Factors Affecting Regional SMEs Progression to Digital Business Ecosystems

SMEs are widely recognized as an important driving force of economic growth, yet, their uptake of ICT is still very low. To support SMEs ICT adoption and to foster regional development, in 2000, the Lisbon Strategy on the Information Society and Knowledge-based economy created a vision for 2010 towards the creation of the European Digital Business Ecosystems (DBE). This paper is positioned within that context and reports upon a project involving 6000 SMEs whose aim was to support ICT adoption and to encourage SME networks through the creation of a Regional Business Portal. The paper explores factors affecting the regional SMEs participating in the DBE. An in-depth longitudinal case study approach was adopted and multiple sources of evidence were used. Many factors affecting SMEs progression to DBE were identified: including people and organization, environmental, diffusion networks, technological, regional and time factors.