PROPOSAL

AUTHOR:

TOPIC: FACTORS INFLUENCING MANUFACTURING IN NIGERIA

DATE OF PUBLICATION: 2021

INTRODUCTION

The prosperity of human kind has been inextricably linked with the ability to use and

work with the available materials and tools throughout history. Indeed, there is

archaeological evidence of man’s toolmaking ability dating as far back as 2–3 million

years (Mair, 1993). However, the basis for manu- facturing as we know it today can be

traced as far back as 5000–4000 BC, with the manufacture of artefacts from materials

such as wood, stone, metal and ceramics (Kalpakjian1995). The modern manufacturing

organization, based on the factory system and the division of labour, was borne of the

Industrial Revolution of the eighteenth century. The roots of modern manu- facturing

processes can also be traced to the late eighteenth century with the development of the

cotton gin by Eli Whitney in the United States (Amstead et al., 1987) and the first all

metal lathe by Henry Maudsley in the United Kingdom in 1794 (DeGarmo et al., 1988).

The development of manufactur- ing processes continued in the early part of the

nineteenth century with the introduction of a loom automatically controlled by punched

cards in France in 1804, the development of the milling machine by Whitney and the use

of mass manufacturing techniques by Marc Isambard Brunel in 1803 in the United

Kingdom (Mair, 1993). Historically, manufacturing was usually carried out by a single

skilled artisan with assistants, until the era of industrialization when workers were

employed to work, that the guild system protected the rights and privileges of workers. In
spite of this development, even to date, and there are still inadequacies in achieving

satisfaction to manufacturing workers. This situation is then one of the reasons for low

performance of manufacturing workers. More so, there are some factors of production

that are found to greatly affect the performance, but few of these factors were selected for

studies in this research. In summary, in any of the production unit, production workers or

employees problems may either be power, trainings, maintenance, motivations,

technology and safety or others which are also the problems of the company’s

management. The amount of mental energy that a production worker is prepared to

expend on a job to achieve a certain level of performance varies with the availability of

those factors, incentive and motivation.

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

The key purpose of a well-driven manufacturing market is to help raise the economic

status and in turn satisfy humans’ wants and needs. Due to its positive influence on the

development of an economic and financial system, and numerous advantages that it

provides, the development of a manufacturing firm remains critical to a country’s

financial system and economy. Despite its significance and relevance, there are factors

that pose as threats, and we need to understand how those factors such as: political,

economic, social, technological, legal , environmental and socio-economic factors like

poor essential public infrastructure, lack of access to finance, corruption, and increasing

insecurity shapes or influences manufacturing growth in Nigeria. For instance, if state

corruption is a factor that influences manufacturing growth in Nigeria, what knowledge,

skills, and abilities does a manufacturer need to navigate state corruption in the civil

service; and, how does a manufacturer acquire those knowledge, skills, and abilities.
What seems to be missing in published research are studies that show how environmental

factors interact with manufacturing knowledge, skills, and abilities to influence

manufacturing growth, what manufacturers need to know to grow a business, and how

successful manufacturers in Nigeria learn those skills, knowledge and abilities. This

study sets out to help address these gaps in the literature.

RESEARCH OBJECTIVES

The purpose of this study was to explore those factors influencing the manufacturing

sector, and

how successful manufacturers in Nigeria learn to grow a business and the knowledge,

skills, and abilities needed to facilitate business growth. The research questions were as

follow:

 How do successful Manufacturers in Nigeria learn to grow their business?

 What are the necessary knowledge and skills needed by manufacturers to enhance

the business growth?

 What are those factors influencing manufacturing sector in Nigeria?

 What are the recommendation participants need to proffer to enhance the business

growth of manufacturers?

RESEARCH QUESTIONS

In line with the above questions, the study sought to find answers to the following

research objectives:

 To investigate how successful Manufacturers in Nigeria learn to grow their

business?

 To examine the necessary knowledge and skills needed by manufacturers to

 enhance the business growth?

 To understand factors influencing manufacturing sector in Nigeria?

 To explore the recommendations participants need to proffer to enhance the

business growth of manufacturers?

SIGNIFICANCE OF STUDY

The study on the factors influencing manufacturing sector in Nigeria will be of immense

benefit to the entire manufacturers, in the sense that it will enable manufacturers learn to

grow a business. Further, this study highlights the factors that either facilitate or hinder

business growth in Nigeria, and hence could help the country to develop formal informal

manufacturing development programs that are responsive to those factors.

SCOPE OF STUDY

The study on the factors influencing the growth of manufacturing sector.

LIMITATION OF STUDY

Financial constraint- Insufficient fund tends to impede the efficiency of the researcher

in sourcing for the relevant materials, literature or information and in the process of data

collection (internet, questionnaire and interview).

