Published Article

ABSTRACT

The study sought to assess the adoption of change management principle in running entrepreneurial businesses in the phase of Covid-19 pandemic. Ex-post facto research design was adopted for the study. The study was conducted in Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria. The population of the study comprised business entrepreneurs in Akwa Ibom State. Strategic sampling technique was used to select 250 entrepreneurs which constituted the sample size for the study. The Main Instrument used in this study was a Questionnaire titled “Change Management Principle, Entrepreneurial Businesses and Covid-19 Pandemic Questionnaire (CMPEBCPQ)”. Face and content validation of the instrument was carried out to ensure that the instrument has the accuracy, and completeness. Cronbach Alpha technique was used to determine the level of reliability of the instrument. The reliability coefficient obtained was 0.89 and this was high enough to justify the use of the instrument. The researcher subjected the data generated for this study to appropriate statistical techniques such as descriptive statistics and simple regression. The test for significance was done at 0.05 alpha levels. From the result of the analysis it was observed that COVID-19 has adversely affected entrepreneurial businesses in Akwa Ibom State; most entrepreneurs have adopted change management principle in running their businesses in Akwa Ibom State amidst the pandemic, such as resorting to use of online marketing and e-commerce. Therefore, change management principle was observed to have significant influence on the entrepreneurial businesses in the phase of Covid-19 pandemic. One of the recommendations was that in the management of change, manager needs to anticipate predictable changes as well as being able to smoothly incorporate these changes into the organization as this is basically the entire aim of change management.

KEYWORDS: Change Management Principle, Entrepreneurial Businesses, Covid-19 Pandemic.