Managing `virtual´ innovation: the challenge for the small business

Summary form only given. This paper is concerned with such emerging technologies as groupware and intranets. It draws on the study of small businesses in the UK and Holland to examine developments in ´virtual´ forms of working. The paper highlights the particular issues faced by small businesses during such innovation and discusses how these can be better managed. It is argued that given the growing importance of small business, not least to job creation, and the fact that little work-especially in the virtual working field-has been devoted to smaller organisations, there is need to focus on the problems and issues faced by the managers in smaller businesses in approaching virtual innovation possibilities. But this involves not only looking at how such businesses can embrace virtual ways of working. Given that, so far as innovation generally is concerned, such businesses may well face problems specific to firms of that size, we also need to respect the context in which we consider virtual work developments. The paper concludes that, in the abstract world of concept building, the possibilities offered by virtual innovations seem enormous