Information Systems Innovations Adoption and Diffusion Among SMEs: Current Status and Future Prospects

The attention of software vendors has moved recently to Small to Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) offering them a vast range of Information Systems’ (IS) innovations including enterprise systems (ES), which were formerly adopted by large firms only. Although the number of SMEs adopting new IS innovations has increased over time, strong empirical evidence is still lacking. This paper aims to fill this gap by reporting the findings of a survey on SMEs located in the Northwest of England. The survey results reveal that even more complex IS innovations are increasingly adopted by SMEs. Also, nearly half of the surveyed SMEs are willing to adopt ES in the next three years. These findings suggest that there is a considerable opportunity and a need for further research in the adoption and diffusion of new IS innovations among SMEs.