Small Firms and Information and Communication Technologies: Policy Issues and Some Words of Caution

An area of increasing attention for policymakers is the potential for growth as small businesses take up new information and communication technologies (ICTs), This interest has added to the broad discussion on small firms which use information technology (IT) and the take-up of IT by small firms, Often it is an implicit assumption that benefits for the business will accrue as new information-processing technologies are adopted and, accordingly, there has been a flurry of concern over the take-up of ICTs by small firms. Much less attention has been paid within small-firms research to the policy mechanisms and programmes which are enabling take-up, and the reasons why small firms should use ICTs. It is not our intention in this paper to question the rights or wrongs of policy of this nature; rather we seek to make three main points. The first is that there is a scattered and piecemeal approach to this area, consistent with many other small-firm policy issues. We indicate the type of ICT programmes taking place, initiated by UK and European governments, and suggest that an important rationale to this rests with the notion of increasing economic competitiveness. A second point is that there is a clear distinction between the aims and ideals of ICT programmes and the perspectives of owner/managers in small firms. We suggest that policy has not been grounded in the experience of the small firm. The third is that there needs to be further work by small-firm researchers to develop a more rigorous conceptual base for small firms and ICTs. This needs to go beyond notions of use and towards thinking about the ways in which small firms do business in an informational economy. We draw on our previous and current work on small firms, local economic policy, and ICTs and the raison d’être for this paper is that there is a place on the policy agenda for further discussion on the way small firms are being encouraged to use ICTs.