Vocational Training and Productivity: Evidence from Family-Owned SMEs in Rivers State

Abstract

This study investigates the connection between productivity and vocational training in forty (40) family-owned small and medium-sized businesses in Rivers State, Nigeria. The cross-sectional survey was employed, and the researcher used regression analysis, Spearman's rank-order correlation coefficient, and descriptive statistics for demographic data. According to the results, company size considerably modifies the association between vocational training and the productivity of family-owned SMEs in Rivers State, which shows a significant relationship between vocational training and productivity of family-owned SMEs. The study found that in order for SMEs to benefit from innovation and receive incentives for productivity and exports, strategic activities and public policies that support knowledge spillovers should be very transparent. The competitive potential of the business fabric may be eroded over time by suppressing self-selection mechanisms or closing the productivity gap between SMEs and larger companies due to open or triple-helix innovation actions and policies, for example, that do not take intellectual property protection for the most innovative and leading SMEs into consideration.