It depends on luck, management, and key members' personalities, as well as a level of problems' complexity. There are numerous examples for positive and negative outcomes. Training, consulting, board members and advisors help in that. SME is a standard form of a company, but whatever is related to performance standards - it usually drastically varies from one company to another one.

Dear Len Leonid Mizrah - thank you very much for your answer!

I agree that a number of factors may influence expertise development in SMEs.

Still, the question is if SMEs are capable of expertise development, or merely capable of developing knowledge, skills, and competence, not the expertise itself.

The problems begin when measuring competence against organizational performance. At most organizations - what is generally accepted from employees is a minimum acceptable level of performance, even though what is desired is usually an outstanding performance. This might denote the limiting aspect of employees’ competence that SMEs may overcome through the more sustainable solution of expertise development.

Dear Biljana Tosic ,

SME used to have much more serious priorities, than standardization (which is certainly a good and desirable thing). So that even having a decent expertise in standardization, it may be not a current priority, not speaking of a case, if such expertise is absent within the company. Typically, standardization is highly dependent on the budget availability and the urgency of the moment. Eventually, some companies are coming to that point, unless they disappear before it.

Dear Len Leonid Mizrah -

I must agree with you that the motivation for standardization is usually low in most organizations (especially SMEs) due to the relatively low attractiveness of the topic.

SMEs usually do not have the resources or capabilities to pursue more urgent matters (for the day-to-day survival of the business), so it may be reasonable to assume that they are not very eager to even talk about standardization matters, not merely pursue them.

However, SMEs may experience a number of benefits if tend to use or develop standards (implementing standards/participating in standardization process) so developing expertise in standardization (or hiring employees that have it) may certainly be beneficial for them.

Dear Biljana Tosic ,

You gave an excellent answer on your own question. Many years ago I was in charge as a department manager to lead the entire ISO certification process. It was a well established, and a quite famous and prosper company - it took more than a year to go through all organizational paperwork, meetings, negotiations; policies, standards, and instructions development, and so on and so forth. It's not speaking of money the whole thing had consumed, and an amount of time lost. The whole management was in a state of a continues pressure and disappointment. I've brought this example to show that even for established companies, it's a serious long time destruction, loss of time and resources, that SME typically simply cannot afford.

Dear Aparna Sathya Murthy -

Exactly!

Expertise in a specific field of work might be recognized, especially considering that SMEs are usually founded by entrepreneurs who have a certain amount of common knowledge about goods or services they tend to offer at the market, but they still lack domain-specific knowledge, skills, competence and expertise in standardization.

Those startups you have worked with -

Did you see some standardization experts or even standards specialists?

Did you see expertise in standardization in any of those enterprises?

Thank you very much for your answers.

Dear Len Leonid Mizrah -

I absolutely agree, the whole process is a mess even for established companies.

So why do it? :)

Although standardization may be seen as a burden for most organizations, both large enterprises and SMEs actually find it beneficial. I believe that SMEs could especially benefit from standardization and find a way in which it can be used to enable access to export markets, enable access to new customers, strengthen the small businesses, enable them to compete with large enterprises, and enhance global competitiveness.

These are only some of the main benefits that SMEs are maybe not quite familiar with - or else the current situation (and the motivation for standardization) might be different.

Dear Biljana Tosic ,

One more comment. Standardization can be and should be beneficial despite the effort. The most difficult issue is as follows. Standardization is like your kid, you have to keep one feeding, learning, and teaching, and this commitment is only growing. As a matter of fact, every enterprise go over time through hardware, software, processes and technology updates and upgrades. Including changes in top and middle level management. Keeping standardization current and alive over years is a very serious effort. Especially, when it comes to SME that are more dynamic and rapidly changing companies. So that there are times when an established standardization structure is perpendicular to the technology and business changes and lags behind until its change becomes a priority again.

Dear Len Leonid Mizrah -

I like your comparison of standardization as a kid, if I might add something similar I once read at Slob and De Vries (2002) - it goes something like this -

''standardization-related work can always be postponed for a day, especially since directly productive labor always comes first'' ...

This might suggest that standardization is not ''directly productive labor'' ... ?

and what happens when such postponing leads to eventually doing nothing at all?

Thank you once again for your significant contribution to the topic!

Dear Biljana Tosic ,

Here is my 2 cent, I believe expertise in standardisation exist but in large cooperations, which may have the budget to send their potential staff through a designed program of training with constant means of performance measurement. However, for SMEs, expertise training rarely exist as they cost money and most of the time, it's the owner who are responsible to be an expert in that particular business. With the rise in competition, SMEs would need to compete on 2 elements, cost or differentiation. Therefore, in SMEs, the"expertise" of the owner is something that will allow a company to stay in business. Thus, it is difficult to "standardise" expertise, especially in SMEs.

Dear Poti Chaopaisarn -

Thank you very much for your contribution!

It's true, owners and managers of SMEs usually are experts (in a specific field) who are ready or eager to use such domain-specific knowledge to their advantage. However, some authors differentiate between entrepreneurial knowledge (common knowledge of owners and managers of SMEs) and expert knowledge, suggesting that entrepreneurs may not have such a domain-specific knowledge (expertise) that experts may have, but it is the entrepreneur who recognizes the value and the opportunity of the expert knowledge. On the other hand, an expert does not recognize the value of their knowledge or how to turn that knowledge into a profit, or else the expert would be an entrepreneur.

So the question seems to be are owners of SMEs at the same time experts in their field of knowledge or do they need to hire experts (and expert knowledge)?

This might be used to denote differences between common knowledge and domain-specific knowledge (expertise) - which one seems to be more significant for SMEs?

