Resource Management Strategies and Competitive Advantage of Independent Retail SMEs in Lagos State, Nigeria

Independent retail SMEs in Lagos State struggle to sustain a competitive advantage due to
fragmented resource management practices across financial, human, inventory, and digital
domains. This study examines how resource-management strategies shape competitive
advantage among independent retail SMEs in Lagos State, Nigeria. Despite the dominance of
informal retail in Nigeria, little evidence has linked specific internal capabilities to market
positioning; the research closes this gap by applying the Resource-Based View to quantify the
combined influence of inventory, digital, human and financial practices. A convergent-parallel
mixed-methods design was adopted; the quantitative strand surveyed 367 owner-managers
selected through stratified random sampling from 8 450 registered SMEs in Ikeja, Surulere,
and Eti-Osa, while 15 semi-structured interviews provided qualitative depth. Data were
collected with a 35-item, five-point Likert questionnaire and an interview guide; SPSS 28
provided descriptive statistics, correlation and multiple regression, and NVivo 12 handled
thematic analysis. All four resource strategies were positively and significantly related to
competitive advantage, with financial management (β = 0.328, p < 0.001) and digital
management (β = 0.305, p < 0.001) exerting the strongest effects and together explaining 54.9
% of the variance (R² = 0.549, p < 0.001). The study concludes that deliberate deployment of
internal resources is a primary driver of SME competitiveness in Lagos. Owners and
policymakers should therefore prioritize accessible finance, targeted digitalization and
continuous staff development to sustain growth and market relevance.