TITLE:
What Makes Firms Perform Well? Evidence from Ghana Retail Shops
AUTHORS:
Ebenezer Appiah, Koudalo Yawovi Mawulikplim Agbeko, Toure Moumbark, Rahman Dunya
KEYWORDS:
Small and Medium Enterprise, Retail Shop, Firm Growth, Ghana
JOURNAL NAME:
Theoretical Economics Letters,
Vol.10 No.1,
February
28,
2020
ABSTRACT: Small and Medium
Enterprises are an integral part of the modern world. In today’s intensively
competitive business environment, the retail industry will be more important
for developing economies because of the rising unemployment rate. The growth of
the retail shops, however, is hindered to a large extent of challenges.
Observing the growth of the retail industry in Ghana recently, one can conclude that the sector is significantly developing
with numerous challenges surrounding it. Hence the question,
what makes small firms perform well needs to be
addressed properly, particularly in the case of retail shops in Ghana. The data used in this study was collected by
distributing questionnaires to retail shop owners. 348 out of 423
questionnaires were answered and returned successfully. The study then employed
OLS, logit, and probit regression models to analyze the impact of numerous
factors that influence the growth of retail shops. The study revealed that
factors such as training, access to market, business experience of retail shops
owners, and access to transportation are positively associated with the growth
of retail shops whereas factors like gender, age, education, start-up capital,
access to credit, and social network are negatively associated with the growth
of retail shops. Based on the findings, this study recommends that the
government of Ghana should pay much attention to the sector by providing
training to retail shop owners and their employees in order to have access to
the necessary entrepreneurship training that will equip them to manage the
affairs of their business which will at long-run influence economic growth.