An Empirical Analysis of Covid-19 Realities Influencing Small Business Behavior (Published)
The novel coronavirus otherwise known as Covid-19 has opened the world to new abnormal “realities” that are posing serious business-related challenges to both national and global economies. This study examines the various realities–in the form of variables–associated with the Covid-19 pandemic and determines the influence of these realities on the behavior of micro, small and medium scale businesses. The data was collected using interview and structured questionnaire. The questionnaire was administered to 1883 respondents across five states in Nigeria using convenient sampling. Twenty-four variables were identified and Exploratory Factor Analysis was used to examine these variables reducing the number to sixteen influencing variables. Multiple Regression was used to determine the contributions of these variables to the behavior of micro, small, and medium scale businesses. The study findings indicate that eleven of these variables were statistically significant and eight significantly influence the behavior of these businesses.
Keywords: Micro, Small, and medium scale businesses, business behavior, coronavirus (Covid-19)
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
The Influence of Entrepreneurial Innovativeness on Firm Performance among Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises in Kenya (Published)
Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) play an important role in the world economy. They contribute substantially to income, output and employment. They dominate the world business stage. Empirical studies have identified the effects of Market Orientation (MO) and entrepreneurial orientation (EO) on firm performance; also on the moderating effect of MO on single EO constructs, yet studies have failed to identify the influence of Entrepreneurial Innovativeness on the relationship between corporate entrepreneurship dimensions and firm performance, especially in Kenya. Therefore, based on a study conducted to determine the moderating effect of MO on this relationship among mid-sized enterprises in Kenya this paper examines the effect of entrepreneurial innovativeness on firm performance and the moderating effect of MO in the relationship between entrepreneurial innovativeness and firm performance. The study was guided by the Resource Based View (RBV), Contingency Theory, theories of entrepreneurship and the marketing concept. It adopted explanatory research design using a survey of all the top 600 med-sized firms in Kenya between 2006 and 2013. Actual participating firms were 536 with responses obtained from 394 firms. Data was collected using a questionnaire and analyzed using descriptive statistics, Pearson’s bivariate correlation, multiple regression, and moderated regression analysis. Results revealed that entrepreneurial innovativeness has a direct positive relationship with performance of mid-sized firms. In addition, market orientation had no significant moderating effect on the relationship between entrepreneurial innovativeness and firm performance. From these results, the study recommends that firms should intensify initiatives to encourage better understanding of EO and MO in boosting firms’ competitive positions and superior performance.
Keywords: Entrepreneurial Innovativeness, Firm Performance, Kenya, Medium-Sized Enterprises, Small
The Influence of Innovativeness on the Performance of Small and Medium Enterprises in Eldoret Town, Kenya (Published)
The study investigated the influence of entrepreneurial intensity on performance of small and medium enterprises in Eldoret town, Kenya. Based on the study this paper examines how innovativeness influences the performance of SMEs in Eldoret town. The study adopted an ex-post facto research design. It targeted all the SMEs in Eldoret town. Systematic sampling technique was adopted to select a sample of 100 SME owners/managers to be involved in the study. The collected data was analysed using both descriptive and inferential statistics. Descriptive statistics was presented in form of percentages, frequencies, pie charts and graphs. Pearson correlation was employed to test the hypotheses of the study. The findings showed that innovativeness as a dimension of entrepreneurial intensity had strong positive correlation with the performance of SMEs in Eldoret town. Therefore, it was recommended that the government should play a role in offering short courses to induct the business owners and expose them to advanced techniques in innovation.
Keywords: Eldoret Town, Innovativeness, Kenya, Medium Enterprises, Performance, Small