📄 Abstract
The study explores the association between networking capability and corporate resilience of SMEs in Rivers State, Nigeria. The problem of the research stem from the inability of SMEs to intentionally create, maintain, and take advantage of connections with external role players such as regulators, suppliers, customers, partners and institutions to access knowledge, opportunities, resources and external information which will guarantee their regular operations in the face of turbulent physical disruptions. In solving this problem, four research questions and four research hypotheses were asked and formulated respectively. Thus, networking capability was operationalised through relationship building and information exchange, while corporate resilience was measured with adaptive capacity and recovery speed. The cross-sectional survey was adopted. Studied accessible population comprised 395 SMEs in Rivers State. A sample of 196 respondents was derived using the Krejcie and Morgan (1970) table. The primary data was obtained using a well-structured questionnaire. Spearman Rank Order correlation coefficient was used for the analysis. The findings revealed a significant positive relationship between networking capability dimensions and corporate resilience of SMEs. The study concluded that networking capability correlates with the resilience of SMEs in Rivers State. The study suggests enhancing relationship building and information exchange for the resilience of SMEs in Rivers State will guarantee regular business in the face of physical disruptions.
🏷️ Keywords
📚 How to Cite:
Dr. Macaulay Enyindah Wegwu , NETWORKING CAPABILITY AND CORPORATE RESILIENCE OF SMES IN RIVERS STATE, NIGERIA , Volume 13 , Issue 1, January 2026, EPRA International Journal of Economics, Business and Management Studies (EBMS) ,