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Although agile methods gained popularity and became globally widespread, developing secure software with agile methods remains a challenge. Method elements (i.e., roles, activities, and artifacts) that aim to increase software security on one hand can reduce the characteristic agility of agile methods on the other. The overall aim of this paper is to provide small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) with the means to improve the sustainability of their software development process in terms of software security despite their limitations, such as low capacity and/or financial resources. Although software engineering literature offers various security elements, there is one key research gap that hinders the ability to provide such means. It remains unclear not only how much individual security elements contribute to software security but also how they impact the agility and costs of software development. To address the gap, we identified security elements found in the literature and evaluated them for their impact on software security, agility, and costs in an international study among practitioners. Finally, we developed a novel lightweight approach for evaluating agile methods from a security perspective. The developed approach can help SMEs to adapt their software development to their needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digital transformation which impacts business operations is one of the most fundamental social and economic occurrences of our times. The paper seeks to find out how digital transformation impacts marketing activities in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and to examine overall changes triggered by digital technology in the marketing concept, its instruments, and activities in SMEs in Poland. The main research question focuses on the direction in which marketing activities performed by organisations evolve nowadays. Analyses and considerations are based on logical inference, examination of results of empirical studies, critical literature review, and author's market observations. Conducted analyses have demonstrated that, in enterprises covered by the study, digital technologies are deployed in marketing rather widely, although in many instances these technologies belong to the category of traditional tools. IT technologies and digital tools also impact marketing, helping to build relationships with clients and creating the value of each organisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Far from being exclusively related to economic considerations, the advantages of Industry 4.0 applications also include environmental and social concerns. An increasing amount of scientific publications relate the implementation of the fourth industrial revolution paradigm to sustainability. Several studies reported opportunities of Industry 4.0 implementation particularly to the environmental dimension of sustainability, e.g., through improved logistics streams and lowered waste from production. The present research aims at providing evidence on whether manufacturing companies consider Industry 4.0 implementation as an advantage contributing to environmental and social sustainability in terms of lower environmental impact of production, as well as higher physical relief for workers and flexibility of work organisation. The results were an attempt to study such relations with company sizes, industry sectors, turnover and self-assessed levels of digitalization varying. The sample encompasses 65 companies located in the Marche region (Italy). The results show that overall the perception of economic opportunities prevail, while the association of a beneficial impact of Industry 4.0 on environmental sustainability is rather low across companies, regardless of their size, turnover and digital level. As for the statistically significant variables, the results suggest a strong association of the size and the digital level to specific Industry 4.0 related advantages, referring to the social and economic dimension of sustainability, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this article is to investigate the relationship between the budget related to corporate social responsibility (CSR), Innovation and Training, defined as sustainable factors, and the financial results of small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs). The investigation is made by analysing the financial results from a sample of 200 SMEs from the South-West Region of Romania. The findings prove that SMEs can use training and innovation to improve the impact of CSR on their sustainability with a focus on positive financial indicators. The findings prove that corporate social responsibility (CSRBi), innovation (InnovBi), and training (TrainingBi) as sustainable factors are significantly and positively correlated with the following indicators: profit (Profiti), profit per employee (ProfitEi) and total expenditure (Expensesi), and it is negatively correlated with debt ratio (DebtRi). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Antecedent research has recognized a difference in the participation in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) practices between big companies and small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Certain characteristics of SMEs create challenges which influence the manner with which they treat the CSR topic. However, literature has failed to provide solutions as to how these challenges can successfully be overcome or avoided by SMEs. In an attempt to contribute to these solutions, this paper explores the reasons why some SMEs face challenges as well as how such problems can be mastered. Furthermore, this article provides input that could encourage more SMEs to incorporate CSR practices into their business strategies. The research follows a qualitative approach; data being collected in 2018 through a total of 12 interviews with managers of SMEs in the food industry within the DACH-region as well as with experts in the field of study. The paper reveals that if the managers and owners of SMEs become committed towards CSR and if sufficient resources are allocated and advice on how to implement CSR is obtained, the opportunity certainly exists to persuade larger numbers of SMEs to adopt CSR practices as a core company strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The properties of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) make them one of the most important categories of enterprises for the economics of challenging world. SMEs, in most countries, are still enterprises with marketing and financial challenges. In addition, most of these challenges are related to their production and product characteristics. On the other hand, SMEs should fulfil the costumer's demands. In order to reach these goals, SMEs must reach the highest level of production quality and quantity and successfully sustain them. Consequently, various manufacturing paradigms have been offered by an Industry 4.0 concept, which offers a variety of solutions to increase the productivity and enhance the performance of SMEs. It should be noted that implementation of these manufacturing paradigms for SMEs is quite difficult and sometimes risky for several reasons. Still, amidst all these difficulties and challenges, the benefits and idealism of the Industry 4.0 paradigms prevail. From productivity to market, it is difficult to deny that SMEs are frightened by the challenges they face and fleeing from the potential of overcoming them. This paper is an extended version of the research by Ghafoorpoor Yazdi et al. (2018) and conducts a hybrid methodology to satisfy the SMEs by validating and verifying any optimization idea before implementing the Industry 4.0 concept. To reach the study goals, an intelligent Material Handling System (MHS) with agent-based control architecture has been developed. The developed MHS has been utilized for auto parts distribution. The system performance has been evaluated, and some solutions have been provided to optimize the performance of system. To evaluate the target system's performance, an analytical time study method has been utilized. The time study has an Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) standard approach to identifying the matters that need to be resolved and optimized to increase system performance. The other part of the methodology is generating a simulation model of the real system by use of ARENA® software to evaluate the system's performance before implementing the optimization idea and modifying the real system. Furthermore, as the sustainability strategies create many synergistic effects for SMEs, after evaluating the effects of the optimization ideas on OEE percentage, the influence of the OEE changes on manufacturing sustainability has been investigated. The results show that optimizing the OEE in SMEs with sustainability approaches can create competitive advantages, rather than simply focusing on reducing unsustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]