The Impact of Informatization Leadership of CEOs and Executives in SMEs on Business Performance: A Balanced Scorecard Perspective for Sustainable Management

Informatization is an essential component of becoming a sustainable and competitive SMEs in a rapidly changing society. Previous studies suggest that the informatization leadership of CEOs and executives, especially in SMEs, can have a significant impact on business performance. To empirically analyze this possibility, this study analyzes the impact of CEOs’ and executives’ informatization leadership on business performance using data from 4000 SMEs in Korea in 2020. In particular, we also examine it from the perspective of BSC business performance, which includes non-financial indicators along with financial performance, which is a short-term indicator. In this study, exploratory factor analysis was conducted to extract variables based on secondary data. And multiple regression analysis was conducted to examine the relative importance and direction of the influence of independent variables on dependent variables. The results show that informatization leadership does not have a statistically significant impact on financial performance. In other words, informatization leadership does not affect short-term financial performance. However, there is a statistically significant positive impact on BSC business performance. This means that the higher the informatization leadership, the higher the BSC business performance, including non-financial performance. Therefore, it implies that the CEOs and executives of SMEs should have informatization leadership for long-term performance. This study reveals the importance of informatization leadership of CEOs and executives in SMEs and suggests that CEOs and executives should strive to improve their informatization leadership for sustainable management in the future. This study also provides policy implications for improving informatization leadership.