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Virtual R & D teams in small and medium enterprises: A
literature review
Nader Ale Ebrahim*, Shamsuddin Ahmed and Zahari Taha
Department of Engineering Design and Manufacture, Faculty of
Engineering, University of Malaya, Malaysia.
*Corresponding author. E-mail:
aleebrahim@perdana.um.edu.my.
Accepted 21 December, 2009. |
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Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are the driving engine
behind economic growth. While SMEs play a critical role in
generating employment and supporting trade, they face
numerous challenges, the prominent among them are the need
to respond to fasting time-to-market, low-cost and rapid
solutions to complex organizational problems. Towards that
end, research and development (R & D) aspect deserves
particular attention to promote and facilitate the
operations of SMEs. Virtual R & D team could be a viable
option. However, literature shows that virtual R & D teaming
in SMEs is still at its infancy. This article provides a
comprehensive literature review on different aspects of
virtual R & D teams collected from the reputed publications.
The purpose of the state-of-the-art literature review is to
provide an overview on the structure and dynamics of R & D
collaboration in SMEs. Specifying the foundation and
importance of virtual teams, the relationship between
virtual R & D team and SMEs has been examined. It concludes
with the identification of the gaps in the existing
literatures and calls for future research. It is argued that
setting-up an infrastructure for virtual R & D team in SMEs
still requires a large amount of engineering efforts and
deserves consideration at top level management.
Key words:
Virtual teams, small and medium enterprises, literature
review. |
