Abstract
This paper presents the results from a survey of emerging and micro SMEs, along with entrepreneurs, creative practitioners, and the new group of ‘makers’, who are beginning to adopt (or consider adopting) the newer entry-level emergent technologies such as 3D printing. A number of key findings are discussed: including, the prevalence of ‘self-taught’ users of these technologies; major business activity in the creative industry space; the importance of shared equipment usage by micro organisations in comparison to small companies using external bureau services. Unsurprisingly cost is still cited as a factor for poor uptake of emergent technologies, closely followed by a low awareness of 3D printing and its capabilities, and 3D printing supply chains. Skill levels reported by the participants for each technology highlighted that 3D printing had the most pro-users, which may highlight the increased access to such technologies for micro enterprises, typically reserved for incumbent organisations.
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Dorrington, P., Lacan, F., Bigot, S. (2016). How are Micro Enterprises Adopting Emergent Technologies?. In: Setchi, R., Howlett, R., Liu, Y., Theobald, P. (eds) Sustainable Design and Manufacturing 2016. SDM 2016. Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies, vol 52. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-32098-4_19
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-32098-4_19
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