Digital Transformation and Sustainable Development of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in South East, Nigeria

This study examined the effect of digital transformation on the sustainable development of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in South East Nigeria, focusing on digital business process integration and economic sustainability, as well as digital infrastructure adoption and social sustainability. The study was motivated by the increasing importance of digital technologies driven by the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) and the need for SMEs to achieve long-term sustainability in business operations amidst the challenges facing SMEs in achieving sustainable development in emerging economies. The study was anchored on Resource-Based View (RBV) Theory and adopted a survey research design. The population comprised of 10,016 employees of selected registered SMEs, based on their involvement in business activities that require the use of digital technologies and their abilities to integrate and adapt these digital technologies in key business operations and processes. They consisted of 1,895 small enterprises and 8,121 medium enterprises across Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu and Imo States. Using the Krejcie and Morgan (1970) sample size table, 370 respondents were selected, while 364 valid responses were used for the analysis. Data were collected through a structured questionnaire and analyzed using descriptive statistics and simple linear regression at 0.05 level of significance. The findings revealed that digital business process integration had a positive and statistically significant effect on the economic sustainability of SMEs (R = .790, R² = .625, F(1, 362) = 602.675, β = .790, p = .001). The study also established that digital infrastructure adoption had a positive and statistically significant effect on the social sustainability of SMEs (R = .739, R² = .546, F(1, 362) = 434.455, β = .739, p = .001). The study concluded that digital business process integration and digital infrastructure adoption were important factors in promoting economic and social sustainability of SMEs in South East Nigeria. It recommended that SME owners and managers should adopt and integrate digital technologies across key business operations and that government agencies and telecommunications providers should promote access to reliable and affordable digital infrastructure to strengthen business operations, stakeholder participation and social inclusion and sustainability.