International Journal of

ADVANCED AND APPLIED SCIENCES

EISSN: 2313-3724, Print ISSN: 2313-626X

Frequency: 12
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 Volume 11, Issue 12 (December 2024), Pages: 116-128

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 Original Research Paper

Small and medium-sized enterprises: A tool for socioeconomic development

 Author(s): 

 Abdijabbar Ismail Nor *

 Affiliation(s):

 Faculty of Economics and Management, Jamhuriya University of Science and Technology, Mogadishu, Somalia

 Full text

  Full Text - PDF

 * Corresponding Author. 

  Corresponding author's ORCID profile: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4204-6691

 Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

 https://doi.org/10.21833/ijaas.2024.12.014

 Abstract

Small and medium-sized enterprises are universally recognized as critical catalysts for socioeconomic development. Therefore, this study explores the empirical relationship between SMEs and economic growth, job creation, income generation, and poverty reduction. Through a cross-sectional research design, data was gathered via a questionnaire from 130 participants, including SMEs owners, operators, and young entrepreneurs who received training from entrepreneurship training programs such as the Next Economy program by SIMAD-Innovation Lab and the Start-Improve Your Business (SIYB) Training program by the International Labor Organization (ILO), as well as the entrepreneurship training program provided by Jamhuriya Incubation Centre (JIC). The study employed partial least square structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) to test the hypotheses through SmartPLS (v.4.0.9.5). The study found that SMEs significantly contribute to economic growth, job creation, income generation, and poverty reduction. The findings provide significant implications for governments, international organizations, financial institutions, and policymakers, emphasizing integrating SMEs development initiatives into national development plans to improve social and economic development.

 © 2024 The Authors. Published by IASE.

 This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

 Keywords

 SMEs, Economic growth, Job creation, Poverty reduction, Income generation

 Article history

 Received 26 June 2024, Received in revised form 2 October 2024, Accepted 21 November 2024

 Acknowledgment

No Acknowledgment.

 Compliance with ethical standards

 Ethical considerations

Informed consent was obtained, participation was voluntary, and confidentiality was ensured.

 Conflict of interest: The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

 Citation:

 Nor AI (2024). Small and medium-sized enterprises: A tool for socioeconomic development. International Journal of Advanced and Applied Sciences, 11(12): 116-128

 Permanent Link to this page

 Figures

 Fig. 1 Fig. 2

 Tables

 Table 1 Table 2 Table 3 Table 4 Table 5

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