Family Business Survival Strategies in a Dynamic Environment: Achieving Longevity through Resilience and Innovation in Aba, Abia State, Nigeria

Achieving Longevity through Resilience and Innovation in Aba, Abia State, Nigeria, involved exploring the more general trends in business family challenges and resilience as well as the unique case examples of business owners. The study was done in Aba, a trade city in Abia State where metropolitan companies are located in different industries. The family enterprises selected for this research were from different industries in Abia State. Convenience sampling allowed the authors to select 50 family businesses, which were in operation for more than 5 years, and with a family structure with more than one member. A 5-point Likert scale structured questionnaire with 60 items was employed to obtain data. The survey instrument was tested by a brown bag of two business management faculty from Rivers State University of Port Harcourt and one measurement and evaluation faculty member from University of Port Harcourt. As the statistical procedure established by Cronbach alpha for internal consistency, the instrument proved to be very reliable with a reliability coefficient of 0.87. Data obtained from respondents were descriptive by means of mean and standard deviation. The results also showed, among others, that family businesses have confronted with a number of challenges such as economic instability, insufficient financial access, unpredictable market conditions and unwillingness to implement external innovation. Thus, it was suggested, among others, that there should be greater support for family businesses especially in terms of access to finance and government-loan schemes to enable them to increase their capacity for innovation and financial security.