How do Collaborative Technologies Affect Innovation in SMEs? - Collaborative Technologies and Applications for Interactive Information Design - page 230

Table 4. Descriptive statistics and bivariate correlation coefficients

Variables Mean S.D. Correlation

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

1. Discussion forums 0.09 0.29 1

2. Shared databases 0.34 0.47 0.39*** 1

3. Document repositories 0.22 0.41 0.44*** 0.65*** 1

4. Document management
systems/Workflows

0.21 0.41 0.42*** 0.63*** 0.69*** 1

5. E-information 2.96 1.57 0.30*** 0.18* 0.26** 0.34*** 1

6. E-communication 2.47 1.41 0.36*** 0.13 0.18* 0.23** 0.79*** 1

7. E-workflow 4.07 1.14 0.04 0.37*** 0.15 0.19* 0.13 0.04 1

8. Product innovation 3.24 1.01 0.05 0.14** 0.13** 0.13** 0.24** 0.15 0.08 1

9. Process innovation 3.34 0.98 0.04 0.16*** 0.13** 0.16*** 0.28*** 0.19* 0.05 0.68***

p<0.1*; p<0.05**; p<0.01***

Table 5. Collaborative technologies adoption and innovation

All variables Stepwise method

Independent variables New products New processes New products New processes

Discussion forums -0.028 -0.049

Repositories 0.048 -0.002

Shared databases 0.076 0.099 0.139**

Document management systems/
Workflows

0.068 0.128 0.169***

F 1.933* 2.768** 6.091** 9.025***

R 2 0.012 0.022 0.016 0.025

p<0.1*; p<0.05**; p<0.01***

lar, with 3.2 and 3.3, respectively. As presented in
Table 4, all CTs, except for the discussion forums,
had significant correlations with both types of in-
novation. Regression results (see Table 5) showed
that, although statistically significant coefficients
were not found for any CT, CTs' adoption was
associated with innovation. When doing the
analysis by the stepwise procedure, it was found
that shared databases were positively associated
with product innovation (supporting H1c) and
document management systems/workflows were
positively related to process innovation (support-
ing H1d). Thus, H1 is partially supported; only
TS (shared databases and document management

systems/workflows) were found to be associated
with innovation.

Collaborative technologies'
Adoption and Collaborative
technologies' use

As shown in Table 6, the most predominant
collaborative technology used was e-workflow
(mean= 4.21), while the least was e-communica-
tion (mean= 2.54). Only a few companies allow
electronic employee participation through sugges-
tions or debates. Regression results reveal differ-
ent CTs were associated to different CTs' uses,