Entrepreneurial objectives, family expectations, and the use of information and communication technologies (ICT)

Gray, Colin (2001). Entrepreneurial objectives, family expectations, and the use of information and communication technologies (ICT). In: 15th RENT Conference: The Diversifying Field of Entrepreneurship, 22-23 Nov 2001, Turku, Finland.

URL: http://www.tukkk.fi/pki/rentpapers/Gray.pdf

Abstract

The effects of globalisation, de-regulation and new information and communication technologies (ICT) are having enormous effects on all types of family businesses -big and small, entrepreneurial and traditional. However, it is the entrepreneurial firms - those whose owners want to grow and whose managers understand that growth is linked to profitability – that are in the frontline of meeting these two challenges. The majority of these
entrepreneurial firms are small and medium enterprises (SMEs), with less than 250 employees, where the owners are also the leading managers. This is, by definition, true of the many self-employed who do not employ others,
nearly always true of the microfirms with less than 10 employees and largely true of small firms with less than 20 employees. In common with all members of the workforce, these managers also face pressures from home. Their work
motivation and business behaviour and objectives can often reflect those pressures, especially among the smallest firms (Gray, 1998). This interaction between family and work is not confined to businesses owned and managed
by the same family, so-called ‘family businesses’, but to virtually all self-employed (even where the self-employed activities mainly supplement family income) and most SMEs. A lot of the interaction concerns allocation of time
between the two domains but there are other interactions such as in the use and take-up of ICT where familiarity with computers can start in the home environment (Gray and Juhler, 2000).

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