SITUATING THE CHALLENGES AND PERFORMANCE OF SMALL BUSINESSES IN BORDER COMMUNITIES OF NIGERIA AND CAMEROON: THE IMPACT OF GOVERNMENT ROLE AND POLICY INCENTIVES

By

Ibrahim Musa

Federal Polytechnic Mubi, Adamawa, Nigeria

Murtala Sabo Sagagi

&

Mukhtar Shehu Aliyu

Bayero University, Kano, Nigeria

 Abstract

The study investigated the Moderating effect of Government Policy Incentives on the Relationship Between Trade informality and Small Business Performance in Border Communities of Adamawa State and Cameroon. A survey designed was employed and the unit of analysis were the individual owner/managers of small businesses in Nigeria and Cameroon border communities. The study adopted stratified random sampling techniques in data collection with a sample size of 461 drawn from 1840 owner/managers of small businesses in Adamawa State and Cameroon Border communities. Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) version, 26 was employed for descriptive data analysis. SEM was used with the help of Smart PLS-SEM version 4.0 was used for data analysis. The findings of this study show that entrepreneurial innovation and mutual trust have direct significant positive relationships with small business performance, while border closure was not found to be a predictor of small business performance in border communities of Nigeria and Cameroon. The results of the moderation test show that government policy incentives were found to moderate the relationship between border closure and small business performance and mutual trust but failed to moderate the relationship between entrepreneurial innovation, Infrastructure and business performance. The study expands the literature in informal small business knowledge by incorporating four variables with government policy as a moderator to explain trade Informality and cross border small business performance. The findings offer practical implication for operators of small businesses and regulators of cross border trade in enhancing small business performances in Adamawa State communities with Cameroon. The study recommends the need for Nigeria and Cameroon governments to simplify procedures for small-scale business formalisation and softening tariffs and custom procedures for clearance of goods which will encourage small scale cross border trades to flourish.