There are many studies examining the effect of transformational leadership on organizational identification, but no study has been found to examine the mediating factors of psychological ownership and employee voice. While the partial mediating role of employee voice through transformational leadership on organizational identification was determined, it was concluded that psychological ownership did not have a mediating role. It could be said that a part of the effect of transformational leadership on organizational identification passes through employee voice. Considering that transformational leadership is based on goals such as inspiring, supporting, and reaching the ideal, it can be said that employees may exhibit an identification with the organization based on this approach. On the other hand, it can be said that this research is closely related to social exchange theory. When we look at the basic assumptions of the social exchange theory, it is seen that the parties tend to enter social relationships that include reward expectations such as respect, friendship, and consideration, and maintain these relationships in relation to this (Alt?nta?, 2024).

A model through which nonfamily employees continue to be motivated and retained by their distributive justice judgments despite their compensation inequity perceptions in a less formalized HR structure in family-run SMEs, which might limit the potential for effectively implementing such practices that ultimately benefit nonfamily employees, is an equity and social status lens phenomenon/construct termed market-driven learning opportunity (MLOs). MLOs could offset the detrimental effects of nonfamily employees’ perceived compensation inequity on their distributive justice judgments. The potential for acquiring market-valued skills could provide positive emotions regarding their employment, since small businesses can be learning opportunities to enhance desirable skills, which ultimately benefit non-family employees’ perceived external employability. (Haynie et al., 2024).

Superintelligence

Anyone familiar with economics would tell you the factors of production are land, labor, capital, and entrepreneurship, and that some types of capital include financial capital, social capital, human capital, public capital, and natural or ecological capital. Recent human developments have given rise to the need to also consider technological capital. Andrew Carlson & Alyssa M. Isaacs identify individuals’ accumulated history with Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) as a replacement for the contested and outdated term ‘digital divide’. They propose that an individual’s ability to benefit from their technological history consists of four factors: awareness, (technical) knowledge, access, and technological capacity of the user’s social collective. Together, these factors make up the individual’s level or amount of technological capital. This definition, however, takes into consideration half of what technological capital is. The second half is the type, quality, and value of technology, including both tangible and intangible assets like patents, know-how, and R&D. It is a key component of a company’s innovative development, influencing its ability to create value and gain a competitive advantage. Technological capital can be a basis for financing and a catalyst for significant factors in modern economic growth and development. Artificial intelligence would fall under technological capital.

In Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies, Nick Bostrom discusses what happens when artificial intelligence surpasses human intelligence. His strategies are interesting and fascinate me, and I plan to explore the benefits and drawbacks of each strategy. However, the fear that artificial intelligence will one day surpass human intelligence is interesting because artificial intelligence is built on human intelligence. If we had contacted a superior intelligence, then we would have a metric to measure artificial intelligence surpassing human intelligence. There is, however, no metric for that because all the tests we keep subjecting AI to are things human beings have done or would have accomplished with time. So, is artificial intelligence just a faster way to interpolate knowledge and automate sequences, or is it actual intelligence? If it is actual intelligence, when it surpasses human intelligence, is that a net positive or net negative factor?

For a while, it seemed like a rise in technological capital equated to a rise in human capital. Recent trends seem to indicate a divergence of the relationship between technological capital and human capital.  For better clarity, Grigoriev et al (2014) studied in more detail the technological capital concept. For this purpose, at first, they define its content – technology. Within the framework of this study, technology is understood as a set of means, processes, operations, and methods by which input elements, constituting production, are transformed into output elements; technology encompasses machines, mechanisms, tools, skills, and knowledge. Technology can also be examined in various aspects: methodical, scientific, and process. The internal content of technology has changed: if at earlier times priority was given to its methodical characteristics, nowadays, the scientific and process aspects go first, which helps develop a concept of technological capital transfer. The Technological Capital (TC) of the firm is suggested to be understood as the total of the two components: the tangible component, including active part of the enterprise’s basic production assets (BPA), and the intangible component, aggregating intangible assets (IA) (engineering decisions), connected with production and production management.

