OPTIMIZING NIGERIAN SMALL AND MEDIUM-SCALE ENTERPRISES PERFORMANCE IN A COVID-19 PANDEMIC ERA THROUGH ENTREPRENEURIAL MARKETING
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Date
2021-03-31
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Journal of management Science and Entrepreneurship (JMSE) Publications of Sub-Sahara African Academic Research 18th
Abstract
In recorded history in peace time, humanity perhaps has never witnessed a period so fluid, unpredictable and with such overwhelming disruptions of socio economic and political activities around the globe like year 2020 till now Indeed, COVID-19 pandemic holds the world by the jugular. It caused not only major policy transformations in all spheres of life, but also created a new normal in business development, articulation process and execution. Business Performance (BP) denoted by customers' patronage (CP) and profitability: (PF): now hinges on the ingenuities deployed by various organisations management to get them out of the woods. At this critical time, the application of various marketing strategies as tools of galvanising small and medium scale enterprises (SMEs) to escalate CP and PF appears incomplete without entrepreneurial marketing (EM) proxied by innovativeness (INN) and proactiveness (PRA). This study was therefore conducted to assess the impact of INN and PRA on CP and PF on SMEs in North-Central Nigeria. With a population of 2249 and sample size of 343 going by yaro yamani formula, copies of structured questionnaire were administered as tools of data collection. Standard multiple regression was deployed as a method of analysis. Findings on INN showed that (B-292, t= 5.107. R= .877, R² = .769, p<.000); and similarly. PRAC showed that (B=.334, t= 5.956. R=.891, R²-.741, p<.000). These implied that both INN and PRAC have significant impact on CP and PF respectively. The study therefore concluded that INN and PRA are major escalators of SMEs' CP and PF. It recommended that in the turbulent times of today that is characterised with COVID-19 pandemic, SMEs should fully embrace innovativeness and proactiveness as the thrust of their marketing efforts to achieve significant notches on their customers' patronage and profitability.