AbstractsBusiness Management & Administration

The contribution of SMEs is extremely important to the economy in China, so how can they improve their competition and enhance their innovation capability, which is a serious problem for them to consider? Owing to global business development influence, Chinese SMEs need to know Western management theories in order to recognise the difference between theory in the West and practice in the East and how these theories guide them in business management. In particular, business process re-engineering (BPR) theory is significant to Chinese SMEs redesign, restructure, and re-engineering of their enterprise in order to improve productivity and effectively enhance competition. So the ultimate aim of this research is to help Chinese SMEs to realise the existing problems when implementing BPR and help them flexibly use BPR theory in practice. To achieve this aim the research is based on an empirical study to present evidence on the current status of BPR used among Chinese SMEs and to show the problems that influence their adoption and utilisation of BPR theory in business management. In addition, a framework is proposed with identified aspects that improve BPR implementation in Chinese SMEs. In order to achieve these objectives the research shows six cases providing an in-depth description of how Chinese SMEs understand BPR theory and use re-engineering concept to improve their business operations. government policy factors influence Chinese SMEs' adopting and utilising BPR theory. These factors are used to develop a framework especially for SMEs use in Chinese cultural society. Implementation of BPR, in SMEs, is not widely discussed. Thus the study has important implications for research and practice; the limitations of the research; the contributions both in academia and practice; and the reflection of the research and future research, all of which are discussed.