THE ROLE OF OWNERS/MANAGERS STRATEGIC CAPABILITY ON INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY AND SMES PERFORMANCE
Buba Musa Pulka
Volume 8 Issue 1
Abstract
ICT resources are been employed in SMEs to enhance production, communication, innovation and performance. Despite the importance of ICT in the SMEs, the review of the extant literature revealed that there is a dearth of research that has investigated the relationship between general, communication and marketing-oriented ICT on SMEs performance as expounded by Bayo-Moriones, Billon, and Lera-Lopez, (2013). Similarly, there is a scarcity of studies that have examined the moderating effect of strategic capability on the relationship between ICT resources and SMEs performance. To fill in the gaps, the study examined the moderating effect of strategic capability on the relationship between ICT and performance using primary data collected from SMEs operating northeastern Nigeria using a multi-stage sampling technique. In conducting the analysis of the data, the study used Smart-PLS 3.0. The results indicated that general oriented ICT has a positive significant effect on performance. On the opposing side, the results suggested that communication-oriented ICT has a negative significant effect on performance. Similarly, there is a negative insignificant effect of marketing-oriented ICT on performance. Moreover, the moderating relationship shows that strategic capability significantly moderated the relationship between general oriented ICT, communication-oriented ICT and performance. On the contrary, strategic capability did not moderate the relationship between marketing-oriented ICT and performance. Therefore, the results suggest that to achieve better performance, the owners/managers need general oriented ICT. Furthermore, there is a need for a high level of strategic capability in the SMEs for the communicationoriented ICT to have a positive effect on the performance. Keywords: SMEs, Performance, ICT, general oriented ICT, communication oriented ICT, marketing oriented ICT, strategic capability
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