Enya Emori

The paper examines strategic entrepreneurship practices and performance of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Nigeria’s hospitality industry. The necessity of this study is due to strategic entrepreneurship practices and the performance of SMEs in Nigeria’s hospitality industry is being critical for providing a solution as to how entrepreneurs can exploit and explore the business environment and remain competitive. The purpose of the paper was to examine the relationship between strategic resource management and the quality of SMEs services/products, as well as ascertain the relationship between entrepreneurial innovation and increased sales volume of SMEs in Nigeria’s hospitality industry. A survey design was used as a questionnaire instrument and had been constructed and issued among 400 sampled respondents drawn from 1,294 employees from selected SMEs of the Nigerian hospitality industry, 365 respondents were filled and retrieved. This represents 91.25% of the total sample administered. The multiple linear regression techniques were used to test the research hypotheses. The results showed that strategic resource management and entrepreneurship innovation have a significant influence on the performance of SMEs in Nigeria. The result also showed that strategic resource management enhanced performance of SMEs in Nigeria and entrepreneurship innovation supports creativity of organizational performance. Therefore, managers should progressively incorporate new decision-making styles, processes, and behavior that will place a firm in a competitive and advantageous position during penetration into a new market.

Acknowledgments
We express our gratitude to anonymous reviewers, the Journal editor, and all the authors whose works were used in one way or the other in this paper. We thank Mrs. Comfort Innocent Okoi for her untiring effort in type-setting and editing work. Our gratitude goes to the management of selected supermarkets, eateries/fastfood, hotels, and stores in Nigeria for approving prompt responses to our questionnaire instruments on strategic entrepreneurship practices and the performance of small and medium enterprises in Nigeria.

Type of the article: Research Article

Abstract
Financial technology has become a top priority and a vital avenue for banking institutions seeking financial development and enhanced services. Financial technology is using a new digital transformation in the financial services industry. The study aims to investigate the dynamic effect of financial technology tools on financial development, examining both the long-run and short-run perspectives. The study used an ex-post facto research design because the data already existed and were retrieved from the Central Bank of Nigeria’s statistical bulletin. The Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) model was employed to examine the impact of financial technology policy tools and financial development from the first quarter to the fourth quarter of 2013–2023. The long-run results revealed that financial technology positively impacted financial development, where a 1% increase in financial technology led to a 20.33% (p-value = 0.4123) increase in financial development, though statistically insignificant. In the short run, financial technology positively impacted financial development, where a 1% increase in financial technology led to a 6.57% (p-value = 0.0053) increase in financial development. The results showed a statistically significant relationship between biometric authentication devices, point of sale, web-based transactions, and mobile banking on money supply to gross domestic product in the short run, suggesting that financial technology drives financial development, enhancing access to financial services, and improving efficiency. Banks should continuously strengthen the adoption of financial technology tools that would promote banks’ efficiency.

Type of the article: Research Article

Abstract
Capital structure decisions in the Nigerian economy are vital and significantly influence the performance of manufacturing firms. This study investigates the effect of the debt-equity ratio on the financial outcomes of the following manufacturing companies: BUA Cement Plc, Dangote Cement Plc, Lafarge Africa Plc, and Flour Mills Nigeria Plc, all quoted on the Nigeria Exchange Group Ltd. during the period 2015–2024. Fixed-effect panel data regression analysis is used to determine the influence of short-term and long-term debts on profit (return on investment). The findings suggest that the negative relationship is strong and statistically significant between the financial performance (profitability) and the leverage ratios, such as short-term debt/net worth ( -0.042, p < 0.025), long-term debt/net worth ( -0.061, p < 0.009), and total debt/net worth ( -0.035, p < 0.025). Therefore, all the null hypotheses were rejected at the 5% level of significance. The model describes the variation in firm performance which is, on average, 39%. At the firm level, BUA Cement Plc experienced a deleveraging trend and the profitability of the firm was on the downwards trend while Flour Mills Plc, owing to its high leverage, was marginally affected in its profit performance. The conclusion is that effective control of capital structure is essential if a better return per naira is to be earned for the country’s manufacturing sector.