So far, the best arguments seem to leave humanity for dead as losing to the newer superior intelligence, forgetting that we are not the fastest, strongest, wittiest, most adaptable, or most anything species right now. According to scientists, we are not even the most intelligent mammals right now. It is widely believed that dolphins are the most intelligent mammals. We have just upskilled our human capital, and that has gotten us this far, especially over the past couple of centuries. Over the next couple of years, AI enthusiasts are going to make claims that will alter business environments drastically.  How do businesses react to this change? Right now, the reaction seems to be a reduction of human labor requirements for processes. There is a shift towards automation of processes, and this alteration of physical labor requirements could just catalyze upskilling human capital. The technology is getting smarter, and even though there is a displacement of human capital right now, future generations will upskill and achieve higher levels of output and productivity. This displacement is nothing new. Human capital has experienced it numerous times with the invention of new technologies that give rise to new industries, while leaving behind obsolete industries, or at least reducing our reliance on them.

Analysis

An underappreciated aspect of doing business today is the ability to generate diverse data points and access large datasets, which help infer input-output relationships, effectiveness, and efficiency. The ability of a business to measure performance and manage resources and stakeholders in the current competitive environment may be driven by the entrepreneur’s academic background, budget control, ability to learn from failures, team-building, geographical expansion, and critical early business experiences. Performance measurement and management systems (PMMS) will need to be put in place to track the evolutionary path of businesses, and to develop mature and democratic paths to managerial improvement in leading businesses. Large data sets powering big data analytics promise to be revolutionary game-changers, but business managers must have realistic expectations for this information, along with the integration challenges of adopting BDA solutions. BDA adoption projects need a team of experts whose skill sets encompass the traditional analytics platforms and environment.

A key contributor to this would be a supportive entrepreneurial ecosystem and financial market reforms; these factors enable firms to scale and achieve sustained sales growth. The market focus of a business determines the type of technology they deploy, but with most businesses operating these days digitally, the essential role of ICT resources and value networks in enabling international expansion cannot be overstated. Businesses might also need to leverage third-party services and online platforms to extend their market reach. We also need to underscore the importance of cybersecurity, which is often overlooked in traditional business model frameworks. In digital internationalization, cybersecurity provides a competitive advantage and drives growth and innovation. One could say that advanced digital systems, strong networks, skilled resources, and robust cybersecurity are crucial for business success in the global marketplace.

Businesses need to create competitive advantages based on information and knowledge to both survive in and take a leadership position in the highly complex market we currently tussle in. Information systems need to be contextually aware to decide what is best and most adequate for each opportunity. Most businesses use information systems (IS) today in multifaceted ways, and this is driving big data analytics (BDA). It is important to achieve technical and operational performance at maximum cost. Businesses must infuse sustainable policies into their project management liturgy. Businesses will need to understand data generation, integration, and assimilation. Developing reliable parametric models at the conceptual stage of the project is crucial for project managers and decision-makers. Businesses will also need to be innovative, acknowledge there will be risks, but be open to what the adoption of new technology may mean for the organization, its business model, its organizational structure, and its people.

Businesses can implement personalized management metrics to track business growth, even though this becomes more difficult with size. Personalized management is not customer-centric mass customization, and this can serve as a strategic asset and competitive advantage in a business’ continued expansion. Businesses might consider business continuity (BC) management, and design science research (DSR) can be employed as an approach for the business. Enterprise resource planning (ERP) and business intelligence systems (BIS) provide intellectual information for decision-making and influence the organization’s continuity, which is why it is advocated for businesses. As more businesses seek the progress digital transformation offers as the digital economy becomes more entrenched as the economic norm, stakeholders will tout the positive role of big data analytics capability (BDAC) in competitive performance.

Predictive analytics can be deployed to utilize information in the financial statements that will be useful for forecasting the sign of future earnings changes and to test whether these forecasts are useful for returns prediction in order guide negotiations and drive trading strategies. Predictive analytics can be leveraged in marketing, sales, communication, forecasting, pricing, cash flow, fake reviews, cybersecurity, recruitment, and legal services to reduce business risks caused by even a pandemic. Applying predictive analytics can help businesses adapt to unprecedented conditions during a pandemic, and can shape enterprise size, turnover, and years of operation. Businesses can boost their dynamic capabilities by leveraging technology to meet and exploit new opportunities and change operational processes, thereby increasing efficiency and reducing business risks caused a pandemic.

