Digital technology adoption and SMEs’ Financial Performance: Evidence from Thailand

Juthathip Jongwanich and Archanun Kohpaiboon ()
Additional contact information
Archanun Kohpaiboon: Faculty of Economics, Thammasat University

No 81, Discussion Papers from Thammasat University, Faculty of Economics

Abstract: This paper aims to examine the impacts of digital technology (DT) adoption, with an emphasis on the role of ICT, on SMEs’ financial performance using Thailand as a case study during 2018-2021. The importance of DT depth and personnels graduated in a field of ICT was also investigated in this study. Our results show that types of ICT adoption, size of firms and sectors mattered in analyzing impacts of DT on firms’ financial performance. SMEs received significant benefits when ICT adoption was considered in terms of purchasing goods and services via the Internet; sales online (e-Commerce) as well as online payments. Due to the nature of industry, the service sector tended to gain more benefits from operating through online activities than the manufacturing sector. In terms of software usage, it generated benefits mostly for the medium and large firms, but less crucial for the small ones. Interestingly, access to the internet, with other purposes than the e-commerce, showed limited impacts in influencing firms’ financial performance, even in the large firms. Regarding the technology depth, in general, the results revealed that it generates more positive impacts on income than profits, reflecting high costs of obtaining advanced technology or diversifying DT usage. Limited impacts of ICT personnels graduated and its depth on SMEs’ performance generated concerns on shortages of basic and advanced ICT skills and costs of hiring ICT staffs for SMEs.

Keywords: Digital Technologies; SMEs; and Developing Countries (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O11 O30 O53 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 32 pages
Date: 2024-01, Revised 2024-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ict, nep-sbm and nep-sea
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Published in Econ TU Discussion Paper No.81, January 2024, pages 1-32

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.econ.tu.ac.th/uploads/discussion_paper ... 103/ackmorsw2589.pdf First version, 2024 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:tha:wpaper:20240104

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Discussion Papers from Thammasat University, Faculty of Economics Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chompoo Thongchai ().