Magister Artium - MA / The micro-enterprise sector, although associated with mostly informal businesses, shows promise of
potential and transitioning to more formal businesses. With this in mind, the South African
government recognizes that prioritized sectorial development is needed to stimulate growth
particularly in the micro-enterprise sector. Considering that evidence reveals growth and
development in small business practices being closely related to the use of different forms of
Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), if and when strategically applied. Therefore
recognizing the importance of ICTs the South African government has embarked on various
technology related initiatives to facilitate needed growth and development. Despite this,
entrepreneurs in the micro-enterprise sector demonstrate a low uptake of ICTs for their business
operations, including the use of mobile technologies which are the most common form of ICTs
available to micro- entrepreneurs.
Many previous studies have investigated the adoption and use of mobile technologies in the microenterprise sector, but despite this a low uptake of mobile technologies still exists. For this reason, this
study investigates and empirically determines the factors influencing the adoption and use of mobile
applications for micro-enterprise operations in South Africa, using the Unified Theory of Acceptance
and Use of Technology (UTAUT) model as a lens. The research population comprised a group of
micro-entrepreneurs who all are users of a common mobile application (mentorship-movement
application). The main aim of the investigation was to determine (i) the factors influencing the
adoption and use of mobile applications for micro- enterprise operation, (ii) if the experience gained
and their satisfaction associated with using the mentorship-movement application will influence their
behavioural intention to use other mobile applications for business.
The study was conducted objectively and used hypothesis testing as the means of investigation. Data
was collected through the use of a survey questionnaire. The findings of the study indicate that
ii | P a g e
performance expectancy and effort expectancy positively influences the micro-entrepreneurs
behavioural intention to adopt and use mobile applications for micro-enterprise operations. The
findings also observed that social influence has no impact on the micro- entrepreneurs’ behavioural
intention to adopt and use mobile applications for business. Facilitating conditions and behavioural
intention were found to positively influence the use behaviour of the micro-entrepreneurs when it
comes to adoption and use of mobile applications for business. Moreover, the findings confirmed
that experience and satisfaction in using one mobile application does not influence the behavioural
intention of the micro-entrepreneurs to use other mobile applications for business.
The factors which have been found to bear influence on the adoption and use of mobile
applications amongst micro-entrepreneurs in South Africa have implications for both policy and
practice. In particular, the findings of this study may be used to inform the design of the various
programmatic interventions which seek to improve outcomes of the micro-entrepreneur sector.
This includes interventions by the Department of Small Business Development and that of the
Small Enterprise Development Agency (SEDA).
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:uwc/oai:etd.uwc.ac.za:11394/7805 |
| Date | January 2019 |
| Creators | Emmanuel, Slinger |
| Contributors | Pather, Shaun, Marieta, du Plessis |
| Publisher | University of the Western Cape |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | University of the Western Cape |
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