Social Media Technologies’ Use for the Competitive Information and Knowledge Sharing, and Its Effects on Industrial SMEs’ Innovation

ABSTRACT

The effective use of technologies supporting decision making is essential to companies’ survival. Recent studies analyzed social media technologies (SMT) in the context of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), contributing to the discussion on SMT benefits from the marketing perspective. This article focuses on the effects of SMT use on innovation. Our findings provide empirical evidence on the positive effects of SMT use for acquiring external information and for sharing knowledge and innovation performance.

KEYWORDS:

• Competitive information
• innovation
• industrial SMEs
• sharing knowledge
• social media technologies

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Daniel Pérez-González

Daniel Perez-Gonzalez is a professor of Information Systems and Technology Management in the Department of Business Administration at University of Cantabria, and Chair of the Application of Information Technology for Competitiveness and Innovation Research Group. He participated in public projects of the European Commission and the Spanish Government and published numerous papers about business and technology in prestigious journals such as Technological Forecasting and Social Change, International Journal of Information Management, Service Business, and Electronics Markets, among others.

Sara Trigueros-Preciado is an associate professor of Management and Technology at the University of Cantabria, Spain. She holds a PhD in Business Administration from the Department of Business Administration at the University of Cantabria. She is an industrial engineer and received a postgraduate in Business and Information Technology from the University of Cantabria. She participated in public projects of the European Commission, worked for large companies, and participated in several conferences and academic publications about business and technology.

Sara Trigueros-Preciado

Sara Trigueros-Preciado is an associate professor of Management and Technology at the University of Cantabria, Spain. She holds a PhD in Business Administration from the Department of Business Administration at the University of Cantabria. She is an industrial engineer and received a postgraduate in Business and Information Technology from the University of Cantabria. She participated in public projects of the European Commission, worked for large companies, and participated in several conferences and academic publications about business and technology.

Simona Popa

Simona Popa is an assistant professor at the Catholic University of Saint Anthony of Murcia (Spain). She holds a PhD in Business Economics at the Universidad de Murcia, Spain. She received a master’s in Business Research and a master’s in Sociology Applied to Research from University of Murcia. Her research interests are in the areas of eBusiness, knowledge management, and business information management. Her work has been published in journals such as International Journal of Information Management, Information Systems Management, Knowledge Management Research & Practice, Journal of Knowledge Management, Service Business, Technological Forecasting, and Social Change, among others.