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This study aims to examine usage and deployment trends of e‐business technologies within the small and medium‐sized enterprise (SMEs) community in Wales, since the turn of the millennium. Analysis of prior surveys such as the Department of Trade and Industry and Federation of Small Business reveals poor adoption levels of basic information and communication technology deployment and minimal uptake of sophisticated technologies in comparison to other UK regions. Uptake of e‐business was assessed through a quantitative survey of SMEs and contrasted against prior studies undertaken within Wales since 2000 to identify trends and levels of adoption.

The study is comprised of a survey of 500 SMEs including a representative population from diverse geographical and economic regions within Wales. The survey deployed a proportionately stratified and representative sampling technique, whereby two‐thirds of the enterprises selected were micro sized classified enterprises with no employees to ensure compatibility with the Welsh SME population.

Levels of e‐business uptake within prior surveys varied significantly, due to the contrasting nature and size of the samples. As a consequence, several previous surveys presented an overly optimistic picture of e‐business adoption and results must, therefore, be treated with caution. The authors' own survey revealed lower utilisation levels of e‐business than prior studies, suggesting sophisticated use of e‐business was limited, especially within the smaller SME size classifications.

To achieve increased e‐business uptake, it is critical that there is a long‐term strategic vision by policy makers to ensure coordinated action by relevant public and private sector groups. Short‐term strategies must be avoided and policy makers must drive an agenda for change by ensuring bodies, such as enterprises support agencies, academia and public and private sectors undertake complimentary activities that encourage e‐business adoption. This study will be of value to academia, the SME community and key public sector stakeholders in the formulation of policy for e‐business development and deployment.

This paper aims to investigate the way in which blockchain technology is likely to influence future supply chain practices and policies.

A systematic review of both academic and practitioner literature was conducted. Multiple accounts of blockchain adoption within industry were also consulted to gain further insight.

While blockchain technologies remain in their infancy, they are gaining momentum within supply chains, trust being the predominant factor driving their adoption. The value of such technologies for supply chain management lies in four areas: extended visibility and traceability, supply chain digitalisation and disintermediation, improved data security and smart contracts. Several challenges and gaps in understanding and opportunities for further research are identified by this research. How a blockchain-enabled supply chain should be configured has also been explored from a design perspective.

This systematic review focuses on the diffusion of blockchain technology within supply chains, and great care was taken in selecting search terms. However, the authors acknowledge that their choice of terms may have excluded certain blockchain articles from this review.

This paper offers valuable insight for supply chain practitioners into how blockchain technology has the potential to disrupt existing supply chain provisions as well as a number of challenges to its successful diffusion.

The paper debates the poential social and economic impact brought by blockchain.

This paper is one of the first studies to examine the current state of blockchain diffusion within supply chains. It lays a firm foundation for future research.

The development of Ecommerce within Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in Wales is restricted by a number of barriers. Various projects initiated by government and academic bodies exist to assist SMEs overcome these barriers. However, whether these projects represent the needs of SMEs is debatable. The opportunity for SMEs to exploit information communication technology has increased due to the improved affordability and sophistication of computing equipment, along with the development and utilisation of the Internet. This progress has seen the emergence of Ebusiness and Ecommerce, whereby SMEs can operate, communicate and trade in global markets. Recent surveys by academia, government and trade bodies have identified Wales as the worst performing region for Ebusiness in the UK with sceptical attitudes towards its increased adoption. This paper reports on a quantitative study investigating Ebusiness utilisation within SMEs in Wales. Specifically this paper focuses on the key barriers influencing the adoption of Ebusiness within SMEs in Wales. The survey of the Cardiff Chamber of Commerce (CCC) membership was undertaken in 2001. The CCC is a trade body of approximately 1000 SMEs encompassing a geographical area covering Cardiff, Bridgend, Newport and the Valleys areas. The postal survey and telephone follow up achieved a response rate of 100 SME classified enterprises, a response rate of approximately 10%. Academic research has identified these barriers as deficiencies in financial resources, time, information and skills; concerns over security, legal issues and competition and doubts over the applicability of Ebusiness to their business practices and cultural and infrastructure issues. These barriers are a major influence as to how Ebusiness will develop within SMEs and this paper identifies the significance of each factor in constraining growth. The paper concludes by investigating the assistance for SMEs from academia, government and trade to develop Ebusiness activities and questioning whether these are representative and effective mechanisms for this sector. This paper contributes to knowledge by appraising and contrasting existing barriers to Ebusiness literature and comparing it with the relevant SOGM literature. Secondly it classifies barriers in two ways by type and time of occurrence. Finally the paper recognises that the support mechanisms for Ebusiness within SMEs remain unproven and require further investigation to verify their effectiveness.

This paper aims to present a meta‐model for electronic government (e‐government) which takes account of the broad nature of this contemporary socio‐technical phenomenon. As such it contains within it a number of possible “business models” for the development of e‐government – strategies for e‐government focused around key business processes and information systems.

