Information technology and the productivity of micro-business in nigeria

Project Abstract

This research project explores the relationship between information technology (IT) and the productivity of micro-businesses in Nigeria. Micro-businesses play a crucial role in the Nigerian economy, contributing significantly to employment and income generation. However, many of these businesses face challenges such as limited resources, lack of access to markets, and inefficient business processes. This study aims to investigate how the adoption and utilization of IT can help improve the productivity and performance of micro-businesses in Nigeria. The research will employ a mixed-methods approach, combining quantitative surveys and qualitative interviews to gather data from a sample of micro-business owners in different sectors across Nigeria. The quantitative surveys will focus on collecting data on the current IT usage, business processes, and productivity levels of the micro-businesses. The qualitative interviews will provide insights into the perceptions, experiences, and challenges faced by micro-business owners regarding IT adoption and its impact on their productivity. The study will also examine the specific IT tools and technologies that are most commonly used by micro-businesses in Nigeria, such as mobile applications, social media platforms, and cloud computing services. By analyzing the relationship between IT adoption and productivity, the research aims to identify the key factors that influence the successful integration of IT into micro-business operations. Furthermore, the research will explore the barriers and challenges that micro-business owners encounter in adopting IT, including issues related to cost, skills, infrastructure, and awareness. By understanding these challenges, the study seeks to provide recommendations and strategies to help micro-business owners overcome barriers to IT adoption and leverage technology to enhance their productivity and competitiveness in the market. Overall, this research project contributes to the existing literature on IT adoption and its impact on micro-business productivity in developing countries like Nigeria. By shedding light on the potential benefits and challenges of IT adoption for micro-business owners, the study aims to provide valuable insights for policymakers, business support organizations, and other stakeholders seeking to promote the growth and sustainability of micro-businesses in Nigeria and similar economies.

