Technology adoption, competitiveness and new market access among SMEs in Ghana: What are the limiting factors?

A total of 300 SMEs including beneficiaries and non-beneficiaries of the Presidential Business Development Support initiative were surveyed in Ghana using structured interview questionnaires. The survey objectives were to (i) investigate the extent of adoption of emerging technologies including the Internet of Things (IoTs), Artificial Intelligence (AI), e-Commerce, Mobile Banking and Social Media among SMEs in Ghana; (ii) identify the main barriers to adoption of emerging technologies; and (iii) explore any association between the level of technology adoption by SMEs and access to new markets. Close to 60% of the beneficiary SMEs had adopted less sophisticated technologies such as social media, mobile banking and e-commerce as compared to 50% adoption among non-beneficiaries. Overall, less than 5% of the SMEs surveyed were using sophisticated technologies such AI and IoTs. This study adopted the Technological-Organizational-Environmental (TOE) framework to identify barriers to technology adoption. The top five barriers to technology adoption by the SMEs identified from this study are: (i) lack of finance, (ii) insufficient government support, (iii) lack of absorptive capability, (iv) insufficient demand and (v) poor technology enabling infrastructure. The beneficiary SMEs had better access to sub-regional (West Africa), regional (Africa) and international markets than the non-beneficiaries. Logit regression results showed that the most significant factors positively influencing technology adoption are Education, Marketing Skills, Human Resource Skills, Gender, Market Opportunities and Financial Improvement. There was a positive but weak correlation between technology adoption and access to new market opportunities.