Time constraint- The researcher will simultaneously engage in this study with other

academic work. This consequently will cut down on the time devoted for the research

work.

1.7 DEFINITION OF TERMS

Business growth means “an increase in size or an improvement in quality as a result of a

process of development, akin to natural biological processes in which an interacting

series of internal changes leads to increases in size accompanied by changes in the

characteristics of the growing object” (Penrose, 2009, p.1). Penrose indicates that the size

of a firm is only an incidental result of this internal process of development or unfolding

of potential, and is not representative of growth per se. Business growth therefore is an

ongoing process occurring throughout the existence of a firm and is a product of the

interaction between the internal resources of the entrepreneur like capital, knowledge,

skills, abilities, and the external competitive business environment.

Culture refers to the attitudes, values, and beliefs that guide the behavior of people in

general or members of a specific ethnic group (Hofstede, 1983). These attitudes, values,

and beliefs are a product of the shared experience and history of the group and represent a

way of seeing and learning about the world. The attitudes, values, and beliefs of groups

about entrepreneurship, shapes how individual members of these groups perceive

entrepreneurship and learn about entrepreneurship. The term culture can be used to refer

to both the general beliefs and attitudes prevalent in a country or the attitudes and beliefs

amongst a specific group in the country. In our discussion of how entrepreneurs learn in

Nigeria, culture refers to the values, beliefs, and attitudes held by specific ethnic groups

in Nigeria. Adopting this definition of culture is important because Nigeria is a

multicultural society, with ethnic groups with different beliefs and values about

entrepreneurship, which could influence entrepreneurial business growth in different

ways. For instance, Nigerians generally know that the Igbo cultural group, because of

their shared history of being persecuted by the Federal government during the Civil war

in the late 1960s and early 1970s, are more independent, eschew post-secondary formal

education, and prefer to pursue entrepreneurial opportunities rather than seek wage
employment. On the other hand, the Yoruba ethnic group has a history of seeking formal

post-secondary education and this cultural difference based on shared experiences could

have implications for the way the two ethnic groups acquire the skills, knowledge and

abilities needed for business growth.

Economic development refers to sustained large-scale investment in human capital,

entrepreneurship, infrastructure, and technology that leads to consistent increases in

aggregate economic output referred to as economic growth in the short and medium term

(Feldman, Hadjimichael, & Lanahan, 2016). Feldman et al. (2016) define economic

development as “the expansion of capacities that contribute to the advancement of society

through the realization of individuals’, firms’, and communities’ potential” (p. 8). This

definition implies that economic development encompasses investment in a range of

activities that affects not just individual economic actors, such as entrepreneurs, but also

larger firms, entire industries, and private citizens in communities alike. The emphasis on

developing individual and community potential situates adult education and human

resource development as cogs in the economic development discourse because the focus

of adult education and human resource development is investigating the underlying

processes and theories that facilitate the development of human potential or capacity.

Thus, economic development deals primarily with the long-term investment in the

capabilities of economic actors.

Economic growth refers to “an increase in aggregate output” in an economy (Feldman et

al., 2016, p. 6). Feldman et al. indicate that economic growth is usually a product of

increases in factors of production like labor, land, and capital, but outputs also increase

because of use of technology and innovation that enhances the efficiency of the
production process. Entrepreneurship is seen as a critical innovation that changes the way

the factors of production are organized to facilitate the emergence of profitable business

organizations that drive economic growth. Economic growth is thus seen as a short-term

increase in economic output that facilitates the process of economic development by

providing the resources needed to expand the capacities that contribute to the

advancement of the society.

Human capital. When used in this dissertation, human capital refers to the task-related

knowledge, skills, and abilities used by entrepreneurs to grow a business (Unger, Rauch,

Frese, Rosenbauch, 2011). This conception of human capital is distinct from the classical

economic conception, which views human capital as the general knowledge and skills

(e.g. literacy and numeracy skills) acquired by investment in formal schooling and on-

the-job training, which helps all individuals in society improve earnings per capita

(Schultz, 1961; Becker, 1962, Kolstad & Wiig, 2015).

Informal learning is learning that is unstructured and “is largely invisible, because much

of it is either taken for granted or not recognized as learning; thus respondents lack

awareness of their own learning; the resultant knowledge is either tacit or regarded as part

of a person’s general capability” (Eraut, 2004, p. 249). Marsick and Watkins (1990)

describe informal learning as “a category that includes incidental learning [and] may

occur in institutions, but it is not typically classroom-based or highly structured, and

control of learning rests primarily in the hands of the learner” (p. 12). Incidental learning

is conceived of “as a by product of some other activity……and takes place in everyday

experience although people are not always conscious of it” (Marsick & Watkins, p. 12).
Learning. In this study, learning refers to “the relatively permanent change in behavior,

cognition, or affect that occurs as a result of one’s interaction with the environment”

(Werner & DeSimone, 2009, p. 65). Learning involves some kind of change occurring as

a result of the acquisition of a new skill, new knowledge or ability. The changes that

occur as a result of learning are products of an individual’s interaction with the

environment meaning some skill or knowledge had to be acquired for the change to

occur. In this study, the entrepreneur learns when she or he acquires new knowledge, skill

or ability that leads to a relatively permanent change in behavior, cognition or affect.

