Authors : Rong Quan Low, Ahmad Suhaimi Baharudin and Seng Chee Lim
Abstract: The fight for survival continues in the business world and becoming harder especially for the small and medium enterprises. They are limited to resources such as human resources and financial resources and the number of SMEs are decreasing in a rapid speed especially in Malaysia context. One of the reason is because they are unable to solve daily problems effectively and the problem recurs. Hence, problem solving tools are introduced to the companies but the adoption rate is low. This research will use the technological factors (complexity, cost of adoption and relative advantage) from the TOE model to differentiate the adoption level of problem solving tools. The questionnaires are sent to 1000 companies and 141 are useable for the final analysis which the response rate is 14.1%. The discriminant analysis is used and the result shows that all the factors are having significant values. The managers could use the result to higher the adoption level of problem solving tools such as sending the employees for trainings and choose the tools which are easy to use and adopt in the companies’ processes.
Rong Quan Low, Ahmad Suhaimi Baharudin and Seng Chee Lim, 2016. Technological Factors that Differentiate the Adoption Levels of Problem Solving Tools in Manufacturing Sector of SMEs in Malaysia. The Social Sciences, 11: 2852-2855.