HONESTY IN BUSINESS: A PANACEA FOR BUSINESS SUSTAINABILITY AMONG SMALL AND MEDIUM SCALE ENTERPRISES

Abstract

The study investigated honesty in business as a panacea for achieving business sustainability among SMEs in Port Harcourt. Descriptive survey research design was adopted for the study. Three research questions and three hypotheses guided the study. The population for the study was 1,200 registered SMEs in Port-Harcourt. A sample size of 183 male and female owners of SMEs was randomly selected for the study using simple random sampling technique. The instrument for data collection was an 18 item structured questionnaire duly validated by research experts in Business Education. The reliability coefficient of 0.71 was obtained using the test-retest method Coefficient. 183 copies of questionnaire were administered, retrieved and analyzed using mean and standard deviation for the research questions and z-test statistics for the hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. The study identified characteristics of honesty in business to include being straightforward, having a strong moral principle, being able to gain the trust of others among others. The study also identified increase in customer patronage, growthand development of business, increase in profit, favourable public business image and Increase in market share as benefits of honesty in business. High risk of failure, low patronage, creating opportunity for higher competition and reduction in profit andmarket turnover were also identified as consequences of dishonesty in business. Based on the findings, it was recommended among others that curriculum and academic planners should incorporate honesty in business as part of the educational curriculum of Nigeria at all levels in order to instil the principle and practice of honesty in youths, that owners of small and medium enterprises operating in Rivers state and Nigeria at large should identify, develop, promote and implement policies that can help build the principle of honesty in business.