National Human Resource Development (NHRD) is a specialty area of human

resource development that considers issues around the development of manpower as a

national policy objective (McLean, 2004). NHRD goes beyond focusing on building

skills to enhance productivity for the benefit of an organization, to building skills for the

benefit of the community or nation. The study considers entrepreneurship education and

training programs as part of NHRD in Nigeria.

Organization of Study

This study is presented in five chapters. The First Chapter gives a background to the

research. Additionally, this chapter looks at the research objectives and questions,

problem statement, the significance of the study and ended with an explanation of how

the study is organized. In Chapter Two, related studies were reviewed as well as the

theoretical framework for the study discussed. Chapter Three, focuses on the

methodology, research design, population and sample size, sampling technique, data

collection procedure and data analysis.

Chapter Four presents the research findings. Lastly, Chapter Five discusses the findings

and concludes the study with the limitations of the research and recommendations for

future studies.

METHODOLOGY

This presents the procedures to be used in selecting research subjects, developing the

research instruments, gathering and analyzing data, and making meaning of the data that

is collected.

A framework within which to record facts, document them and interpret them in a piece

of research. Two fundamental approaches exist to methodology and researchers are

naturally inclined to use either of them, they are the qualitative and the quantitative

methods. Qualitative research is more descriptive and quantitative research more often

draws inferences based on statistical procedures and often makes use of graphical

presentations and figures in its analysis (Ghauri and Grönhaug, 2005).

In recent times researchers commonly employ the use of both qualitative and quantitative

methods in a single therefore the research methods employed in data gathering, analysis

and interpretation, were all accepted methods and procedures that also help make the

final report an easy read. The various aspects of the research methodology covering the

research design, population and sampling, instruments, data collection procedure and

mode of analysis used in this study is detailed below:

RESEARCH DESIGN

This study employed the quantitative research method in the collection and analysis of

the data. To be specific survey research design was adopted, Surveys have an upper hand
above other methodologies because they can be used to investigate problems in realistic

settings and a large amount of data can be gathered (Wimmer and Dominick, 2011).

The grounded theory research methodology was used in this research due to the

paucity of studies investigating what knowledge, skills, and abilities successful

Nigerian manufacturers needed to learn to grow a business, the way they learned

those knowledge, skills, and abilities, and what factors influence business growth

there. Also, the grounded theory is suited to my study to enable the investigation of

social processes (Schram, 2006). Strauss and Corbin (1990) describe a process as

referring to “the linking of sequences of action/interaction as they pertain to the

management of, control over or response to, a phenomenon”.

DEFINING GROUNDED THEORY.

Grounded theory (GT) is a qualitative research methodology that consists of methods

that offer, “Systematic guidelines for collecting and analyzing data to build middle-

range theoretical frameworks that explain the collected data” (Charmaz, 2000, p.

509). Key elements of GT include the use of theoretical sampling to identify potential

participants, the use of the constant comparative analysis method to analyze data as

soon as the first bit of data are gathered, and developing or generating substantive

theory as an end product of the GT research process (Glaser & Strauss, 1967; Corbin

& Strauss, 1990). The goal of the GT methodology is to explain social processes. The

methodology was first proposed in 1967 by Barney Glaser and Anselm Strauss in

their seminal work The Discovery of Grounded Theory: Strategies for Qualitative

Research and the theory has been the subject of much debate since then. The book
represents, as Glaser put it, the “beginning formulations and first attempt to write a

method that closed the gap between theory and method” (Glaser, 2016, p. 4).

However, following the publication of this work, a split in opinion of what GT

constitutes emerged between Glaser and Strauss, which led to further debates about

the methodology. For instance, Charmaz (2008) classified Glaser’s interpretation of

grounded theory and Anselm Strauss’s notion of grounded theory as objectivist

noting, “Distinguishing between a social constructionist and an objectivist grounded

theory provides a heuristic device for understanding divisions and debates in

grounded theory and indicates ways to move the method further into social

constructionism”

CONSTRUCTIVIST GT

Constructivist GT was chosen as the methodology for this study because its assumptions

align with the constructivist theoretical orientation that was adopted for this study.

