Normative Model For Assessing SME IT Effectiveness: Review And Recommendations

IT Effectiveness Challenges in SMEs

The present paper offers a review of an research work on “Normative Model for Assessing SME IT Effectiveness” done by three renowned authors naming M.Curry, B.Marshall and P Kawalek respectively based on a norms based approach. This review primarily discusses the major challenges faced by SME’s usually found unable or unwilling in establishing an effective IT system primarily resulting from the norms adopted by its employees and providing the valuable recommendations to improve it by adopting a positive approach towards its acceptance. The paper broadly covers the areas as literary review, discussion on the results obtained through the process of interview and survey carried out for the research and finally the validation of such obtained result. 

The technicality and resource constraint associated with the best IT practices normally found as major hindrance for ensuring an effective IT system in Small business organizations. Again it is to be kept in mind that the approach or the attitude adopted by the employees working in these organizations plays a key role in achieving this objective (Curry, et al., 2017). There are simply two ways for ensuring that employees are positively contributing in achieving IT effectiveness, the first being through the implementation of the strict policies and procedures and the second being creating a positive mindset amongst these employees so that they can willingly accept it and ensure the compliances as prescribed by those policies and procedures by evaluating their sustainability by themselves.

While assessing the IT effectiveness in SME’s the term has been defined as a set of activities carried out so as to manage the Organization’s IT Assets in an optimized way to achieve the overall business objectives. Achieving IT effectiveness is an intellectual commitment to be developed through the shared set of values, beliefs and desires amongst the employees (Axelsen, et al., 2017).

The major reason for seeking the achievement of the IT effectiveness is that it improves the IT quality by means of improved outcomes in form of cost savings, better organizational efficiency etc. Further it is the IT effectiveness activities which motivate the behaviors of the employees with the true spirit for the adoption of the best IT practices (Alexander, 2016).

It further mentions the three principles IT effectiveness activities as suggested by COBIT are the Risk or control, measure and improve and Business and IT alignment. Keeping it in mind an attempt has been made through this research work to develop a model suitable for this purpose.

IT Quality and Normative Behaviors in SMEs

They started the process by identifying the major characteristics of the Small and medium sized enterprises so that to link it with the establishment of the IT best practices (Bogle, 2018). The first being the lack of formal management structure or the lack of dedicated IT professionals and the second being resource constraint, which is acting as the biggest hurdle to exploit the benefits of best IT practices. But the informal structure has the positive aspects too associated with it , that is it is found highly flexible and innovative due to which it can recognize the benefits of IT much faster than a large scale organization. At the same time there is the lack of strategic planning noticed by these organizations.

The next important aspect of the discussion is the IT quality which is the measurement of the ability to effectively impact the overall organization together meeting with the expectations of those IT users who are using the IT system. At the same time it has been found that it is norms that motivate the behavioral pattern adopted by employees working with the organization that is the major factor in the determination of the IT quality (Werner, 2017).

In the next section the key IT effectiveness norms have been identified in form of IT governance frameworks like COBIT, ITIL etc.

In order to ensure the IT effectiveness it is of most urgent relevance that Overall IT resources and capabilities should be aligned in a manner that they ensure the overall business objectives. This was explained with the help of an example that in case of SME’s it may be expected that the owner and the managers may have a long term vision and understanding in relation to the business direction and the It needs, but their employees being less skilled are likely to lack such norms or giving their acceptance to it, whereas such an alignment is a key driver for determining the IT quality. But in this context sometimes scholars provide the argument that such an alignment should be viewed as a continuing process and it demands frequent reevaluation (Dumay & Baard, 2017). For which the basic thing to be checked is to see whether the SME’s are putting the necessary effort to make such improvement rather than checking the current status of their improvement. Then finally it throws light on the It effectiveness subscription constructs like ISO/IEC38500: 2008 so as measure the IT effectiveness subscription.

IT Effectiveness Norms and Frameworks

In order to justify its conclusions based on its research work a field study in two different sites has also been carried out. The major purpose of this field study has been identified as to justify the suitability of the instrument as recommended to measure the IT effectiveness and to collect the necessary qualitative data for validating such instrument (Choy, 2018).

Further this filed study was conducted on two different section or groups, the first being the small business group together with the semi-structured interviews of small family business and the second was on carried through the University students through the help of PLS analysis. The data collected from small business groups could not provide much support to the three basic hypotheses of the Research (Linden & Freeman, 2017). 

