Enhancing Marketing Performance of Women-Owned Micro and Small Enterprises in Mbeya Region: The Role of Mobile Phones Usages, 2020.

Abstract

A mobile phone is considered as an economic tool that can liberate women entrepreneurs from poverty and empowers them with marketing knowledge. Although mobile phones can accredit women-owned enterprises with business-enhancing information, services and market opportunities to become efficient, innovative and competitive, the gains from mobile phones usages rest on the specific purposes for which business enterprises intend to support, the level of usage and technological advancement of the country. Moreover, the contribution of mobile usage in enterprise marketing performance is yet harnessed and little is known among women-owned micro and small enterprises in Mbeya city. As such, the present study was conducted to assess female-owned micro and small enterprises performance using mobile phone usage and to establish the individual effect of each of the five identified dimensions of mobile phone usages on marketing performance. Data were collected from 90 enterprises using an interview schedule in which cross- sectional survey and stratified purposive random sampling approaches were employed. Multiple linear regression tests were employed to assess the effect of mobile phone usage on marketing performance. The results indicated that overall, mobile phone usage positively predicts the marketing performance of women-owned micro and small enterprises. Of the five identified dimensions of mobile usages, only operational capabilities, negatively predicts the marketing performance of female-owned enterprises. The study, therefore, recommends that women-owned micro and small enterprises should make use of a mobile phone if they are to enhance their marketing performance. More emphasis should be placed on the use of mobile phones to build promotional capabilities, transactional capabilities, marketing intelligence capabilities and relational building capabilities as these are likely to result in enhanced marketing performance.