This meta‐model is built from literature taken from the domains of informatics, business and public administration. It is also built on established academic, policy and practitioner literature from the domain of e‐government itself.

The paper demonstrates and validates the use of this meta‐model in three ways. First, it is used as an explanatory tool to help review the contemporary experience of e‐government in the UK. To help in this process we position specific case examples of e‐government against the model from this experience. Second, it is used to evaluate a number of existing models of e‐government, particularly those which provide an explicit framework of e‐government progress. A number of deficiencies in such models are identified from this evaluation. Third, the meta‐model is proposed as a framework for evaluating and potentially benchmarking e‐government. The intention is to raise the perspective of evaluation and benchmarking in this area beyond its contemporary focus on electronic service delivery.

To demonstrate the worth of this approach, the paper describes the application of elements of this meta‐model in two evaluation/benchmarking exercises undertaken by the author in the context of regional e‐government.

In this paper we discuss an area of information systems management and development that appears to have been practised by many major European and US organisations: the area of corporate data modelling. However, rather suprisingly perhaps, it is clear that there is little theoretical or empirical literature devoted to this important issue. There is little empirical evidence to indicate the actual scale of adoption of this practice, and there is certainly little analytical material devoted to questions of the efficacy of this activity or considerations of good practice in this area. The main aim of this paper is to begin to offer some early empirical and analytical material on corporate data modelling. We have been conducting a study of a number of organisation’s experience of corporate data modelling in the UK. We would hope that an examination of the current corporate experience of corporate data modelling will stimulate a clearer discussion of the purposes and practices of this important area of modern information systems planning.

In this paper we discuss some of the particular features of user involvement in information systems (IS) development projects with reference to the idea of the trajectory of development being a political/cultural process. The main aim is to attempt to supply more depth to an understanding of the pragmatics of user involvement in IS development projects. We illustrate how in one particular project, differences in organisational sub‐cultures, and in particular the way in which the technology was ‘framed’, led to differences in the way in which an information system was conceived. These differences, in turn, contributed to elements of organisational conflict between stakeholder groups over the future trajectory of the IS development. We conclude with a critique of some generally held assumptions concerning user involvement.

This paper aims to examine the central place of the list and the associated concept of an identifier within the “scaffolding” of contemporary government order.

These terms are deliberately chosen to make strange and help unpack the constitutive capacity of information systems and information technology within and between contemporary government agencies. We draw upon the substantial body of work by John Searle to help understand the place of lists in the constitution of the order of governance.

To enable us to ground our discussion of the potentiality and problematic associated with lists, we describe a significant and modern instance of list-making, situated around the issue of digital identity management.

The theoretical framework discussed allows us to better explain breakdowns in the institutional order characteristic of this domain.

The purpose of this paper is to unpack some of the socio‐technical relationships inherent in contemporary notions of personal identity management. For this purpose it considers the issue of personal identity management in terms of a framework, which distinguishes between the related processes of authentication, identification and enrolment.

The conceptual model described in this paper is reflected against an important recent case in which issues of personal identity management are being enacted: the introduction of a UK national identity card. Both this issue and case are particularly examined in the light of the growth of e‐Government in the UK.

The paper relates issues associated with the technical infrastructure of e‐Government with some of the costs and benefits associated with the social infrastructure of e‐Government. This device offers a useful framing for a whole range of issues surrounding individual‐organisation interaction in the Information Society that rely on elements of personal identity management.

In the paper the issue of personal identity management is under‐represented in the Information Systems and Information Management literature. The conceptual approach adopted in the paper is used to identify areas of further research in terms of issues relevant to the technical infrastructure of e‐Government.

The paper identifies a number of personal identity management issues embedded in the technical infrastructure required for effective e‐Government.

This paper raises the importance of personal identity management to the success of the e‐Government agenda. It also links classic information management issues to the issue of personal identity management and identifies the challenges for e‐Government within this.

The purpose of this paper is to describe and explain the case of a major knowledge transfer project conducted over seven years within a region of the UK.

As part of this project a large survey is conducted on an annual basis which aims to track eBusiness adoption amongst small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) in the region and the effects of such adoption upon regional development.

The paper presents findings from this longitudinal study and discusses these findings in terms of conceptions of eBusiness and the importance of developing more sophisticated instruments for assessing eBusiness maturity amongst SMEs. From the research there is clear evidence of the role of eBusiness adoption as a driver of regional development. The benefits from the initial Opportunity Wales programme are still materializing several years after the completion of the first three years of the seven year project.

This is a study of one region in Europe. Further regional cases are required to support the findings.

The findings should help regional planners and national governments assess the value of eBusiness initiatives.

This paper describes the case of a programme funded by the European Union involved with the transfer of eBusiness knowledge to SMEs conducted over the period April 2001 to September 2007 within a major region of the UK. The scope of the research project and its longitudinal nature make the study original.