We have discussed how an entrepreneurs’ academic background, budget control, learning from failures, team building, geographical expansion, and critical early business experiences combined with a supportive entrepreneurial ecosystem and financial market reforms enable firms to scale and achieve sustained sales growth. The reciprocity of deliberate and emergent strategies helps firms address both planned growth and unexpected challenges. Customer engagement, solution delivery, financial management, and team coordination help businesses to focus more on regional business and emphasize client relationships. Worth remembering is that firm growth is not uniform. Different types of acceleration may conflict with each other, and strategic sequencing of growth priorities can be crucial. Practical strategies like understanding and managing tensions between growth types and considering expanding into new and less saturated markets (“blue oceans”), could influence sales, employment, market share, and productivity. We are reminded that internal (organizational) and external (regional and industry) conditions interact to influence how firms scale, and that businesses could leverage co-location with foreign firms to benefit from knowledge spillovers.

Organizational and industry dynamics play a role in enabling growth, and introducing a multi-level approach can help better understand how factors like digitalization and platform use may cause trade-offs, for example, boosting sales but reducing the need for employment growth, especially in non-tech sectors. The government’s influence appears limited in emerging economies, possibly due to restricted access to public funding and underdeveloped financial systems, hence social networks play a more significant role in helping individuals pursue entrepreneurial goals. Shifting entrepreneurship development strategies away from purely pecuniary motives toward building more resilient young entrepreneurs is advocated for.

User resistance can be disastrous to the successful implementation of information technology projects. Employee participation is a critical component for successful IT deployment. Employee participation in productive activities and information technology usage is impacted by the personality they display in the work environment. Structural empowerment has a significant and positive effect on job satisfaction and organizational citizenship behaviors. The physical environment also stands out as a major contributor to innovative work behaviors, as participants continually referred to the “homely feel” of the workspace, which considers their comfort as well as the collaborative nature of their work. The convenience of the workspace is perceived as a form of organizational support that reflects the employer’s commitment towards the workers’ wellbeing and towards innovation. By having a feeling of control over the workspace and equipment, employees develop a sense of ownership towards the organization, which is found to enhance their eagerness to exert innovation efforts. Therefore, investing in a comfortable and functional workspace where employees feel like owners is an investment that is worth considering by innovative start?up founders. This seems to indicate that dedicating efforts to create an inspiring workspace where employees feel that they can easily share their ideas and smoothly collaborate with their colleagues to develop them can present a cost-effective HR investment for resource-limited start?ups.

Creativity is a complex task that involves taking risks, given that the results do not always align with the expected outcomes. Therefore, the support of the leader is mandatory when asking employees to engage in creative behaviors. Businesses operators need an understanding of psychological empowerment and psychological safety, which are important for creativity and the role of entrepreneurial leadership in developing the psychological empowerment and psychological safety of employees. Creativity literature informs us that creative team leaders and members can realize the full potential of their teams’ creative efforts if their workplace is psychologically safe and team members have knowledge-sharing behaviors. Currently, limited knowledge of how entrepreneurial leadership plays a role in developing team creativity in established organizations is available, which is contrary to information of the performance mechanism of entrepreneurial leadership in new ventures or small and medium enterprises.

It is believed that employees having creative knowledge may find it demotivating when their performance receives less appreciative attention or reward. As a result, they might try to be a part of workplace politics to achieve personal benefits. This suggests that the innovative performance of creative employees declines when they are involved in workplace politics in the organization. The results found that when employees engage in workplace politics, their ability to innovate becomes weaker. Therefore, modern managers will have to develop a positive intent in their organizations where employees’ tangible and intangible rewards may be associated with their performance. It will help employees to concentrate on performance and utilize their creative abilities for innovative outcomes. Job-related stress is useful for enhancing employee creativity, suggesting that a certain degree of stress further strengthens the influence of employee creativity on their innovative performance.

Employees are likely to identify with the organization because of transformational leaders influencing and directing employees. It can be said that this situation is related to the culture of the organization, demographic characteristics of the employees, their perspectives towards the organization, and their motivation. Although an employee perceives themselves as identifying with the organization and psychologically owns the organization through leadership style, the relationship between transformational leadership and organizational identification may not pass through psychological ownership. It is thus important for family-run SMEs to be aware of the MLOs offered to nonfamily employees and the firm’s ability to competitively pay once these market-valued skills are acquired. Therefore, as the proportion of nonfamily employees increases over time, family-run SMEs may need to consider making HR investments and increasing their professionalization to better motivate and retain the nonfamily group.

