Information and Communication Technologies in Product Innovation Within SMEs - the Role of Product Complexity

Informa tion a nd Communic a tion Technologies ( ICTs) prov ide Sma ll and Medium Enterprises ( SMEs) with oppor tunities tha t a re today in most c a ses la rgely unexploited. This pa per a ims a t v er ifying and expla ining this ga p with a pa rtic ula r focus on the a rea of Produc t Innov a tion ( PI) . Pa tterns in the adoption and use of new ICTs a re explored and explained by drawing ev idenc e from a na lysis of a multiple-c a se study on 47 SMEs in Nor thern and Centra l Ita ly. Complexity, a t both produc t a nd system lev els, emerges a s a key fa c tor driv ing ® rms’ choic es. The direc tions of these effec ts, howev er, a re not a lwa ys stra ightforwa rd a nd c annot be merely extra pola ted from existing studies on large c ompanies. Implica tions of this study a re relev ant for both SMEs ma na gers a nd ICT dev elopers a nd v endor s who c an deriv e suggestions c onc erning, respec tiv ely, selec tion and dev elopment of ICT technologies tha t c an better suit SMEs spec i® c c ha ra c teristic s.