Australian SMEs and Digitalisation: Interview Dataset on Challenges and Financial Impacts (20 Interviews)

In today’s rapidly evolving business environment, digitalisation has become increasingly essential for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The global momentum to drive digital transformation intensified significantly during the COVID-19 pandemic, affecting businesses in Australia. However, Australian SMEs in the retail sector still face significant challenges in their digitalisation journey, particularly at different stages of the process. Although previous studies pointed out the general advantages and challenges of digitalisation, there is still a lack of understanding the distinct obstacles faced by SMEs at each stage of digitalisation and how these stages impact financial performance. This study aims to bridge the gap by systematically analysing the stages of digitalisation among Australian retail SMEs, exploring the specific challenges they encounter at each stage, and examining the stages of digitalisation and financial performance. This study adopts a qualitative research approach, collecting data by conducting semi-structured interviews with 20 SME owners and managers. The Digital Transformation Theory (including Nobles Theory of the stages of digitalisation) and the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) was adopted to systematically assess the digital tools used by SMEs at various stages of digitalisation. The study, focusing on the ease and practicality of technology adoption, offers a comprehensive perspective on the core factors influencing technology adoption, while revealing specific challenges faced by SME owners at each stage of the digitalisation process. Moreover, this study contributes at the theoretical level how these frameworks can be applied to explore digitalisation in SMEs, while providing concrete insights and recommendations at the practical level to help SME owners, policy makers and technology providers to allocate resources more efficiently in the various stages of digital transformation. By thoroughly analysing the challenges encountered by SMEs in the process of digitalisation, this study identifies diverse barriers and offers valuable suggestions to improve the efficiency of digital transformation. It allows for an understanding of the gradual character of the digitalisation process and the impact of digitalisation on the financial performance of SMEs. It adds to the existing literature in accounting and to the theories on DTT and TAM. The major limitations of this study were the sample size of only 20 interviews, the challenge of maintaining consistency in the interviews, the possible deviation of self-reported financial data, and the focus on SMEs in the retail sector. However, due to the limited size and resource constraints of a Master's thesis, this study still offered a detailed insight into the challenges faced by SMEs during the digitalisation stages and its impact on financial performance.