The Influence of Location Decisions on the Performance of Women-owned Small and Medium scale Enterprises in Nigeria

Abstract

The importance of location decisions has been assessed vigorously by a number of studies but these studies have not been able to examine the impact of this variable on the performance of Women-owned small and medium scale enterprises (WSMEs). This paper examined the influence of location decision on the performance of WSMEs. The study adopted a quantitative approach and used a number of methods such as field observations, reference to relevant literature and a questionnaire survey of 58 WSMEs for the study. The study used principal component analysis (PCA), simple mean and standard deviation to analyze the data. The result of the study showed that 41.10% and 29.14 of the WSMEs had experienced a significant increase and relative increase in the performance of their enterprises based on their location while 14.59% of the respondents had not experienced changes in the performance of their enterprises. The PCA result also showed that availability of traditional/economic factors of location (24.97%), infrastructural (21.32%), agglomeration and economies of scale (12.38%), personal interest (9.50%), and Government policy (8.06) were the factors that influenced the location of WSMEs in the study. Location is therefore, an important variable in citing WSMEs.