This research work finally depicts the fact that we need to be less technical while evaluation the IT effectiveness as even a novice it user can suggest something much valuable to use the IT effectively.

Finally it has been suggested through the research work that in order to ensure the IT effectiveness in small business the major thing to be noted is that the employees which are actually operating such system should not view it as an imposition of technical standard o that they cannot view it as a burden rather the motive should be to encourage the normative behavior so that they can willingly accept the same (Goldmann, 2016).

The most important positive aspect as it could be noticed in this research work is that it has adopted a very simplistic approach to ensure the very common problem now a day’s faced by the SME’s especially in this computer era. At the same time it reveals the basic reason for such failure along with the necessary recommendation to solve this problem. At the same time it did not forget to mention the various limitations that are associated with their study too. They have clearly mentioned that still they are collecting the data to justify their claim and anybody who wishes to take the help of their research work should carefully evaluate such limitation (Guragai, et al., 2017).

Their research work is primarily helpful for the Top level managers too that generally the Top down approach of policy framing may be proved to be successful in the large scale organization, but it not the case in case of small scale or medium size organization.

It further helps them to find out the ways how to inculcate the normative behavior amongst the employees of the small or medium size organizations so that it could encourage them to willingly comply with the IT compliances as prescribed by its management (Vieira, et al., 2017).

Aligning IT with Business Objectives in SMEs

This study is based on the field study carried out in two different segments of people who are not only the small businessmen group but also the University students too so that to maintain a proper balance between the results obtained and such result should be completely unbiased.

Again it talks about a basic fact that often we have the tendency to evaluate the current status prevailing in the SME in terms of its IT effectiveness, but we often ignore the fact that it is equally important to see that whether the organization is putting some effort to achieve it or not. This is the reason it has been suggested by the researchers that it is actually a continuous process. That means it is never ending or should not be evaluated on a particular date rather is required to be evaluated frequently.

It throws light to the basic nature of the employees working in these SME’s who always consider it a burden because of the various technical terms associated with the IT. Hence a sort of fear works in their mind that is required to be removed (Mubako & O’Donnell, 2018).

One most important thing in this research work is that it is found quite organized and the vocabulary used is as simple as it can be to convey the real message amongst the big mass to which it is intended too.

Further the blame game that is a common phenomenon in the SME’s or even by showing the resource constraint as a reason for the failure in achieving the IT objectives is said to be a simple excuse in these types of organization (Kew & Stredwick, 2017).

The model developed by the research work seems to be highly helpful to the future users of this study and the model is quite realistic too having seen the current scenario of SME’s.

But there are some improvements that is expected in this study too. The first being the way survey results have been presented it makes it bit complicated to understand the real intention of the research worker. Hence a much easier presentation would have been better (Raghupathi & Wu, 2018).

Further it is to be noted that this model clearly suggests that IT objectives of the organization should align with the overall organizational objectives. It is because if both move in opposite direction then the objective of achieving the IT effectiveness shall be completely baseless.

Field Study and Results

And actually it is the duty of the owners and managers in these organizations who has to play a major role in this behalf. Because these organizations are having less formal organizational structure that make them highly flexible due to which any positive communication can easily reach to the employees working in this organization (Sithole, et al., 2017).

But in order to make the effective use of such flexibility a long term strategic planning is required to be developed which is undoubtedly the responsibility of its top management.

In these organizations the employees who are even new they too can play a significant role in achieving this IT effectiveness objective for which the major thing that is required is to generate the sense of beliefs and shared values in them that does not seem to be difficult?

This research work provide a new dimension to the SME’s to ensure their IT effectiveness by changing their basic mind set .Imposition of technical burden on these employees can never ensure their positive commitment in achieving this objective (Bailey, et al., 2017). 

Conclusions and Recommendation

From the above discussion it is to be concluded that SME”s organizations in spite of the various limitations associated with them but still there is prospect that they can achieve the significant IT effectiveness objective provided they should get ready to adopt the model developed by the aforesaid research workers. Again the policy framing by these organization s in this behalf can never ensure the true objective of achieving IT effectiveness, but the effort should be made to change the normative behavior of this employee. As it shall motivate them to provide their full hearted support in form of intellectual commitment to these objectives. Again now it is the time when these organizations need to redesign their thought process to ensure the sustainability in future. As adopting the traditional approach cannot help them anymore. As without bringing such change cannot help them to motivate their employees in a positive way for whom IT is just like any other technical jargon. There is actually a great fear working in the minds of the people working in SME’s for the IT which is required to be removed through a holistic positive approach. 

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