Project Overview

<p> <b></b></p><p><b><b>INTRODUCTION</b></b></p><p><b><b></b></b></p><b><b><p><b>1.1 &nbsp; &nbsp; <br></b><b>Background<br>of the study</b></p><p><b></b></p><b><p>Information technology is an area of managing and employing<br>technology into production activities of an organization in order to achieve<br>high productivity. The role of information technology cannot be out aside<br>because it contributes to economic activities through increase in aggregate<br>productivity which will cause improvement on economic growth and development.<br>IT is the bedrock for organization and national survival and development on a<br>rapidly changing global environment. &nbsp;Adewoye<br>and Akanbi( 1999) stated that ICT is a complex and heterogeneous set of goods,<br>application and services used to produce, distribute, process and transform<br>information.Technological development have<br>changed the majority of wealth creating work from physical effort based to<br>knowledge effort based and enable micro-businessenterprises to know the value<br>of IT to their firms by offering business opportunities over competitors in the<br>market. For a micro-business to survive in the global competition or market, the<br>firm must improve and acquired IT skills in the production processes so as to<br>achieve high rate and improvement on workers’ productivity. Productivity is a<br>measure of the efficiency of production. Employing IT into production<br>activities will enhanced increase in workers’ and economic productivity, the<br>upward shift of aggregate economic productivity will leads to increase in gross<br>domestic product.Micro-businessplays a crucial<br>role in economic activities and development of a nation. Economic literature<br>shows that IT is important driver of productivity and growth. Pollard claims<br>that micro-business would need high quality IT and must always provide superior<br>value product better than competitor, when it comes to quality, price and<br>service. Using of IT by micro-business enhance expansion and enable small and<br>medium enterprises to compete with multinational enterprises. In a<br>technological environment enterprise (Multinational, and SMEs) make efficiently<br>and effectively utilize economical resources by producing standard technology<br>goods and services, transform human effort and economic resources to produce<br>the market needs.Experiences from practices of Businesses<br>over the world and hypotheses derived from institutional economics and the<br>theory of collective action, as observed by( Manmood and Man, 2008;Oladejo and<br>Yinus,2013), suggest that taking advantage of Information Technology diffusion<br>is possible for business organization and adoption of IT can provide<br>organization with valuable information, improved performance, improve<br>relationships with customers and suppliers, increase efficiency and reduce cost<br>of production among others. Evidence also shows that full-size business organization<br>has taken the opportunity of IT to gain the edge over their competitors unlike<br>the micro-business.Nigeria<br>government should provide technical environment to support and help<br>multinational enterprises and micro-business to better use of IT and increase<br>the country’s productivity, growth and development through investment in IT.Managers<br>now realize that information technology can be used as an engine to speed up<br>processes, eliminate or reduce paperwork, increase the quality of output and<br>service delivery, decrease storage costs, and enhance information sharing and<br>communication. They also realize that they have to achieve not only management<br>/ staff wide computer literacy, i.e. knowing how to locate, analyze, store and<br>use information. All staff in modern organizations needs to be able to search<br>and gather data from different sources, analyze them, select the relevant ones<br>and organize them in such a manner as to allow them make decisions based on the<br>information. These being the case how is Nigerian micro-business Enterprises<br>faring in joining the information technology? What is the micro-business doing<br>to increase their productivity and efficiency through the use of IT? What<br>constraints or challenges are organizations facing in overhauling their<br>management? In what ways exactly is ICT infrastructure enhancing efficiency in<br>the Nigerian micro-business? These and related questions structure and the<br>argument of this study</p><p><b>1.2 &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;</b><b>STATEMENT OF THE PTOBLEM</b></p><p><b></b></p><b><p>Micro-business<br>entrepreneurs in Nigeria engage in business practices for survival as they are<br>local in their nature of operation but they need to forge ahead only through<br>global integration even though the local institutional frame work are not stead<br>fast encouraging the development of micro-business enterprise towards the world<br>economy as those of other countries. Thus, the problem that is identified for<br>this study is how micro-business scale businesses can be developed to meet the<br>challenges presented by globalization in the face of available infrastructure<br>and utility in Nigeria through the use of Information Technology for their<br>productivity.</p><p><b>&nbsp;</b></p><p><b></b></p><b><p><b>&nbsp;</b></p><p><b></b></p><b><p><b>1.3 &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;</b><b>OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY</b></p><p><b></b></p><b><p>The<br>main objective of this study is information technology and the productivity of<br>micro-business in Nigeria. But for the<br>successful completion of the study; the researcher intends to achieve the<br>following sub-objectives;</p><p>1. &nbsp; To ascertain<br>if micro-business increase their productivity and efficiency through the use of<br>IT</p><p>2. &nbsp; &nbsp;To ascertain ways IT enhancing efficiency in<br>the Nigerian micro-business</p><p>3. &nbsp; To<br>ascertain the relationship between information technology and the productivity<br>of micro-business</p><p>4. &nbsp; To ascertain<br>the different areas of micro-business where the use of IT can improve micro-business<br>productivity</p><p><b>RESEARCH HYPOTHESES</b></p><p><b></b></p><b><p>The<br>following hypotheses were postulated and tested;</p><p><b>H0:</b>micro-business<br>does not increase their productivity and efficiency through the use of IT</p><p><b>H1: </b>micro-business<br>increase their productivity and efficiency through the use of IT</p><p><b>H02:</b>there<br>are no relationship between information technology and the productivity of<br>micro-business</p><p><b>H2:</b>there<br>are relationship between information technology and the productivity of<br>micro-business</p><p><b>1.5 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY</b></p><p><b></b></p><b><p>It<br>is believed that at the completion of the study, the findings will be of<br>benefit to micro-business operators. The study will help provide needs to the<br>use of information technology in micro-business enterprises. The study will<br>also be of great benefit to the researchers who intends to embark on research<br>on similar topics as it will serve as a guide. Finally, the study will be of<br>great importance to academia’s, lecturers, teachers, students and the general<br>public.</p><p><b>1.6SCOPE AND LIMITATION OF THE STUDY</b></p><p><b></b></p><b><p>The scope of the study covers information<br>technology and the productivity of micro-business in Nigeria. The researcher<br>encounters some constrain which limited the scope of the study;</p><p><b>a) AVAILABILITY OF RESEARCH MATERIAL:</b>&nbsp;The research material available to the researcher<br>is insufficient, thereby limiting the study &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; </p><p><b>b) TIME:</b>&nbsp;The time frame allocated to the study does not<br>enhance wider coverage as the researcher has to combine other academic<br>activities and examinations with the study.</p><p><b>c) Organizational privacy</b>:<br>Limited Access to the selected auditing firm makes it difficult to get all the<br>necessary and required information concerning the activities.</p><p><b>1.7 DEFINITION OF TERMS</b></p><p><b></b></p><b><p><b>INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY: </b>I<em>nformation technology</em>&nbsp;(IT)<br>is the application of computers to store, study, retrieve, transmit, and<br>manipulate data, or <em>information</em>, often in the context of a<br>business or other enterprise. IT is considered a subset of <em>information</em>&nbsp;and<br>communications <em>technology</em>&nbsp;(ICT).</p><p><b>PRODUCTIVITY: </b>The effectiveness of productive effort, especially in<br>industry, as measured in terms of the rate of output per unit of input.</p><p><b>MICRO-BUSINESS: </b>A business that operates on a very small scale.</p><p><b>1.8 ORGANIZATION<br>OF THE STUDY</b></p><p><b></b></p><b><p>This research work is<br>organized in five chapters, for easy understanding, as follows</p><p>Chapter<br>one is concern with the introduction, which consist of the (overview, of the<br>study), historical background, statement of problem, objectives of the study,<br>research hypotheses, significance of the study, scope and limitation of the<br>study, definition of terms and historical background of the study. Chapter two<br>highlights the theoretical framework on which the study is based, thus the<br>review of related literature. Chapter three deals on the research design and<br>methodology adopted in the study. Chapter four concentrate on the data<br>collection and analysis and presentation of finding. Chapter five gives summary, conclusion, and<br>recommendations made of the study</p></b></b></b></b></b></b></b></b></b></b></b></b> <br><p></p>