We contend that using MLOs, which in turn benefit the firm by developing employees to do their jobs better, can reduce the need to increase HR investments and professionalization initiatives in the short-term. Still, nonfamily employees may, over time, leave these family-run SMEs despite having high-quality MLOs, so we encourage these companies to shift resources toward HR investments as a way of better retaining the most marketable nonfamily employees. Although family-run SMEs may be unable to alter their financial constraints for paying equitably, the formalized HR practices should better ensure the presence of nonfamily employees’ perceived process-related justice, providing the compensatory benefits of accounting for all justice forms. The beneficial presence of these justice forms may even allow family-run SMEs to be less restrictive in offering high-quality MLOs to non-family employees because the additional justice forms compensate for any compensation inequity.

Reflections

Family-run SMEs often experience difficulties motivating and retaining nonfamily employees who are essential for their continued pursuit of growth and success. Nonfamily employees’ high compensation inequity perceptions reduce their distributive justice judgments that ultimately impact these desirable outcomes for this group. Our research uncovered an informal perception termed market-driven learning opportunities (MLOs) that allows nonfamily employees to better contend with inequitable compensation by offsetting the compensation inequity-distributive justice relationship. Family-run SMEs must still be careful in the use of MLOs, because they have the potential to increase nonfamily employees’ perceptions of external mobility, and in turn further their compensation inequity perceptions (Haynie et al., 2024).

Having the proper digital business strategy at all points is crucial for operational success. Digital business strategy is the extent to which a firm engages in any category of IT activity (Mithas et al., 2013). Increasing digitization of business processes, products, and services makes it imperative to develop a better understanding of digital business strategies. Digital business strategy is not solely a matter of optimizing firm operations internally or of responding to one or two focal competitors but also arises strikingly from awareness and responsiveness to the digital business competitive environment. Organizations looking to encourage a net-positive firm strategic posture and navigate the firm’s competitive environment encounter complex and interrelated factors that make it difficult for managers to foresee all investment outcomes or to determine the optimal levels of investments.

Enterprises able to invest in information technology effectively and efficiently can see the effect on their cost, revenue, and profitability (Mithas et al., 2012), competitive environment (Mithas et al., 2013), domestic and foreign operations (Mithas et al., 2017), and formation and market value of alliances (Tafti et al., 2012). The effect of IT investments on sales and profitability is equivalent to that of other discretionary investments, such as advertising and R&D expenditures. Implementing open communication standards, cross-functional transparency, and modularity enables firms to derive greater value from information technology investments. Contrasting fates of various ventures, even within the same industry, might be attributed to leveraging synergies through IT investments, ease of business process reconfiguration, and the ability to transfer managerial and technical capabilities. Optimizing IT architecture for flexibility enables firms to derive value from IT investments (Tafti et al., 2012).

IT investments influence firm profitability, more so concerning maximizing revenue than minimizing cost. IT investments facilitate revenue growth through new value propositions, new marketing and sales channels, and improved management of the customer life cycle. This is also worth considering because revenue-enhancing IT projects are more difficult for competitors to replicate than cost-reduction IT projects. Cost-reduction IT projects may be easier to deploy since they use transaction automation or information sharing rather than the reconfiguration of business processes that are more often associated with revenue-enhancing IT projects. Revenue-enhancing IT projects are more firm-specific because they align with the downstream or customer-facing side of the business and are less likely to be replicable (Mithas et al., 2012).

Multinational companies looking to optimize for foreign and domestic revenue and profits should look towards attaining high foreign responsiveness and a well-coordinated and well-configured value chain structure, as well as allocate discretionary expenditures to achieve strategic objectives. IT expenditures are crucial for firms because they are positively associated with foreign revenues, since they help overcome challenges and risks associated with globalization and help contribute to the revenue growth of firms (Mithas et al., 2017). We must keep in mind that an exclusive focus on cost reduction may not always be consistent with long-term financial performance.

