Date of Conferral

2022

Degree

Ph.D.

School

Management

Advisor

Howard Schechter

Abstract

The number of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Nigeria that survive beyond 5 years after their establishment is less than 50%. The specific management problem addressed in this qualitative exploratory multiple case study was that owners and managers of SMEs in a major urban area of Nigeria may lack the knowledge discovery strategies for recognizing the onset of financial problems at inception when managing their businesses. The research question for this study was about how SME owners and managers in this major urban area of Nigeria could obtain the knowledge discovery strategies for recognizing the onset of financial problems at inception when managing their businesses. The realm of entrepreneurial finance was the conceptual framework that underpinned this study. The research data were collected through semi structured interviews with 20 successful SME owners and managers from a major urban area of Nigeria. The data were analyzed with manual coding and validated with QSR Nvivo 12 software. The study results revealed that SME owners and managers whose businesses have lasted beyond 5 years had achieved the mastery of how to recognize the onset of financial problems at inception and to take preventive actions accordingly. The results of this study have implications for positive social change by helping to reduce the number of SMEs that continue to fail in their numbers every day in this major urban area, as well as the rest of Nigeria, across Africa, and in other parts of the world.

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