Asian Small and Medium Enterprises in the Information Age

This book discusses issues, challenges and prospects for the development of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the wake of the information age and digital era. At the dawn of the new millennium SMEs face a number of issues and challenges in their vital role in economies over the Asian-Pacific countries. Many have expressed confidence that SMEs will be dramatically transformed and their growth pace will be soundly adjusted to meet new changes. Subsequently, SMEs and their activities will be more global, highly dependent on information, knowledge-based activities, the internet, and the overall so-called 'digital era'. However, some do express a more pessimistic view. The overall content of the book is divided into three parts. Part one is an introduction that presents the overall scenario of SMEs in the information age in the Asian region, including some policy recommendations. Part two examines Asian perspectives with five outstanding chapters. These include internet development in the new economy and its implications for Asian SMEs; the Japanese model of SMEs development in an age of IT; technology exchange of Asian SMEs; IT challenges for SMEs and high technology, SMEs and global competitiveness. Part Three refers to perspectives in selected countries in the region such as IT consultants for SMEs; the application of IT in SMEs and E-commerce strategies and government support for SMEs.
BA (Hons-MU), MA (Essex) and Ph.D (London), is the Deputy Director and associate Professor at the Centre for Policy Research, University Science Malaysia, Penang. He teaches on small business management, however, his interest and research focus is mainly on development economics, specifically the development of small and medium enterprises. He has published 12 books and over 20 papers in renowned journals, and presented a number of papers to international conferences. His recent books include: 'Foreign Workers in Malasysia (co-author); 'Foreign Labour in Asia' (co-author); 'Small and Medium Enterprises in Malaysia'; 'Management of Small Enterprises'; 'Small and Medium Enterprises in Asian Pacific Countries' (main editor).¿