Business Environment: Globalization and Small and Medium Scale Enterprises in Nigeria (Published)
Business environment has been a vital factor to consider in evaluating SMEs survival and growth in the highly competitive and globalized world. The objective of the paper was to assess literature on the effect of environment and globalization on small and medium scale enterprises in Nigeria. Based on the assessment of the literature reviewed, the paper concludes that the Nigerian SMEs has no capacity to compete with foreign manufacturers, due to a number of benefits they enjoy in their home countries that are absent in Nigeria. Foreign manufactured goods are of better quality and are produced at lower cost when compared with cost of production of goods by the Nigerian SMEs. In addition, the Nigerian business environment is not stable; infrastructure decay, policy fluctuation, high cost of doing business, endemic corruption in governance, high interest rate, high taste for imported goods, galloping inflation, insecurity and porous border and multiple tax system, are among problems of SMEs development in Nigeria. The paper recommends that to benefit from the inevitable globalization by the Nigerian SMEs, efforts should be made by the Nigerian government and SMEs to creating favourable business environment that is devoid of high cost of production; good policy to protect and encourage SMEs; favourable economic policies that will encourage local goods patronage; regulation of interest rate to single digit; adequate security, harmonization of tax system to avoid multiplicity, and so forth in Nigeria.
Keywords: Business Environment, Globalization, Medium, Scale Enterprises, Small
ASSESSING THE EFFECT OF ORGANIZATIONAL AND MARKETING INNOVATIONS ON MEDIUM SCALE FOOD WHOLESALE MARKETING FIRM ABIA STATE, NIGERIA (Published)
The study assessed the effect of organizational and marketing innovations on selected medium scale food wholesale marketing firms in Abia State, Nigeria. The study focused on medium scale flour food wholesale marketing firms. The study employed a Yaro Yamen sample size estimation method to cull out 50 firms from the entire sample frame. These firms were randomly selected for the studies of various variables of interest. Data were gotten from respondents via questionnaire. The data analyses were carried out with descriptive statistics, income statement analysis, probit and multiple regression analyses. The study showed that the majority of flour food wholesale marketing firms in the study area were established between the periods of 6-10 years ago. The highest number of employee of the food wholesale marketing firms fall within the period of 11-20. The result also indicates that sole proprietorship were the highest ownership structure evidenced from the study. The greater number of the firms’ employee skills were semi-skilled. The firm’s major source of capital was gotten through equity source of finance. The dominant organization’s innovation strategies most adopted by the food wholesale firms were price strategy, product approaches, continuous and improvement aspect of innovation. The study however ensured a high quality management which confirmed a positive relationship between profitability and firms’ growth. This attests to a signal of efficiency in the firms’ management. The factors affecting organizational and marketing innovation strategies had significant relationships among the models respectively. Further, the effect of organizational and marketing innovation on medium scale flour food wholesale marketing firms performance and efficiency plausible as firm gross margin indicated sound profitability. Thus, there is the need for medium scale flour food wholesale marketing firms to employ the employ organizational and marketing innovation strategies complementarily in responding to the ever changing market needs of the food industry.
Keywords: Firm, Food, Innovation, Marketing, Medium, Organizational, Wholesale