To amplify returns from IT investments, employee participation must be considered, and this makes human resources vital to the information technology landscape. Leveraging incentives, autonomy, and training for both IT professionals and casual users can enable a firm to better optimize the value of its IT investments. The argument is that well-trained, motivated, and empowered IT stakeholders can help firms make better strategic choices in allocating IT investments and implementing IT projects. The business value of IT investments is linked to the rewards and opportunities offered to IT professionals, who have a pivotal role in the effective deployment of IT in organizations. Even though IT professionals represent a fraction of the workforce, their work has cross-functional and enabling effects across the organization. Studies have been conducted to gain insight into how the management of IT professionals might enhance firm-wide effectiveness of IT investments (Tafti et al., 2022).

The HR practices geared towards IT professionals at a firm allow firms to obtain higher gains. Implementing empowering HR practices enhances employee authority, and this stronger sense of authority, combined with new IT resources, improves the use of IT systems. By continuously looking to improve IT use in organizations, motivating organization-wide IT innovations, and enhancing business-IT alignment, a firm will reap the benefits of IT investments. By nurturing an environment of collaborative-enhancing and autonomy-enhancing practices, firms can help employees cope with workplace changes resulting from IT investments. A successful IT investment requires a complementary relationship between IT investments and empowering practices for IT professionals (Tafti et al., 2022).

In the workplace of the future, organizations would recognize the importance of entrepreneurial leadership by hiring managers who possess the entrepreneurial skills to develop creativity and innovation. Furthermore, managers would embrace and practice entrepreneurial leadership concepts to stimulate employee creativity. For example, leaders must emphasize the value of the work by sharing the organizational goals with employees, directing employees when the tasks are completed, and inspiring employees by modeling valued behaviors. In this way, such behaviors will inspire employees to follow their leaders, psychologically empower employees, and ensure employee safety as they engage in creative activities (Mehmood et al., 2021).

Accordingly, organizations will have to offer such training and development programs for their managers, so they understand the importance of entrepreneurial leadership skill development. SLT argues that employees learn from their leaders and then integrate such knowledge into their thinking and actions as they move forward. Therefore, to improve employee creativity, it is important to improve the entrepreneurial behaviors of managers. Thus, to meet such dynamic changes during furious market competition, organizations should develop such skills according to an overall hierarchy rather than focusing only on the development of managerial skills. Accordingly, organizations should coordinate training and development programs for employees to develop their creative skills (Mehmood et al., 2021).

Moreover, adequate job design appears to play a crucial role in facilitating the implementation of new ideas by promoting work autonomy and idea ownership. By having discretion in deciding how to execute their work tasks, employees develop a sense of responsibility not only towards their job tasks but also towards the organization’s performance in general. In a high autonomy environment, employees are given flexibility of time and space, which is a major sign of trust from their managers. When feeling trusted and empowered, employees tend to dedicate effort to improve the company’s performance by bringing innovative ideas that exceed expectations (Kmieciak et al., 2012). Creativity is best stimulated when employees are granted freedom to conduct their work (referred to as “autonomy around process”) while being given well-defined goals to work towards. Yet it is worth noting that in the absence of clear objectives, autonomy may become meaningless and ineffective for enabling innovative behaviors. The incorporation of flexible work and minimizing micro-management complemented by two-way feedback meetings, as well as the involvement of employees in deciding performance goals, are all possible approaches that can serve to mitigate such risks (Jebali & Meschitti, 2021).

Recommendations

We believe that it is difficult for family-run SMEs to walk the line between offering skill-stretching, marketable tasks to non-family employees and offering too many of these opportunities, thereby increasing perceived external mobility. The firms may be at a financial disadvantage if their employees perceive that external mobility grows significantly, especially given that larger corporations offer higher compensation to encourage them to turn over from the family-run SMEs. It will be imperative that family owners consider these issues as they develop new opportunities for nonfamily employees as a way of best capitalizing on the employment of those in this group (Haynie et al., 2024).

Therefore, managers should focus on creating environments within their organizations that encourage employees to share their ideas with group members and leaders and thereby cultivate creativity within the organization. Finally, organizations must develop policies and structures within the organization that promote characteristics necessary for the promotion of creative behaviors. These characteristics include open communication, trust across functional teams, and access to available information (Mehmood et al., 2021).

