Online technology and promotion tools in SMEs

  • Received July 5, 2020;
    Accepted August 11, 2020;
    Published September 3, 2020
  • Author(s)
  • DOI
    http://dx.doi.org/10.21511/im.16(3).2020.08
  • Article Info
    Volume 16 2020, Issue #3, pp. 85-97
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

Online technologies are currently the most dynamically developing industry, both in product creation and promotion. The study focuses on their incorporation into the SME (small and medium enterprises) segment, which comprises the most economically stable element of any European economy. This paper aims to identify and evaluate dependency in the area of online technologies and promotion tools use in small and medium enterprises (SMEs) related to company age and export involvement. Most research on SMEs focuses on external influences and factors, while this article reflects the internal environment of business entities, which is the source of this study’s originality. The hypotheses were validated by an empirical study of a sample of 743 respondents (companies and entrepreneurs, including family businesses). The research method was a combination of CATI and CASI, and the research tool was a structured questionnaire. To analyze the survey results, the Chi-square test of independence was applied. The key finding was validation of the dependence between the use of the online tools for manufacturing and promotion and the export focus of companies. Companies operating on foreign markets use a wider range of online tools for their business than companies focused on the domestic market. On the other hand, the presumed significant differences in the use of online tools between young businesses and companies long-term established on the market were not confirmed.

Acknowledgment
The authors are thankful to the Technology Agency of the Czech Republic, University of Technology in Brno and University of Finance and Administration in Prague, Project No.: “TL02000434 Rodinné podniky: generátory hodnoty a určování hodnoty v procesu nástupnictví” for financial support to carry out this research.

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    • Table 1. Online technology use and Company age
    • Table 2. Online technology use and Export involvement
    • Table 3. Young business and Online promotion tools use
    • Table 4. Exporters and Online promotion tools use
    • Conceptualization
      Pavla Breckova
    • Data curation
      Pavla Breckova, Michal Karas
    • Funding acquisition
      Pavla Breckova, Michal Karas
    • Investigation
      Pavla Breckova
    • Methodology
      Pavla Breckova
    • Project administration
      Pavla Breckova
    • Resources
      Pavla Breckova
    • Supervision
      Pavla Breckova
    • Validation
      Pavla Breckova
    • Visualization
      Pavla Breckova
    • Writing – original draft
      Pavla Breckova
    • Writing – review & editing
      Pavla Breckova
    • Formal Analysis
      Michal Karas
    • Software
      Michal Karas