The Impact of Socio-Demographic Characteristics on New Product Introductions

Literature has established the importance of small businesses in contributing new things such as innovations and new jobs to the economy. In Nigeria there are many small businesses but their effect on national economy has not been felt. This may be due to lack of innovation activity in the firms. Also, the nature of entry into micro-firms in Nigeria calls for concern. Participant observation showed that due to the high level of unemployment in the country, young people, some of whom have not acquired any meaningful education start fragile micro businesses that can easily die off. Underperformance of the micro-firms might have been influenced by the entrepreneurs' age, academic background, firm age or firm size. This study investigates the extent of technological innovation/new product introductions and the impact of the four socio-demographic characteristics on technological innovation/new product introduction among technology-based micro-entrepreneurs in Lagos State, Nigeria. Survey method was used. Out of the 250 randomly administered questionnaires 225 (90.00%) were retrieved. The results showed that majority of the respondents were female, young and with low academic background. Majority of the firms developed 1 - 3 technological innovations in a period of five years but these did not translate to new product introductions. The results revealed that majority of the firms did not have any new product introduction in five years. All the four socio-demographic characteristics examined in this study were positively and significantly associated with technological innovations and new product introductions except entrepreneur's age whose association with new product introduction was not significant. This study concludes that the technology-based micro-entrepreneurs in Lagos State Nigeria need governmental intervention which should be directed towards increasing their level of education and provision of technical assistance in running the businesses to enhance their performance. Other results and their implications are discussed.