Interesting.

Humberto Costa - maybe you can share your views? :)

Dear @Biljana Tošić Several factors affect the performance of SMEs including entrepreneurial aspect, competence of human resource, innovativeness, and sustainability.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S187704281401996X/pdf?md5=7b9c9d909a8a3ad7b9152cb6236f2fd5&pid=1-s2.0-S187704281401996X-main.pdf

To my opinion, expertise does exist in SMEs, without which SMEs cannot be sustainable.

Best regards, AKC

Dear Aparna Sathya Murthy - thank you very much for your answer!

Dear Arbind K. Choudhary - thank you very much for your contribution!

Biljana, this is an interesting and relevant question to ask given the increasing scholarly interest in SMEs. In as much as the argument could be proffered that the standardisation of expertise could serve as an efficiency approach towards a partial resolution of SMEs' resource constraints, there is a counter argument that these smaller companies are continuously and consistently having to do business in environments that are forever mutating, dynamic and volatile. As such, Teece et al.'s (1991) notion of 'dynamic capabilities' could serve the dual function of not only help firms identify but also make use of those SME owners' and staff's competencies that may be internally standardised to save costs but externally made more dynamic to enhance strategic viability and competitive advantage. Interesting...

Dear John Mendy - thank you very much for sharing!

Yes, we can speak about dynamic capabilities, competencies, and such (and it may be of tremendous significance for the global competitiveness of SMEs), but another question that still remains unanswered may be related to expertise (in general) itself.

Herling (2000) stated that the term competence shall be used to denote employees' ''ability to do something satisfactory to a minimum acceptable level of performance''.

The same author stated that to be competitive and achieve sustained success ‒ organizations must tend to achieve outstanding performance (through expertise).

So the question might be - are SMEs actually capable of outstanding performance?

Feel free to share your thoughts ... :)

Hello Biljana, many thanks for your engagement on the topic. My response to your question is 'yes' provided that 'dynamic capability' issues (both internally and externally) that have partly constrained SMEs' 'outstanding performance' are addressed. Some of my recent peer-reviewed articles and book chapters on the issue could be found on RG (amongst other outlets) or by following the links below:

The performance management problem of SMEs (just published): https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/JSBED-06-2019-0201/full/pdf?title=performance-management-problem-of-four-small-and-medium-sized-enterprises-smes-towards-a-performance-resolution;

Place and Policy barriers of rural Nigeria's SMEs: Article Place and policy barriers of rural Nigeria's small and mediu...

Staff preferences in four SMEs: https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/JOCM-06-2017-0206/full/html

From HRM's High Performance Work Systems: Chapter From Human Resource Management's High-Performance Work Syste...

Happy to develop the emerging issues further.

Dear John Mendy - thank you once again both for your answers and for the valuable references offered above. I will check them as soon as I can.

Kind regards,

Standardization demand a lot which SMEs struggle to meet so prone to standardization. Training and subsides maybe needed to put them into the system.

Dear Bruce Robin Nyamweha - thank you for your thoughts, I agree it takes a lot to consider but I also believe it's definitely worth it in the end. Do you agree? :)

@Dr. Biljana, yes it is worth confidence of their consumers.

It probably depends. If SME is OB, then it is more likely, and if it is NB, then less.

The concept of "standardization" in SMEs is not applicable, given the diversity of these types of enterprises (especially the subgroups relating to micro and small enterprises).

Gioacchino de Candia - I am sorry, maybe I was not clear - I was thinking about standardization as an academic disciple (e.g. using standards (implementing standards, such as ISO 9001, ISO 14001, ISO 27001) and developing standards (participating in technical committees in organizations for standardization, such as ISO, IEC, ITU)).

Feel free to share your thoughts!

Dear Biljana Tosic and All other Colleagues

I've read all discussion and I still have a question: "Standardization, what for?"

I understood that your proposal is about 'implementing standards, such as ISO 9001, ISO 14001, ISO 27001) and developing standards (participating in technical committees in organizations for standardization, such as ISO, IEC, ITU)'… but, once again: What for?

Entrepreneurs usually have to deal with resources constraints being the time one of the most critical. Also, see Iyigun, M. F., & Owen, A. L. (1999). Entrepreneurs, professionals, and growth. Journal of Economic Growth, 4(2), 213-232.

That said, I ask again: "Standardization, what for?"

Biljana Tošić

It is good that you rephrase the question on a very different basis.

Arnaldo Di Petta - that is a very good question :)

The majority of academics, educators, and lecturers agree that SMEs could benefit from standardization (both using and developing standards) and find a way in which expertise in standardization can be used for the internationalization of SMEs.

According to Gereffi (1999) - internationalization - is defined as “the geographic spread of economic activities across national boundaries”.

For example, ISO conducted a survey in 2014 about the economic benefits of standards. The case studies included SMEs and large enterprises and, despite the large discrepancies, one of the key findings suggested that standards enable “creating and entering new markets“ (ISO, 2014a). Another ISO survey from 2014 explored the perceptions of 10 owners and/or managers of SMEs “about how they use standards to improve their businesses“. These small enterprises confirmed that standards enable access to export markets, enable access to foreign customers, “strengthen the small businesses“, “enable SMEs to compete with large enterprises“, “drive growth, cut costs, increase profit“, and enhance the global competitiveness of SMEs (ISO, 2014b).

So the question is not whether SMEs can benefit from either using or developing standards, the question is are they aware of these benefits? And if not ...

What can be done to support the capacity building and expertise development of SMEs?

Hi Biljana Tosic

My objective answer is: entrepreneurial education!

And through results, show to entrepreneurs that entrepreneurial education will support their development.

YES