LEAN HUMAN RESOURCE INITIATIVES AND CUSTOMER PATRONAGE OF SELECTED SMALL AND MEDIUM SCALE ENTERPRISES IN LAGOS STATE, NIGERIA
Abstract
The death of SMEs in Nigeria, within a short period of commencing operations, calls for concern. Customer patronage for products have been low as some of the products rolled out by these SMEs are defective, expensive and fail to have a long shelf life. In addition, it is observed that employees are not properly mentored and there is no cohesion among existing teams in some Nigerian SMEs. This thus has become a huge challenge for their growth as employee performance is not adequate, no clear-cut competitive advantage and it is observed that customer patronage is on a decline, product quality is poor, firm size is shrinking and the level of skills acquisition and development is not encouraging at all. Therefore, this study examined the effect of lean human resource initiatives on employee performance of selected SMEs in Lagos State, Nigeria. The study adopted the survey research design. The population comprised 8,396 SMEs in Lagos State, Nigeria. Sample size of 481 was determined using the Research Advisory Table. The study adopted simple random sampling technique in selecting the respondents. Adapted and validated questionnaire was used to collect data from the respondents. Cronbach’s Alpha reliability coefficients for the constructs ranged from 0.74 to 0.89. The response rate was 85%. Data collected were analysed using descriptive and inferential (multiple regression) statistics. The study findings revealed that lean human resource initiatives had significant effect on customer patronage of SMEs in Lagos Nigeria. Specifically, lean human resource initiatives had significant effect on customer patronage (Adj.R2 = 0.090; F (5,401) = 9.041, p < 0.05). The study concluded that lean human resource initiatives had significant effect on customer patronage of SMEs in Lagos Nigeria. The study recommended that small and medium scale enterprise owner/managers should.
Keywords: Continuous improvement, Customer Patronage, Lean human resource initiative, Mentoring, Selective hiring.
CITATION: Omosigho, A. A., Egbuta, O. U., & Ajike, E. O. (2021). Lean human resource initiatives and customer patronage of selected small and medium scale enterprises in Lagos State, Nigeria. The Strategic Journal of Business & Change Management, 8 (4), 934 – 952.
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DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.61426/sjbcm.v8i4.2150
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