Influence of Mobile ICTs on the Dynamic Capabilities of SMEs in Nigeria

This study explores how the usage of ICTs by SME owners enhances their dynamic capabilities to sense and seize new opportunities. SMEs tend to focus more on their core business activities and lack the competences to maximize the usage of ICTs in the management of their operations and decision making; which can result in higher risk and increased costs. This research adopts the notion of dynamic capabilities; the capacity of SMEs to decisively establish, improve, or modify its resources based on changing business needs and market environment to achieve sustainable competitive market advantage. Dynamic capabilities are key to attaining SME's business success and achieving market competitiveness requires SME owners to uniquely develop and continuously improve their competences. The adoption of ICTs by SMEs continuously improves their capabilities to make effective decisions while developing, analysing, processing, and transforming information to create seamless business operations and sense new market opportunities. This study further elaborates on the concept of dynamic capabilities to identify the factors that enables dynamic capabilities of SMEs, and develop an ICT dynamic capabilities framework (IDC) framework. The IDC framework helps to recommend how ICT usage in SMEs could enhance the capabilities of SME owners to sense and seize new opportunities. This study is based in Nigeria. This study is carried out through the critical realist philosophical lens to uncover the underlying mechanisms that enhances the capabilities of SME owners in making appropriate decisions to sense and seize new opportunities using ICTs.