Exploring the Effect of Mobile Apps on SMEs in Nigeria: A Critical Realist Study
An organisation’s dynamic capabilities illustrate how the organisation renews its competencies in response to the evolving environment. This study explored the effect of mobile app usage on the dynamic capabilities (DCs) of SMEs in Nigeria from a critical
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School of Computing, UNISA, Pretoria, South Africa [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]
Abstract. An organisation’s dynamic capabilities illustrate how the organisation renews its competencies in response to the evolving environment. This study explored the effect of mobile app usage on the dynamic capabilities (DCs) of SMEs in Nigeria from a critical realist viewpoint. Although literature suggests that mobile apps are used by SMEs, the elusiveness of mobile app usage in developing country contexts requires the investigation of the underlying mechanisms that explain how mobile apps enhance the DCs of SMEs. Using content analysis and retroduction, the study evaluated interview responses from 16 SMEs covering 5 states in Nigeria. The study revealed that mobile apps are used in SMEs in Nigeria (in the real domain) to carry out business processes (in the actual domain) using their DCs (in the empirical domain) for sensing business opportunities. The study suggests that despite the existence of government support for SMEs across Nigeria, these programmes are generally inaccessible and do not include the important ICT or mobile app elements. The study recommends the need for a contextual mobile app suited for SMEs in developing country contexts such as Nigeria. Keywords: Small and medium enterprises Mobile apps Critical realism
Dynamic capabilities
1 Introduction Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) play key roles in economic and social development in all countries worldwide. In this era of globalised economies, mobile apps arguably enable SMEs to drive the economic growth of developing countries [1]. Large organisations typically make intentional efforts to make the most of the technological advancements, but there is little research that shows the intentional efforts for SMEs more particularly in developing country contexts. There is nonetheless potential for SMEs to use mobile apps to sense new opportunities in rapidly changing environments.
Electronic supplementary material The online version of this chapter (https://doi.org/10.1007/ 978-3-030-18400-1_50) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. © IFIP International Federation for Information Processing 2019 Published by Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019 P. Nielsen and H. C. Kimaro (Eds.): ICT4D 2019, IFIP AICT 551, pp. 606–618, 2019. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-18400-1_50
Exploring the Effect of Mobile Apps on SMEs in Nigeria
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This paper draws on the theory of dynamic capabilities (DCs) to explore the effect of mobile app usage on the DCs of SMEs in Nigeria from a critical realist viewpoint. The DC framework is a strategic management paradigm that describes how organisations create, modify and/or recombine internal and external competencies to remain relevant in a rapidly changing environment [2]. The research investigated the role that mobile apps could be playing in enabling SMEs to function optimally within their contexts. Critical realism (CR), as a philosophical paradigm, a
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