Constructivist GT is a comparatively recent variant of the grounded theory methodology

with its own unique assumptions and methods. Its principle proponent is Kathy Charmaz,

and, the features and methods described here are derived from her work. Constructivist

GT reimagines the fundamental assumptions of classical and Strauss / Corbin’s GT and

contests the methods that derive from these assumptions. However, constructivist GT

also shares some assumptions with classical and Strauss and Corbin’s GT. For one,

constructivist GT affirms the primacy of inductively derived knowledge, and Charmaz

(2008) notes that grounded theory irrespective of type “begins with inductive strategies

for collecting and analyzing qualitative data for the purpose of developing middle-range

theories”. Thus, using inductive methods to develop a theory that explain complex social
processes is a hallmark of the grounded theory methodology irrespective of underlying

assumptions. Despite this similarity, there are some significant differences between

constructivist GT and its predecessors highlighted by its definition, features, and

methods. Simply put, constructivist GT sets out systematic methods by which researchers

can obtain an “abstract understanding of the empirical phenomena and contend that this

understanding must be located in the studied specific circumstances of the research

process” (Charmaz, 2008, p. 398). For Charmaz (2008), this goal is distinct from that of

classical or objectivist GT that is to arrive at objective explanations and ultimately

predictions that are distinct from the research site and process.

PARTICIPANTS SELECTION

Participants in this study were manufacturers who have identified a business opportunity

and have built a formally registered business to exploit this opportunity in Lagos,

Nigeria. Drawing from the literature on business growth, I used three criteria to select

participants for interviews. A manufacturer would be considered to have grown his/her

business in this study, if he or she met these criteria:

The manufacturer has to have a formal business registered with the Corporate Affairs

Commission, the regulatory body in charge of business formalization in Nigeria.The

manufacturer must express that the firm’s internal business structures have developed and

led to an increase in the value of the firm, when compared with other firms in the

industry. The manufacturer must verbally affirm they increased the number of employees

in the business at least once over a three-year period. These criteria were used to identify

manufacturers who had achieved a level of growth in their business. The first criterion for

participant selection was considered mandatory because it delimited the study by

focusing on manufacturers in the formal sector of the economy. During the screening

interview, I ascertained if the manufacturers were still in business, whether they

considered their business to have grown, whether they had increased the number of

employees, and whether they would like to participate in the study. After this process, ten

manufacturers chose to participate in this study.

Theoretical sampling

The theoretical sampling is used as a guide to data collection for generating theory

(Corbin & Strauss, 1990). Theoretical sampling is “the process of data collection for

generating theory whereby the analyst jointly collects, codes, and analyzes data and

decides what data to collect next and where to find them, in order to develop theory

as it emerges” (Glaser & Strauss, 1967, p. 45). In this study, I collected, transcribed,

and coded data from manufacturers with formally registered businesses, who

believe they had grown their business.

Data Collection

A number of methods have been used to collect data for studies using grounded theory

methodologies. Unstructured interviews, field notes, and memos have been identified as

important methods of collecting data in grounded theory research (Dey, 1999; Knox &

Burkard, 2009; Glaser, 2002; Charmaz, 2014). Dey (1999) notes that qualitative methods

are considered useful in grounded theory for exploring data and developing concepts,

with data collection proceeding through mostly unstructured methods including

interviews and the use of documentary materials. In depicting the nature of unstructured

interviews in grounded theory research, Dey states, “Interviews, for example, might
resemble long conversations at the start of the study, but become highly selective and

focused on particular topics (and therefore much shorter) by its close” (p. 6). Knox and

Burkard (2009) suggest unstructured interviews are used in methodologies such as

grounded theory and ethnography.

General characteristics of the sample

Following the recruitment and participant selection process detailed earlier, I recruited 3

participants to take part in the study. Participants were male and female with ages ranging

from 37 to 50 years. The participants recruited for this study were from different national

groups in Nigeria. 1 participant was from the Yoruba national group, 2 from the Igbo

national group. Another demographic to note was the education of the manufacturers who

took part in the study. 2 of the 3 participants had either a college education or an

advanced college degree. Only 1 participant held only a high school diploma.

SUMMARY

The purpose of this study was to examine how manufactures in Nigeria learned to grow

businesses and the human capital needed to facilitate business growth. In addition, the

study investigated the factors that influenced business growth. The data collection is used

to explore the reality to reach the purpose of the research. Hence, the form and the

content of data collection were designed based on the objectives of this research. The

study identified some discrete knowledge, skills, and abilities that participants learned in

order to produce business growth. Finally, the findings indicated that five factors

influenced the growth of entrepreneurial ventures in Nigeria. The participants noted that

institutional factors such as the absence of affordable financing for long-term growth, low

labor productivity, government policies, and poor essential public infrastructures, directly
influenced how fast a manufacturing venture could grow. However, participants stated

that the human capital of the manufacturer was the most significant factor that

determined whether business growth occurred.

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