A core contribution of this study shows that by highly encouraging creativity, start?ups can run the risk of developing an overly creative workforce that has little aversion to risk, which can turn into a source of stagnation, notably when several ideas are pursued simultaneously while the company still lacks sufficient resources and competencies. To prevent loss of focus, start?up owners are encouraged to cultivate an environment for idea ownership (an additional component that can extend Amabile’s CTC model), where the idea conceiver is allocated sufficient time to develop his or her novel idea and is expected to lead the implementation operations with the support of the HR manager who acts as a facilitator of communication and progress monitoring throughout the innovation process (Jebali & Meschitti, 2021).

The internet has spawned a new golden age of marketing tools to help you reach your maximum growth potential. It has given small and medium businesses opportunities that only huge companies could previously access. Today, you can connect with people around the world more efficiently than ever before, providing them with the products and services that can help them lead their best lives, even in small niches. Growth is good. A rising tide lifts all boats. Growth is also a choice (Schultz, 2025, 15). While the metric used to measure firm attributes might be the same, growth for each company will be tracked by changes in different metrics based on firm ownership goals.

Conclusion

Brian Potter credits Jeffrey Forgeng with this quote: “It is hard to envision how much effort it takes to produce even the simplest of goods when each piece must be transformed by hand from raw materials to finished product… In all cases the amount of human labor involved was enormous.”. He put into perspective that even though the discovery of penicillin rightly deserves the credit for its amazing benefits to humanity, it was through making the production cheap and the product widely available-that is, by producing them efficiently-that this miracle medicine was able to save millions of lives. Humanity currently stands at the precipice of another era-changing epoch. Our technological capabilities are about to expand once again.

We are left to wonder if small businesses will take advantage of the resources available to them through the technology being developed today. Business operates at an almost granular level these days, with customization almost being expected as a feature instead of a luxury. Marketing, branding, sales, all count as the same thing, i.e., driving conversion, no matter how loosely that is defined. Opinions are tantamount to currency in this epoch. The beauty of opinions being tantamount to currency is that everybody gives theirs freely, so there is a wealth of articulations to appropriate from. An underappreciated tool is the ability to develop parameters to estimate relationships we might observe. There is a wealth of data available to us in the current era, and we can all interpolate and infer various perspectives from this data. We also have more data collection mediums available to us. The distribution of information that the internet protocol offers is about to propel humanity off a very high cliff of pecuniary and non-pecuniary business gains. However, as all leaps off higher altitudes tend to go, gravity, or the economic term, diminishing returns, will eventually set in.

We live in an era where just because it works for one person, everybody feels like they need to copy the business process and operations despite the moral, and sometimes spiritual, quagmire that exists at the core of performing certain business practices. It is also easy to draw false correlations just because we are observing only certain variables. Due to the wealth of data in our current era, it is easy to copy the strategy of other organizations; there seems to be more of a building in public. While we don’t know what psychological connections make certain posts go viral, the strategy can be adopted, and the same psychological connections utilized to drive conversion. We are still just estimators, but at one point we convinced ourselves that we know, and that we can teach machines to know as well. Science was never about knowing; it was about estimating. Economics and, by extension, business is about estimation and figuring out what works for individuals and groups. The financial side gets a lot of the bells and whistles because of the numerical values attached. However, we still need to be able to build small, sustainable, and scalable businesses. Sustainable in the sense that the business itself can remain a small viable business or become a medium- or big-business, and scalable in that the business, i.e., model, can be replicated across multiple markets and industries by adjusting the estimated parameters we opine to define the relationships.

We need to be able to look closely at individual- and group-operated ventures, determine what worked, what is working, what could work, the contrasts, how to apply this to further the cause of allies or potentially mitigate competitors, and which channels to utilize. Technology currently possesses all the capabilities anyone needs to build an individual- or group-operated enterprise that competes over time. Technology possesses the competence to analyze extensive data sets, automate complex processes, and emulate human expertise when properly sequenced; small businesses need to harness this frontier more.

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Romania has become one of Eastern Europe’s most interesting environments for digital entrepreneurship. Its combination of strong technical talent, widespread connectivity and a growing appetite for mobile services has created favorable conditions for startups, software companies and entertainment platforms. From fintech applications to gaming products, Romanian consumers increasingly expect online services to be fast, intuitive and available across different devices.

