Alignment of Human Competencies with Mobile Phone Technology and Business Strategies by Women‐LED SMEs in South Africa

Abstract

Women-led SMEs are faced with challenges that inhibit the performance of their businesses. By aligning their human competencies, mobile phone technology and the appropriate business strategy, they can steer their businesses to better performance. However, there is a scarcity of studies providing insight into how they can achieve this. Given the existence of the interplay between human competencies, mobile technology and business strategy, the perspective of alignment as Gestalts was adopted to determine the best way women-led SMEs may align these three aspects. Data was collected from 70 women-led SMEs in four provinces in South Africa and analysed using cluster analysis. Of the four clusters that emerged, one performed highly. This study contributes to theory by showing the value of Gestalts theory in assessing the configuration and patterns of organisational variables; and to practice, by providing insight into ways women-led SMEs can combine these three variables to achieve high business performance.

Bangladeshi ready‐made garment development via ubiquitous and mobile computing

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“…The interview participants explored several affordances of MbUS to RMGs. Our results are discussed in light of other MbUS studies (as e.g., Akter et al, 2017; Ajumobi & Kyobe, 2017; Garcia, Romero, Keyson, & Havinga, 2014; Grindrod, 2016; Rashid et al, 2016; Ruiz‐Fernández et al, 2017) in the following sections.…”

Mobile phone usage behavior: A longitudinal study of university students in Oman

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Understanding the gendered nature of developing country MSMEs’ access, adoption and use of information and communication technologies for development (ICT4D)

“…Women entrepreneurs are primarily owners or managers or women responsible for making decisions of a business regardless of the sector or service or number of employees (Bradstätter, 1997; Ajumobi and Kyobe, 2017). The vision of closing the gender digital divide (GDD), i.e.…”

“…In their study on 70 women-led SMEs (firms or businesses that are owned, managed or partnered by women) in South Africa, Ajumobi and Kyobe (2017) attempted to understand how the alignment of mobile phone technologies, human competencies and business strategy (Muhanguzi and Kyobe, 2014; Kyobe et al , 2015) led to entrepreneurial success of women-led SMEs. Some of the major business strategies used by women-led SMEs in South Africa included market share and growth-oriented strategy, leveraging the use of IT trends strategy, customer-relationship and satisfaction-oriented strategy and conservative strategy (that involved attracting customers through cost cuts and word-of-mouth publicity).…”