Resource Management Strategies and Competitive Advantage of Independent Retail SMEs in Lagos State, Nigeria

Omolola Ruth Akinola and Hassan Olatunji Alaba
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Omolola Ruth Akinola: Department of Management and Accounting Lead City University, Ibadan Oyo State Nigeria akinolaomolola338@gmail.com +2347034836983
Hassan Olatunji Alaba: Department of Management and Accounting Lead City University, Ibadan Oyo State Nigeria olatunjihassan10@gmail.com +2348155586246

Lead City Journal of the Social Sciences (LCJSS), 2026, vol. 11, issue 2, 100-113

Abstract: Independent retail SMEs in Lagos State struggle to sustain a competitive advantage due to fragmented resource management practices across financial, human, inventory, and digital domains. This study examines how resource-management strategies shape competitive advantage among independent retail SMEs in Lagos State, Nigeria. Despite the dominance of informal retail in Nigeria, little evidence has linked specific internal capabilities to market positioning; the research closes this gap by applying the Resource-Based View to quantify the combined influence of inventory, digital, human and financial practices. A convergent-parallel mixed-methods design was adopted; the quantitative strand surveyed 367 owner-managers selected through stratified random sampling from 8 450 registered SMEs in Ikeja, Surulere, and Eti-Osa, while 15 semi-structured interviews provided qualitative depth. Data were collected with a 35-item, five-point Likert questionnaire and an interview guide; SPSS 28 provided descriptive statistics, correlation and multiple regression, and NVivo 12 handled thematic analysis. All four resource strategies were positively and significantly related to competitive advantage, with financial management (β = 0.328, p

Keywords: Resource Management Strategies; Competitive Advantage; Resource-Based View (RBV); Financial Resource Management (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
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