Location Factors as Moderators between Some Critical Demographic Characteristics and ICT Adoption: A Study of SMEs

The effect of demographic characteristics of management on ICT adoption is well-researched but how such location issues as firm’s knowledge centre and diverse workforce explain the interactions between demographic composition of management and the rate of ICT adoption is yet to receive adequate scholarly attention. This forms the cornerstone of this paper. Opinions of 344 SME operators were purposefully sampled across five industries located in three geo-political areas of Nigeria. Two cities (a state capital and a commercial nerve centre) were studied and a four-step hierarchical regression was used to analyze the data. The finding shows that location factors such as availability of diversified workforce and improved knowledge centres statistically influence the age, gender, education, and experience composition of management team and ultimately ICT adoption. Therefore, location factors shape management team’s demographics and ICT adoption, and such combination provides SMEs with stronger latitude to be more proactive and pre-emptive in their ICT adoption decision.