Information technology and the productivity of micro-business in nigeria

Thesis 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>