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Akintola, Bolanle Maryam (2025) Resilience and recovery of creative SMEs: insights from Nigeria. Doctoral thesis, London Metropolitan University.
The creative industry greatly aids innovation, cultural advancement, and global economic growth. Particularly in sub-sectors such as cinema, music, fashion, and digital media, creative small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are vital to these contributions. However, the COVID-19 pandemic revealed the weaknesses of creative SMEs across the globe, resulting in operational interruptions, unstable finances, and a pressing need for swift digital transformation. This research examines the recovery challenges encountered by creative SMEs during the COVID-19 pandemic and the solutions they implemented to address these challenges, focusing on both global perspectives and the specific circumstances of creative SMEs in Nigeria. By utilising the industry cluster theory, this research investigates how collaboration, clustering, and digital transformation strengthen creative SMEs’ sustainability and resilience. This study, therefore, employs a qualitative technique by engaging content analysis (CA) and reflexive thematic analysis (RTA). Thirty Nigerian creative SME owners and industry experts participated in semi-structured interviews to gather data, which was bolstered by thorough literature research on the global recovery challenges and recovery solutions that creative SMEs faced. Using NVivo software, thematic coding and analysis were carried out, allowing for a thorough examination of recurrent themes and patterns.
The findings highlight the major recovery challenges that Nigerian creative SMEs must overcome, such as inadequate infrastructure, a lack of government assistance, and limited access to technology and financial resources. Recurrent issues were also identified on a global scale, including interrupted supply chains and decreased customer demand. Important recovery tactics such as cooperative networks and business model innovation, therefore, make digital transformation a requirement. The results emphasise the necessity of focused governmental interventions, such as financial assistance, infrastructural development, and digital literacy initiatives, to increase the resilience of Nigerian creative SMEs. The study, hence, accentuates the significance of encouraging cooperation and creativity among industry clusters on a global scale to guarantee the creative SME industry’s long-term growth after the pandemic.
In essence, this research fills a significant vacuum by integrating global perspectives with a targeted examination of creative SMEs in Nigeria, providing useful suggestions for boosting their resilience. Additionally, the research broadens the scope of the industry cluster theory applicability to the creative SME industry in emerging nations, offering a more sophisticated comprehension of the prospects and difficulties in this field.
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