This evolution can also be observed in the country’s interactive entertainment sector. Romanian users regularly explore mobile-first platforms that reduce onboarding friction and present their core functions without unnecessary complexity. One example is chicken road online, which illustrates how entertainment products can use direct navigation, recognizable visual cues and immediate interaction to reach an audience accustomed to efficient digital services. Although the platform belongs to the gaming and casino-related market, its product design offers broader lessons for Romanian technology businesses.

Romania as a Digital Development Hub

Romania’s technology ecosystem has been shaped by engineering expertise, international outsourcing and the gradual emergence of locally developed products. For years, Romanian professionals contributed to software projects created for foreign companies. The market is now moving toward a more ambitious stage in which local teams build, launch and commercialize their own platforms.

Bucharest remains the country’s main technology and business center, but notable digital communities have also developed in Cluj-Napoca, Ia?i, Timi?oara and Bra?ov. These cities support companies working in cybersecurity, e-commerce, financial technology, automation, gaming and enterprise software.

Several factors make Romania attractive to digital businesses:

• A large pool of technically trained professionals
• Strong familiarity with international markets
• High adoption of smartphones and online payments
• Competitive product-development capabilities
• An audience willing to experiment with new digital services

The result is an ecosystem where both global companies and smaller local teams can test new ideas.

What Interactive Platforms Teach Other Businesses

Entertainment platforms operate in one of the internet’s most competitive markets. A user can leave within seconds when a page loads slowly, navigation is unclear or the product requires too many preliminary steps. This pressure has forced gaming companies to become highly attentive to user experience.

The same principles are relevant to many other industries. A Romanian fintech application, online retailer or subscription service faces similar expectations. Customers want to understand the product immediately and complete their intended action without confusion.

Successful interactive products usually concentrate on four areas:

1. Clear entry points
   The visitor should immediately understand where to begin and what the interface allows them to do.
2. Visible system feedback
   Every click, selection or completed step should produce a recognizable response.
3. Mobile compatibility
   The service must perform consistently on different screen sizes and connection conditions.
4. Minimal decision friction
   Options should be presented in a logical order without overwhelming the user.

These elements may appear simple, but together they determine whether a platform feels professional or unreliable.

A Framework for Evaluating Digital Products

The following comparison shows how different product qualities influence commercial performance.

Product quality	Weak implementation	Strong implementation	Business consequence
Onboarding	Long and confusing	Short and clearly explained	Higher activation rate
Mobile design	Desktop page adapted poorly	Interface created for smaller screens	Wider usable audience
Navigation	Too many competing options	Obvious hierarchy of actions	Lower abandonment
Trust signals	Important details hidden	Rules and policies easy to locate	Greater user confidence
Performance	Delays and unstable loading	Consistent, responsive experience	Better retention
Localization	Literal translation only	Language and payment flow adapted locally	Stronger market relevance

The table demonstrates that technical performance and commercial performance are closely connected. A platform cannot compensate for poor usability through promotion alone.

Localization Is More Than Translation

Romanian users expect platforms to communicate naturally in their language, but localization involves much more than translating interface text. Payment preferences, customer-support expectations, cultural references and regulatory information must also match the local environment.

A product developed for several markets should avoid treating every country as a visually translated version of the same audience. Romanian customers may respond differently to interface density, promotional language or account-verification processes than users in Western Europe.

Effective localization usually includes:

• Natural Romanian terminology rather than mechanical translation
• Familiar payment and withdrawal methods
• Clear customer-support channels
• Transparent explanations of platform rules
• Design that works on devices common in the local market

Companies that invest in these details create a stronger sense of relevance and legitimacy.

Conclusion

Romania’s digital economy is gradually moving from technical execution toward product creation and ownership. The country has the engineering base, connected audience and entrepreneurial capacity required to build competitive online businesses. The next challenge is combining those strengths with thoughtful product strategy, localization and responsible design.

Interactive entertainment platforms reveal how much commercial value can be created through speed, clarity and immediate feedback. The same lessons apply to fintech, e-commerce, education and other technology sectors. Romanian businesses that reduce friction while preserving transparency and user control can build products that succeed locally and scale beyond the national market.