Covid-19 Pandemic: Institutional Trust and Safety Compliance among Owners of Small and Medium Scale Business in Yenagoa, Nigeria

Abstract

The outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic has unraveled the level of skepticism between governmental institutions and the governed through breaches of confidence and non-compliance with government safety regulations. Despite this, empirical studies on the degree of confidence and compliance with government rules/guidelines in preventing pandemic transmission are still scarce. This study, therefore, examined the relationship between institutional trust and safety compliance with government directives among owners of Small and Medium Scale Business’ (SMBs) in Yenagoa City, Bayelsa State, Nigeria. Institutional theory was used as a framework, and a cross-sectional survey was employed. A sample of 346 SMB owners were surveyed, and a structured questionnaire was administered proportionally to randomly selected respondents using Yamane’s (1967) formula. The data were analysed using descriptive statistics and Chi Square at 95% significance level. The respondents’ age was 33.39±6.27 years. Half of the respondents (50.0%) engaged in service providing subsector. A high proportion of SMB owners (65.6%) displayed low trust in government Covid-19 rules/guidelines; and this was significantly related to age (x2=119.47), nature of business (x2=61.33), religion (x2=38.82), monthly profit (x2=55.67), and educational level (x2=55.67). While the majority of SMB owners (59.8%) claimed a high degree of compliance with Covid-19 rules/guidelines, 40.2% did not; and this was significantly related to age (x2=54.79), nature of business (x2=20.34), religion (x2=34.55), monthly profit (x2=31.83), educational level (x2=32.58) and underlying health conditions (x2=92.82) of SMB owners. This finding suggests that there should be a need to enforce stringent compliance rules on SMB owners, while palliatives are provided to cushion the effects of the guidelines.