Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) have become a vibrant and dynamic sector of the world economy. Information technology plays a vital role in improving the productivity and competitiveness of SMEs. The dynamic business environment has brought fierce competition among SMEs and, therefore, requires the owners to interact with internal and external members actively. Hence, this study aims to investigate the impact of technology, organization, and environment as important factors in the performance of small and medium-sized enterprises. It also examines the mediating role of social media adoption. Items were developed to measure the various purposes of social media use in organizations, which contribute to increasing the measurement of social media usage. For the empirical investigation, this paper used a closed-ended questionnaire. Using a quantitative method, we observed 423 responses through structural equation modeling. The findings of the study indicate that technology, organization, and the environment play effective roles for SME performance. More importantly, social media adoption positively mediates the relationship between technology, organization, environment, and SME performance. The study also helps organizations realize the advantages of using social media and specifies the rationale behind an organization’s investment in social media.

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Business incubators create value by combining the entrepreneurial spirit of start-ups with the resources that are typically available to new businesses. It is widely recognized that knowledge-based entrepreneurial companies are the main creators of economic growth, and such enterprises require special business development services. Therefore, the study aims to examine the role of business incubators in providing greater services (networking services, capital support, and training programs) in entrepreneurship development. Secondly, it also examines the mediating and moderating role of business start-up and government regulations for entrepreneurship. Using a quantitative methodology, we examine 567 samples through structural equation modeling. We find that the business incubators are playing an effective mediating role in providing networking services, capital support, and training programs to individuals and entrepreneurs, which are significant for entrepreneurship development, whereas business start-up positively mediates the relationship between networking services, capital support, training programs, and entrepreneurship development. Government regulations for entrepreneurship have a direct effect on entrepreneurship development. More importantly, government regulations for entrepreneurship have a positive moderating effect between business start-up and entrepreneurship development. Our study identifies the critical resources needed to improve the quality of business incubators and to ensure the availability of such resources to improve entrepreneurship development.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the moderating role of competitive intensity between the existing relationship of capital structure and firm performance. Design/methodology/approach Using the balanced panel data of listed non-financial firms of Pakistan, the present study adopts both the panel and OLS estimation techniques to draw the inferences. Findings The results exhibit that high debt ratio is harmful for the accounting performance of the selected sample firms of Pakistan. In addition, product market competition negatively moderates the relationship between capital structure and firm performance which suggests that high product market competition can be used as a substitute of debt financing to align the interests of a firm’s managers and shareholders. Practical implications The findings of the research provide evidence for the policy makers/regulators that the sample firms should discourage the high debt financing in the presence of competitive intensity in the product marketplace. Originality/value The core contribution of the current research is to examine the moderating role of product market competition on the leverage–performance relationship because, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, no single study has previously explored this relationship in the context of Pakistan.