Pages: (213-227 )
Abstract
One of the things of greatest value to a contemporary enterprise is its relationships with its numerous stakeholders, especially the customers. The business enterprise's relationship capital is the sum of the knowledge, experience, and trust that an enterprise has in its stakeholders. In spite of the proliferation of micro, small and medium-scale enterprises (MSMEs) in Nigeria, it is observed that the duty to sustain customer relationship by MSMEs in the country has been found to be inadequate. This study therefore investigated the effects of relationship marketing and social capital on the development of small and medium enterprise farmers' cooperativesin Nigeria. Survey research design was adopted. Using purposive sampling technique, a sample size of 683 respondents was selected from the membership of the Nigerian Association of Small and Medium Enterprise Farmers' Cooperatives (NASMEFC). A structured questionnaire was used as research instrument to generate primary data from selected respondents that cut across the six geo-political zones in Nigeria. Cronbach's Alpha reliability coefficients for all main constructs of the research instrument ranged between 0.73 and 0.86. The findingrevealed a correlation coefficient of 0.549** between relationship marketing programme and entrepreneurial development, using Pearson Product-Moment correlation, while the result further showed that R2 (regression value) of the first step of relationship marketing is 0.322 and R2 (regression value) of the second step of relationship marketing and social capital {moderator}is 0.418, using stepwise multiple regression procedure. However, the F- values s tati s ti c s i s 354.141first/231.392sec.shows that the overall equation is significant at {sig. level= 0.000 (that is, p<0.05)}. It therefore becomes imperative for MSMEs to re-assess the need to keep a relationship scorecard that describes their distinctive areas of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats in consonance with their relationship withclients/customers.
Keywords: Farmers' cooperatives, Micro, small and medium-scale enterprises (MSMEs), Relationship marketing, Social capital.,