Impact of ICT on entrepreneurial self-efficacy in emerging economy: Sustaining lock-down during COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

BACKGROUND: COVID-19 affected business in Pakistan and micro-entrepreneurs started struggling. ICT facilitates economic competitiveness and help in sustaining long-term economic growth during and after pandemic. OBJECTIVE: This article investigates the impact of information communication technology (ICT) on entrepreneurial self-efficacy (ESE), social networking (SN) and facilitation to micro-entrepreneurs, during COVID-19 pandemic in Pakistan. METHOD: We used Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) in this work. The original TAM constructs of ease of use and usefulness were tested, and TAM was extended to ICT to study the further outcomes. Data sets were collected online from 398 microentrepreneurs and further analysed by using the Structural Equation Modelling (SEM). RESULTS: The results indicate that survival of micro-entrepreneurs can be achieved through ICT as it is a strong variable which affects social capital building, bridging and self-efficacy, both directly and indirectly. The entrepreneurial activity can be increased through ICT and entrepreneurs can sustain the implications of lock-downs. CONCLUSION: The findings suggested that ICT usage by micro-entrepreneurs during COVID-19 pandemic was influenced by micro-entrepreneurs’ perceptions, of ease of use and usefulness. ICT had direct influence on entrepreneurial self-efficacy and social networking. The theoretical and practical implications of the results are also given.