Small Marketing Firms' Intention To Adopt Pan-African Payment And Settlement System In Abia State: Integrative Model Approach

Abstract

Small enterprises like small marketing firms are generally noted for their significant economic contributions. They can scale up businesses to be involved in cross-border transactions. However, they are cumbered by hindrances from the environment, personal characteristics, and technology attributes, which eventually differ among available ones. The pan-African Payment and Settlement System (PAPSS) is a novel e-payment technology with attributes to mitigate small enterprises' challenges with cross-border payments. The drive is to encourage small enterprises to scale up and remove the involvement of third currency that has contributed to difficulties in commerce across nations. Thus, the study uses an integrative model to investigate small marketing firms' intention to adopt PAPSS. 245 samples were pooled from small enterprises' sampling frame in Abia State. An adapted structured questionnaire was used to generate data from the owners of small marketing firms. A structural equation model and descriptive statistics were used to analyze the result. Perceived compatibility was revealed as the strongest direct predictor of small marketing firms' intention to adopt PAPSS, while relative advantage was revealed to be the major indirect predictor of small marketing firms' intention to adopt PAPSS. The results implied that developers and managers of PAPSS need to focus marketing communications on its usefulness of PAPSS, simplicity, and benefits to small marketing firms. Thus, an appropriate policy drive is recommended on operational guidelines to clarify the operation, advantage of the innovation, and performance metric of PAPSS.