Assessing The Effects Of Stakeholder Pressure On The Performance Of SMEs In Ghana

In the past few decades,small and medium-sized enterprises have become one of the main contributors to Ghana’s Gross domestic product.However,with the development of the economy and the increasing maturity of consumers,the requirements of the entire society for enterprises are becoming increasingly stringent.Enterprises not only need to be accountable to shareholders and employees but also need to undertake more social responsibilities.The social pressure,environmental pressure,and government pressure faced by enterprises have multiplied.These pressures mainly come from the requirements of corporate stakeholders in the enterprise.Managing the relationship with internal and external stakeholders has become an important content of corporate strategic decision-making,and studying the impact of stakeholder pressure on enterprise development has become an important topic in management theory research.As the larger target,the big enterprises receive more social attention,while small and medium-sized enterprises(SMEs)receive less attention from the whole society due to their small size and less social influence.Therefore,existing research mainly focuses on large enterprises,and the issue of stakeholder pressure on SMEs has not received sufficient attention from the theoretical community.With the increasing influence of small and medium-sized enterprises in Ghana’s economic development,they are facing increasing stakeholder pressure.The lack of resources and backward technology of small and medium-sized enterprises make their behavior under stakeholder pressure different from that of large enterprises.Studying the role of stakeholder pressure in the performance of Ghana’s SMEs not only helps to fill the gap in the current research but also helps SMEs to better adapt to the competitive market environment and get out of the shadow of COVID-19 as soon as possible.One of the objectives of this study is to analyze the antecedents of stakeholder pressure affecting small and medium-sized enterprises in Ghana.Based on existing research results,this article explores the impact of factors such as profitability,regulations,and environmental concerns on the formation of stakeholder pressure.These factors reflect how the development of enterprises is coordinated with compliance with laws and social responsibility.The second objective of the study is to explore the mechanism by which internal and external stakeholders affect the performance of small and medium-sized enterprises in Ghana.This article divides stakeholders into internal and external stakeholders and combines the characteristics of small and medium-sized enterprises(SMEs)such as resource scarcity,and integration into supply chain with large enterprises when analyzing the impact of stakeholder pressure on SME performance.It introduces bricolage and interfirm value co-creation variables.bricolage emphasizes how enterprises can utilize existing resources to achieve business growth under severe resource constraints.Interfirm value co-creation emphasizes the process of how enterprises in the industrial chain jointly create value for customers through complementary advantages.The introduction of the concepts of bricolage and interfirm value co-creation not only reflects the actual situation of the development of small and medium-sized enterprises in Ghana but also helps to theoretically reveal the black box between stakeholder pressure and enterprise performance.This study uses quantitative research methods to process cross-sectional data.The respondents were from Ghana’s small and medium-sized enterprises registered with the National Small Scale Industry Commission between 2020-2021.The data was collected using a questionnaire with a structured Likert 5-level scale and distributed online.About 891 small and medium-sized enterprises completed the questionnaire.After completing the data collection process,we collated and numbered the data,and used Smart PLS and SPSS(v.23)to analyze the data.The method of data analysis is a structural equation model(SEM)based on covariance.Research has found that profitability,regulations,and environmental concerns constitute the antecedents of stakeholder pressure.Inter-firms value co-creation plays a mediating role in the relationship between stakeholder pressure and corporate performance.Stakeholder pressure has a significant positive impact on inter-firm value co-creation and corporate performance,while inter-firm value co-creation has a significant positive impact on SME performance.Bricolage has a moderating effect on the relationship between stakeholder pressure and SME performance,and stakeholder pressure also has a positive impact on bricolage.Based on the above analysis,this article points out that with the increasing stakeholder pressure faced by small and medium-sized enterprises in Ghana,SMEs must consider the opinions of stakeholders in decision-making and become qualified corporate citizens.Secondly,resolving the pressure from stakeholders requires small and medium-sized enterprises to invest more resources in undertaking social responsibilities,which requires enterprises to cooperate with more enterprises in their development,optimize the combination of existing limited resources,and achieve sustainable development.Therefore,in addition to taking financial measures to support the development of small and mediumsized enterprises,the government also needs to formulate corresponding industrial policies to promote cooperation between small and medium-sized enterprises and various types of enterprises.The contributions of this article are mainly as follows: firstly,we take small and medium-sized enterprises as the research object,theoretically exploring the antecedents of stakeholder pressure affecting small and medium-sized enterprises;Discuss the impact of stakeholder pressure on corporate performance in small and medium-sized enterprises;Combining the characteristics of small and medium-sized enterprises,by introducing interfirm value co-creation as an intermediary variable and bricolage as an adjustment variable,the mechanism of influencing enterprise performance in the eyes of stakeholders in small and medium-sized enterprises is better revealed,which is also a new attempt in theory.