Building web 2.0 enterprises : a study of small and medium enterprises in the United States/ created by Hee Dae Kim, In Lee, and Choong Kwon Lee

Web 2.0 is one of the most rapidly growing web applications; to understand such technologies and related management practices adopted by small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the USA, this study reviews major Web 2.0 technologies, presents a conceptual model of Web 2.0 applications, and analyzes SME Web 2.0 usage. In the conceptual model, Web 2.0 applications were organized around three major application categories: social networking, information sharing, and collaboration. User space was classified into three interaction spaces: business-to-employee-to-employee space, business-to-employee-to-consumer space, and business-to-employee-to-business space. To analyze the Web 2.0 practices of one hundred US SMEs, data were collected from the websites of the 50 ‘best SMEs’ to work for in America in 2009 and from the websites of a further 50 SMEs randomly chosen from manta.com, an online source of SMEs. For statistical analyses, t-tests were conducted. While most of the 50 ‘best SMEs’ adopted Web 2.0 to some degree, the analysis shows that the other SMEs need to increase their efforts to improve their performances, to connect with consumers and to remain competitive.