Digital Innovations and Organizational Resilience: The Case of SMEs in Ghana

Abstract

This study examined the relationship existing between digital innovation practices and organizational resilience among Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) in Ghana. The study also explored the role of organizational leadership as a moderation variable on the relationship that existed between digital innovation practices and organizational resilience. Acquiring an understanding of the most adopted digital innovation practices (data analytics, social media, automation and e-commerce) by SMEs in Ghana can help these SMEs know where to channel their resources towards building resilient organizations. Nevertheless, little studies has been undertaken with regards to the most adopted digital innovation practices among the Ghanaian SMEs and their direct impact on organizational resilience. As a result, the study employed the Dynamic Capabilities Theory in order to fill this gap in research. Using a quantitative research approach and survey data from SMEs, this study issued 400 questionnaires to 200 SMEs in Greater Accra. The analysis was conducted on 309 valid results retried from the SMEs using Structural Equation Model (SEM) and the Statistical Package for the Social Science (SPSS). The findings indicated that data analytics had significant influence on capital resilience, however, there was no significant influence on learning or relationship resilience. E-commerce also had significant influence on relationship resilience but there was no significant effect on capital and learning resilience. Data analytics and automation had no significant influence on any of the resilience variables. Additionally, the results indicated that organizational leadership only served as a moderator between the relationship existing among e commerce and learning resilience but does not moderate the relationship between the other digital innovation practices and the organizational resilience variables. However, social media emerged as the most commonly adopted digital innovation practice among the Ghanaian SMEs.