“An Examination of the Factors That Prevent Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs) Working In the Construction Industry from Utilising Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) To the Full. LMU BSc (HONS) CONSTRUCTION – COMMERCIAL MANAGEMENT CONSTRUCTION IT COURSEWORK 2”

It is universally recognised that small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are the backbone of any economy. The European Union (2010) reveals that the majority of the European workforce is employed by small firms and 99.8 percent of the firms in the European Union (EU) are SMEs. The construction sector represents about 13 percent out of this figure (includes property developers, design firms, constructors, sub-contractors, and suppliers). The World Bank International Financial Corporation Report on Small and Medium Enterprise (2006) reported that 140 million SMEs in 130 countries comprised on average over 95 percent of the economy and employed 65 percent of the total labour force. In the United States, they account for 99.7 percent of the employer firms and generate more than 50 percent of the GDP (Offstein and Childers, 2008). Similar trends are observed in the majority of developed countrie…(short extract)