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The purpose of this study is to investigate the influence of social media, perception, readiness and usage on sustainable growth of micro and small enterprises (MSEs) in Uganda.

This study is cross-sectional and adopted a mixed method approach. Data was gathered through a questionnaire survey of 212 business owner–managers that are members of the Uganda Small Scale Industries Association (USSIA) and engaging 8 business managers in the in-depth interviews to support and strengthen the quantitative results. Data analysis was done using statistical package for social sciences (SPSS.24) and Atlas ti.8.

The study reveals that social media perception, readiness and usage positively influence sustainable growth of MSEs in Uganda. However, the insufficient soft and technical skills, lack of devices such as computers and smartphones and the high cost of Internet data undermine the usage of social media by business owner–managers for sustainable growth of their businesses.

The findings demonstrate what policymakers, social media operators and business owner–managers need to do to enhance integration of social media platforms and channels into the operations of MSEs in Uganda.

This study adds to existing literature on social media technology in MSEs with evidence from Uganda. The study results are likely to foster usage of social media as policymakers and social media providers will come up with appropriate strategies to unlock the social media potential of the business owner–managers for sustainable business growth in Uganda.

This paper aims to investigate whether relational agency fosters relational people management using evidence from micro and small enterprises in Uganda, an African developing country. Specifically, the paper examines whether the individual relational agency dimensions (shared learning, mutual cooperation, collective efficacy and interaction enablement) also affect relational people management.

A cross-sectional survey design using a quantitative approach was used in this study. Data were collected from 241 micro and small enterprises in Uganda using a structured questionnaire and were analysed using the Statistical Package for Social Scientists.

The results indicate that relational agency is positively and significantly associated with relational people management. Findings further indicated that collective efficacy, mutual cooperation, shared learning and interaction enablement individually matter in relational people management.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study may be among the first to demonstrate that relational agency and its individual dimensions (interaction enablement, shared learning, mutual cooperation and collective efficacy) foster relational people management in the context of micro and small enterprises of Uganda, an African developing country. Consequently, this study contributes to both theory and literature via the cultural historical activity theory, hence, adding to the scant existing literature on relational agency and relational people management.

This study identified essential drivers of competitive productivity (CP) within the restaurant context at the meso-micro levels. Following evidence from previous research, this paper aims to discover if the relationships between the proposed drivers and restaurant competitive productivity (RCP) would differ based upon years in operations as a restaurant business (startup vs established).

Data analysis was conducted using responses obtained from US restaurant managers. Structural equation modeling assessed the hypothesized relationships. Additionally, multi-group analyses were conducted to test the proposed moderating roles of restaurant firm age within the proposed model.

Results documented that competitive personality, development and motivation were positively associated with employee competitive productivity (ECP) at the micro-level. Also, ECP, employee training, resource rareness, brand image and organizational culture were significantly and positively related to RCP at the meso-level. Additionally, the positive relationships between ECP and organizational culture, and RCP were greater in the established restaurant group compared with the startup group. However, the relationship between brand image and RCP was greater in the restaurant startup group than in the established group.

This study offered empirical evidence regarding a combination of meso and micro level drivers and their roles in improving RCP. Findings can be adopted to develop effective operational strategies to improve RCP.

Although RCP is critical and is proposed to be created by a comprehensive set of drivers considering organizational (meso-) and individual (micro-) situations, no literature has yet to adopt this comprehensive approach to assess RCP. This study focused on firm age and offered new knowledge about the need for developing specific strategies to improve RCP.

Based on self-determination theory, this study aims to examine the impact of satisfaction of basic psychological needs (BPNs) on the commitment to stay self- or salary-employed. Not only the entry of individuals but also their commitment to remain self-employed is important. Enterprises established by the self-employed can only survive longer if the owners are willing to continue in self-employment.

The study was conducted among a cross-country sample drawn from Germany, Kenya and Uganda. An online survey was conducted among self- and salary-employed individuals in Germany. In Uganda and Kenya, cross-sectional samples were recruited through their workplaces and business forums. These processes yielded 869 responses (373 self-employed and 494 salary-employed). Differences in the impact of BPNs on the commitment to self-employed or salaried-employment across countries were examined using PROCESS macro 2.16.

The findings revealed that the self-employed exhibit higher commitment to their current form of employment than the salary-employed. The satisfaction of needs for autonomy and competence were associated with higher levels of commitment to self-employment than to salary-employment across the three countries. The need for relatedness was also strongly associated with commitment to self-employment much more than to salary-employment for Ugandan and Kenyan participants; but not for the German participants.

Persistence in self-employment is essential not only for individuals to remain employed but also as a pathway to achieving career success. However, research has paid limited attention to persistence in self-employment. This research contributes to the understanding of antecedents for commitment to self-employment across countries, and therefore what should be done to enable particularly young individuals to stay self-employed. Moreover, the study also examines whether these antecedents have similar effects among individuals in salaried-employment.

This paper aims to further our understanding of the career success of the self-employed and how it is influenced by their psychological capital (PC), persistence (P) and risk-taking propensity (RTP). This study explores the direct effect of PC on success and investigates the potential mediation of P and RTP on the PC-success association.

In this quantitative study, questionnaires were administered to measure PC, P, risk-taking and success. Data was collected using purposive sampling with an expert judgment that represented a cross-section of the entrepreneurial population in three Malaysian northern states. Structural equation modeling by means of partial least square was used for hypotheses testing of the 252 usable responses.

Statistically significant and positive relationships were found between PC and success, whereas P and risk-taking were found to mediate the PC-success association. The mediation effects of P and risk-taking were more pronounced when entrepreneurial self-efficacy and optimism were included in the PC as a second-order construct than individually separate constructs.

The importance of the transitional progression of self-efficacy and optimism to success through P and risk-taking were verified and so can be used for nurturing efforts that activate positive self-efficacy and optimism for entrepreneurial career success. The lower mediation effect of risk-taking on the optimism-success association denotes caution when managing risk.

There is a relative dearth of supporting research that has not examined the inter-relationships between PC and career success of entrepreneurs. Exploring the intervening effect of P and risk-taking on that relationship is unprecedented.