Resource Management Strategies and Competitive Advantage of Independent Retail SMEs in Lagos State, Nigeria

Independent retail SMEs in Lagos State struggle to sustain a competitive advantage due to fragmented resource management practices across financial, human, inventory, and digital domains. This study examines how resource-management strategies shape competitive advantage among independent retail SMEs in Lagos State, Nigeria. Despite the dominance of informal retail in Nigeria, little evidence has linked specific internal capabilities to market positioning; the research closes this gap by applying the Resource-Based View to quantify the combined influence of inventory, digital, human and financial practices. A convergent-parallel mixed-methods design was adopted; the quantitative strand surveyed 367 owner-managers selected through stratified random sampling from 8 450 registered SMEs in Ikeja, Surulere, and Eti-Osa, while 15 semi-structured interviews provided qualitative depth. Data were collected with a 35-item, five-point Likert questionnaire and an interview guide; SPSS 28 provided descriptive statistics, correlation and multiple regression, and NVivo 12 handled thematic analysis. All four resource strategies were positively and significantly related to competitive advantage, with financial management (β = 0.328, p < 0.001) and digital management (β = 0.305, p < 0.001) exerting the strongest effects and together explaining 54.9 % of the variance (R² = 0.549, p < 0.001). The study concludes that deliberate deployment of internal resources is a primary driver of SME competitiveness in Lagos. Owners and policymakers should therefore prioritize accessible finance, targeted digitalization and continuous staff development to sustain growth and market relevance