Research Regarding Change Management Tools on EU SMEs

Change management practices has so far been studied mainly in large companies (i.e. high-tech and multinational enterprises) because researchers could obtain relatively easy information regarding these processes and could explain easily the peculiarities of it based on case studies . However, in recent years a number of researchers focused on SMEs, because this type of organization account for over 90% of businesses all over the world, and there is a growing need to create sustainable SMEs, then developing and implementing change is highest in making progress towards sustainability. In this paper, we investigate change management tools on SMEs from seven different EU countries, in order to better understand the nature of practices and help develop best practices from SMEs on EU. Drawing on a database collected from 72 innovative SMEs, we explore peculiarities and trends on SMEs change management instruments, based on data base analysis from 2014-2015. The survey furthermore focuses on the motives and perceived challenges when SMEs adopt change management practices. Within the survey, we split instruments accordingly to change management methodology steps into planning, implementing and communication of change. We find that the responding SMEs engage in many change practices and have increasingly adopted such practices during the past years. As a limitation of our study, we investigate only medium enterprises, because was difficult to identify a coherent base of change instruments micro and small enterprises. The results are restricted to the sample which is small in size, but generate a good insight into the changes occurring within it. This study is one of the few study in its field to use data from seven different countries in order to analyze change management instruments and help to develop a common base of practice.